[mod] Warlords: Total Realism 2.3a

[Pisces2]

Considering the amount of pressure put on the team to just release something... anything not three weeks ago (check out the TR 2.0 thread, last 6 pages), it is unfair to be harsh. Sugar coating it does not take away the sting of putting hours of work onto something then having a person... anyone really say "it's pretty, it's unplayable, hope your next effort is better" is a shot to the neck. I worked quite a bit in the past under another name and trust me.... people can be very cruel on here. People have a "right" on some unknown internet chater of rights and freedoms to express their opinions but they forget simple courtesy then blame either typing, internet blindness or language issues to excuse their rudeness.

Rather than say the mod is useless, simply say that MAFs are happening too regularily and ask why. They might surprise you and have an answer for it. If you don't want to play it, just don't play it. When you put real work out there, you become very naturally protective of it. Rather then rant, ask questions. Rather than attack, inquire. Rather then bash, play the game.

You are right however Therapist, everyone has an opinion. They also have something between their bottom cheeks. Neither makes you special. Just try to understand why the team is defending their mod so passionately. It's because they are pouring their hearts into it. Be gentle. Don't just sugar coat.

 

[Snake Pliskeen]

Playing as Roma, Prince level, 12 cities, I got classical age at 980 BC with tech Shipbuilding, tech research set to 30% after Great Lighthouse built (as main problem in this version is gold, the most important wonder by far).
Just a question: if I'm not wrong barracks and archery range in Gold version cost 1% of maintenance, now 1 gp/turn. Maybe the reason of money problems with this version?
For what concern Maf, I didnt have strangely, but I dont use WB and until now I played games only around 250 BC, probably too early.

 

[Houman]

HI Pisces2,

Hoummie,

It has been a very long time since I have posted anything on these forums however I am still playing this mod faithfully. Once upon a time I worked on the map with Nightravn and worked a lot of balancing tests for you playing each and every civ into the future techs. I've done a lot of testing again.

Of course I remember you.

Your points are taken. You are right about most of them.
The truth is that we were under extreme pressure to deliver this version asap. We were like always late and could'nt hold the deadline. We worked hard and have delivered it as best as we could but we needed more time for fine tuning.

Once a mod becomes that big and the team is getting so big there is also pressure from inside. A year ago the team was smaller and I could easier stop eager developer of doing big changes. But now I see good and enthusiastic people in the team working hard and always come up with a new idea 5 minutes before the release.

We did too many fundamental changes in this release such as Map and TechTree. The TechTree is so big that it needs simply more people to test it than our team. Now we see through productive and less productive comments where the problems are. We will fix all these n about two weeks from now in form of a patch and then we move on to BtS and say finally good bye to MAFs. You are right Warlord Engine cannot hold our heavy weight anymore, it is collapsing under the pressure. However as Yann says, it is unfair saying it is unplayable. Because it is if you know how to minimize MAFs which isn't even our fault but Warlords fault.

Your points regarding Pandemia is right. We are aware of the problem and have to lower it a bit. Resources are set a bit too easy on the map. Also this will be addressed. Levies are fixed already for next patch and TechTree needs a bit of fine adjustment regarding those who want to play more powermonger like and adjust it for middleage and in general time adjustment.

In the next patch we will get it hopefully right through all the productive comments and feedback. Then we move on to BtS Conversion without adding too much new stuff to keep the release date short.

Kind Regards
Houman

I'll put my money where my mouth is however. I can not code to save my life but I do have two assets I can offer you. I can spend hours testing the mod as any civ you choose on any difficulty for as long as you say you want to go with that civ and.... I speak English as my first language. I'm in Canada so my english is fine and my french passable. I've modded with you before and if you would like I'll do so again.

Pisces.

 

[Cruel]

Then we move on to BtS Conversion without adding too much new stuff to keep the release date short.

Kind Regards
Houman

It makes me happy! hehheheh

 

[Pisces2]

I've worked on the map before and will do so again at your request. There aren't many more ideas that can fit onto this game engine that I can think of. I could give you a nightmare by suggesting promotions to units based on resources like coffee gives increased attack but poorer defence, cotton gives more mobility... etc but I'll be kind and work with what I've got to work with

Hilan, which civ would you like that information from? The strongest civs are of course China, Germany, Persia, America, Inca, India, Roman and Turkish when player controlled.

Second tier would be Russia, Arabs, Egypt, South Africans, Mongols, Vikings, Aztecs, French, Cathaginians, Japan, Mali

Third tier would be England, Spain, Korea, Greek

I refuse to play the celts on Ireland. They need to be moved to Austria-Hungary area or simply erased completely. All they do is add waiting time between turns and somehow manage to find Iceland with galleys. Curse those cheating celts!

 

[Snake Pliskeen]

About diplomacy: we all know that relations between player and AI opponents is influenced by actions a player does in a game, but what I find totally fool is that an action a player does influences a relation for the whole game! This depends from Civ4, not from your mod, but, as its name is Total Realism, and, as in the real world, relations can change because statesmen change, it's not possible to make the diplomatic result of an action, expiring with time? For example, I attack France and I destroy it in 1800 BC, Russia was friend with France, in 500 BC it's still saying: "you attacked my friend"! In my opinion after 1300 years it must be forgotten ;-)
Can bring something new and interesting in a game or not? What people think about it?

 

[Pisces2]

About diplomacy: we all know that relations between player and AI opponents is influenced by actions a player does in a game, but what I find totally fool is that an action a player does influences a relation for the whole game! This depends from Civ4, not from your mod, but, as its name is Total Realism, and, as in the real world, relations can change because statesmen change, it's not possible to make the diplomatic result of an action, expiring with time? For example, I attack France and I destroy it in 1800 BC, Russia was friend with France, in 500 BC it's still saying: "you attacked my friend"! In my opinion after 1300 years it must be forgotten ;-)
Can bring something new and interesting in a game or not? What people think about it?

The statesmen do not change however. Russia is always led by Catherine and her super-duper immortality drink. Since the dawn of Civ games, people have joked about the immortal leaders. Although true realism would be ideal, the mod is still bound by the game engine. However in Civ2, the Wonder "Eiffel Tower" erased past transgressions with other civs, sort of 'we forgive france of the Napoleonic times' sort of deal. If that would be possible in Civ4, I do not know.

 

[Cruel]

About diplomacy: we all know that relations between player and AI opponents is influenced by actions a player does in a game, but what I find totally fool is that an action a player does influences a relation for the whole game! This depends from Civ4, not from your mod, but, as its name is Total Realism, and, as in the real world, relations can change because statesmen change, it's not possible to make the diplomatic result of an action, expiring with time? For example, I attack France and I destroy it in 1800 BC, Russia was friend with France, in 500 BC it's still saying: "you attacked my friend"! In my opinion after 1300 years it must be forgotten ;-)
Can bring something new and interesting in a game or not? What people think about it?

If possible I agree. This also remembers the used embassies to me for Rhye´s mod... I like to see this component in this mod if possible too.

 

[Snake Pliskeen]

I'm trying to compare last game I've played with the previous version of TR with the new one, to give an approximate idea how is changed the course of a game. Both played as Roma, Prince level, on world map. Old one, around 100 BC: I've conquered whole Europe (England and Ireland too) except Scandinavia and Russia, Middle east (Arabia, Assyria and Babylon), most of eastern barbarian cities (Alans, Tatar and few others), part of Africa (Mali and Egypt, Rabat). Civics: Monarchy, Caste system and organized religion. All of my cities were defended by 4-5 units, around 20 fleet on the seas, 2 strong armies of 15 units (sometimes even 3) for conquest. Tech reaserch set to 35% and earning usually a lot of gold. This is the picture of almost all of my games with TR Gold.
With this version: whole Europe except England and Ireland, Scandinavia and Russia, Assyria. Civics: same. Cities defended by 2-3 units, 4-5 fleet, an attacking army formed by 8 legionary. Tech research set to 50 %, earning 5 gp. If we imagine that with this version you have some facilities as lighthouses, potter houses and a wonder as The Great Lighthouse, that give you a lot of money every turn, it's clear that something in the financial system of the game is gone astray. Now I'm building defensive units to protect my cities and to improve my attacking army and soon my research rate will go down. Last game with this version, with some cities more, I am found with tech rate set to 0 and still losing 30 gp/ turn. This game I've tried a new strategy, keeping few defensive units in my core cities and reaserching trade as soon as possible and the situation was better, but in my opinion something must be improved in the economy system. As I've suggested before, but nobody replied, maybe a solution is give to barracks and archery range the same cost as previous version, when you have 15 barracks and 15 archery range, 30 gp/turn looks too much.
I'm only trying to help you to improve the best mod, by far, of Civ4, dont forget it Thanks again!

 

[Cruel]

Why when I research food preservation my cities enter in starvation and it stabilizes in low size? Is it related with canned food? Is it consumes food too?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I'm trying to compare last game I've played with the previous version of TR with the new one, to give an approximate idea how is changed the course of a game. Both played as Roma, Prince level, on world map. Old one, around 100 BC: I've conquered whole Europe (England and Ireland too) except Scandinavia and Russia, Middle east (Arabia, Assyria and Babylon), most of eastern barbarian cities (Alans, Tatar and few others), part of Africa (Mali and Egypt, Rabat). Civics: Monarchy, Caste system and organized religion. All of my cities were defended by 4-5 units, around 20 fleet on the seas, 2 strong armies of 15 units (sometimes even 3) for conquest. Tech reaserch set to 35% and earning usually a lot of gold. This is the picture of almost all of my games with TR Gold.
With this version: whole Europe except England and Ireland, Scandinavia and Russia, Assyria. Civics: same. Cities defended by 2-3 units, 4-5 fleet, an attacking army formed by 8 legionary. Tech research set to 50 %, earning 5 gp. If we imagine that with this version you have some facilities as lighthouses, potter houses and a wonder as The Great Lighthouse, that give you a lot of money every turn, it's clear that something in the financial system of the game is gone astray. Now I'm building defensive units to protect my cities and to improve my attacking army and soon my research rate will go down. Last game with this version, with some cities more, I am found with tech rate set to 0 and still losing 30 gp/ turn. This game I've tried a new strategy, keeping few defensive units in my core cities and reaserching trade as soon as possible and the situation was better, but in my opinion something must be improved in the economy system. As I've suggested before, but nobody replied, maybe a solution is give to barracks and archery range the same cost as previous version, when you have 15 barracks and 15 archery range, 30 gp/turn looks too much.
I'm only trying to help you to improve the best mod, by far, of Civ4, dont forget it Thanks again!

That's intentional. It's the price you pay for early warmongering - it requires lots of money now to keep going. In absolutely the same time as you now in my test game, as Rome too - but on a random huge fractal map. Researching at 100%, turning a small budget deficit (about -10), but had a great merchant and conquered some cities lately. Have 8 cities, built several wonders (but not the moneymaking ones) and a moderately spread religion. Did not build archery ranges/stables/barracks except for two cities that really need it. I think having those in all cities might be ridiculous. Have about the same unit quantity, minus the fleet. Running pacifism. As you can see, my finances are quite up to the task.

 

[shiremct]

Yeah. Immortals are very strong, that's true. But Persia was among the first Huge empires built at that time. Its power came from its unique governement system but also from this unique part of its army. The immortals.

I understand that the Immortals should be powerful, my concern was the extra punch they received with the extended tech tree and the extra turns to other comparable units. It's only a problem when a human plays as Persia as they can ruthlessly exploit this time of dominance much better than the AI can and I play the game with other humans whenever I can, so I see it as more of a problem than many others would I suppose, but either way, I just wanted to point it out.

We know. Thx. Levies are now weaker, with a lower combat value.
We are looking for a system where some units can't receive xps or a very few, such as the Irregular line.

A seperate upgrade system for that unit line, identical to the normal one but with double xp required per level, would probably work nicely for this effect... I don't know what it would require to make it work, but doing it through a promotion would be ideal i think; then you could diversify the upgrade path but any unit that was created as a drafted-type unit would carry that promotion with it always. Maybe you could even add in a promotion for these units that removes the penalty at a certain level that you can choose too.

There is a drop that's true. We are looking to it. I don't think it's a great problem, as the bonus linked to each units make them very particular.
Our goal is avoid armies unsing one kind of units. Each of the them have its weaknesses and strenght against one of two particular types of foes.

I don't have much of a problem with the drop in production costs for that era as there isn't a lot of production bonuses available at that point and the reduced cost allows you to produce troops a little faster as you would expect to be able to do with increased technological knowledge, the only thing that was troubling was the levy and a strength reduction and/or xp penalty to that unit line would fix that issue. As it is my shortswordsmen/militias tend to have lots of promotions from killing barbarians and I can upgrade them to a strength 7 unit for about 60 gold whereas my spearman cost well over 100 gold to upgrade to a strength 6 unit, etc.

This system is IMO well thought, even if it can be at fist difficult to use.

Try to understand all the military system and you will see what was our goal.

I actually fully understand the distinctions within the cavalry types and think it is quite nice, my confusion comes from their interaction with other units... mainly I guess I expect my spearmen units to be better vs cavalry units, but no just on the defense. I admit I don't use cavalry much so maybe I should just use more light cavarly instead of rely on spearmen.

I understand completely that you guys didn't have time to really test a lot of this stuff, each game takes about 20 hours to complete and you completely changed the dynamics of the entire game with the new tech tree. I certainly appreciate the work the team has done and don't mean to complain, I just want to let you guys know of anything I notice while playing.

To that note, I noticed a few issues I think may have been unintended while playing last night: You can get cannons without the techs needed to make the bombard... This one is pretty small but I thought it a bit odd. The other issue has a much more marked effect, you can get access to the strength 18 conscripts without picking up all the techs required for the industrial setup to make the riflemen. If you beeline to dictatorship, you can get the conscripts probably 40-70 turns earlier than I think you intended. If the conscripts required breach-loaded rifles tech or just the resource firearms, it would close that loop.

 

[Snake Pliskeen]

That's intentional. It's the price you pay for early warmongering - it requires lots of money now to keep going. In absolutely the same time as you now in my test game, as Rome too - but on a random huge fractal map. Researching at 100%, turning a small budget deficit (about -10), but had a great merchant and conquered some cities lately. Have 8 cities, built several wonders (but not the moneymaking ones) and a moderately spread religion. Did not build archery ranges/stables/barracks except for two cities that really need it. I think having those in all cities might be ridiculous. Have about the same unit quantity, minus the fleet. Running pacifism. As you can see, my finances are quite up to the task.

I understand, I'm not saying it's not possible to earn enough with some care, but where is the fun when I cant have large armies conquering the world? I've played thousands of games where I won simply standing in my homeland, but what I've say and I'm still saying is that this version is less balanced and you cant use different strategies in the long run. The only one that pay is to sit and wait, while your mod is always been known to be the most funny to play. Keep it funny again sir, please!

 

[Cruel]

I understand, I'm not saying it's not possible to earn enough with some care, but where is the fun when I cant have large armies conquering the world? I've played thousands of games where I won simply standing in my homeland, but what I've say and I'm still saying is that this version is less balanced and you cant use different strategies in the long run. The only one that pay is to sit and wait, while your mod is always been known to be the most funny to play. Keep it funny again sir, please!

I playing with romans and I conquest more than 50 cities in prince level. (Just 3 cities have barracks, stable and arsenal). When I made war, I conquest all cities of enemy, and I choose weak civilizations in the corner, because I put just one defender in my cities. I have a permanent huge army in permanent war conquesting the world.

 

[xazi84]

Just wondering... all this talk about epidemics and how often they occur...
I can understand your replies that it happens very often in the earlier state of civilization... but I don't think, that it has to have such an expand in time... 4 turns are a lot of time...
wouldn't it rather be an idea, that an epidemic hits and then reduces the population by some value, either fixed or dependent on the size of the city (1/4 or 1/5 of city pop), or perhaps a chance to do a certain % of city pop? (don't even know if this is possible)
and then making pandemic colony (pandemics are btw worldwide epidemics) available from the first time an epidemic has hit a city (or an empire), and make it a permanent building with some reduction in its %...

perhaps even implant the idea, that if an empire has a lot of epidemics (or a high average chances of epidemics) pandemics can occur, and rise the epidemic chances i all cities, that has trade with this empire...

 

[talonat]

I love Total Realism. I just recently removed patch 2.13 to 2.08 so I can use my maps again, but I can't seem to get the carter earth map to work with it more than the one time I actually did it. I'm getting this error...

AppName: civ4warlords.exe AppVer: 2.0.8.0 ModName: cvgamecoredll.dll
ModVer: 0.0.0.0 Offset: 0012fad0

any suggestions?

 

[Therapist]

Hey Houmie,

Just checking in man, great mod. Wanted to let you know I'm still around. I await the BTS version. Love you man! Have a great day!

 

[Snake Pliskeen]

I playing with romans and I conquest more than 50 cities in prince level. (Just 3 cities have barracks, stable and arsenal). When I made war, I conquest all cities of enemy, and I choose weak civilizations in the corner, because I put just one defender in my cities. I have a permanent huge army in permanent war conquesting the world.

I realized that the only way to be warmongers and have fun is to build few barracks and others military facilities and less defensive units to save money, but I have to say that I dont understand the reason. It was so funny have barracks and all the other facilities in every cities and well defended cities, even more realistic in my opinion. But ok, maybe this way it's better for the most and I'm wrong, but I would prefer as before when I could build many defensive units in my core cities and send them to the front while my armies went around conquering and destroying

 

[demeryt]

Wow, it's there, unfortunately I'll have to wait another week or so before I get back home to downloand and play it, but from what I've read so far it's going to be extremely interesting

One question though, for my old CPU's sake: can some1 tell me if the new version is:

a) faster to play because of the efforts to speed up play or
b) slower to play because of so much added content?

I'm doomed to play only as big as small maps anyway, meh (1.7Ghz Celeron, 1GB RAM, whine, whine...)

BTW, what's a "MAF" everybody and their mom is talking about? Can't wait to try it, thank you guys!

 

[Anaztazioch]

a)

You cant try MAF out. It will catch you, and it will eat you, and you will whine more
A Civ4 engine bug that crashes game, most often when trying to save.