Modding Q&A

[5trannik]

And the bonus against barbarians is named exactly the "Attack bonus...". Does it mean it doesn't regulate the defence against barbarians? I've read somewhere city defenders have an additional bonus against barbarians.

 

[Fergei]

And the bonus against barbarians is named exactly the "Attack bonus...". Does it mean it doesn't regulate the defence against barbarians? I've read somewhere city defenders have an additional bonus against barbarians.

I think it is a general combat bonus covering both attack and defence. At least in terms of my recent experience. https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-would-you-upgrade-barbarians.687420/page-2#post-16735745

I would imagine only normal defensive modifiers would apply if a unit is defending a city from a barbarian.

 

[timerover51]

I'd like to have much more challenging barbarians. For that, I've set "Attack bonus against barbarians" to 0. And also added the "HP bonus" of +2 to Barbarian land units (which are my custom units having the same other characteristics) and the sea Barbarian unit got the "HP bonus" of +1. So Barbarian units are now about the same strength the player and the AI produce.

It seems to work as expected. Just I'll probably make them even tougher. A graphical glitch started to appear though: in the end of a combat with that custom unit, for a moment, the displey either whitens or animations freeze. Is it a fixable thing?

I have boosted my Barbarian Unis a lot. I use the Gallic Swordsman with a +3 for the basic Barbarian, and the Cossack with a +3 for the Advanced Barbarian unit. For the Sea Barbarian unit I use the Privateer. In the Test of Time scenario for Play the World, I use the Pirate Ship with a +3. That really messes up the AI, as it keeps sending out Settler units with no escort, and they get killed quickly. As for the Dinosaur units in Test of Time, they are murderous. Look out for the T-Rex and Triceratops.

 

[SayHayKid]

I have added a Shrine to my game. It is supposed to give +1 culture, but it shows +2 culture in the game. I double-checked the BIQ it says +1 culture. The Temple is also +1 culture and it shows only as +1 in the game. Any ideas?

 

[5trannik]

I have boosted my Barbarian Unis a lot. I use the Gallic Swordsman with a +3 for the basic Barbarian, and the Cossack with a +3 for the Advanced Barbarian unit. For the Sea Barbarian unit I use the Privateer. In the Test of Time scenario for Play the World, I use the Pirate Ship with a +3. That really messes up the AI, as it keeps sending out Settler units with no escort, and they get killed quickly. As for the Dinosaur units in Test of Time, they are murderous. Look out for the T-Rex and Triceratops.

I'm going to similar values exept I don't want sea barbarians to make AI civs even more reluctant to settle overseas. I don't mind if AI instances sometimes get hurt by strong land barbarians though.
The problem with making strong barbarians in my random map testing worlds was their spawning points were very few and their appearence was quite late. I wonder how to make them spawn earlier and from more points if possible.

 

[tjs282]

Any ideas?

The Culture produced by any 'real' improvement doubles 1000 years after it's built.

Given that the Shrine is pretty cheap (20 shields for non-Religious tribes), I'm guessing that you built one shortly after that town was first founded (in 2000 BC) -- and it's now 820 BC, so that's >1000 years...

 

[AvalancheMaster]

Is there good documentation on the perspective and default lighting used for Civ III's terrain renders?

 

[Fergei]

I'm going to similar values exept I don't want sea barbarians to make AI civs even more reluctant to settle overseas. I don't mind if AI instances sometimes get hurt by strong land barbarians though.
The problem with making strong barbarians in my random map testing worlds was their spawning points were very few and their appearence was quite late. I wonder how to make them spawn earlier and from more points if possible.

I guess that depends on whether raging barbarians (my default) increases the number of barbarian camps, the frequency a barbarian camp spawns a unit, or both. I don't know the answer to that.

They seem to have more camps if there are large uninhabited sections of mountain, tundra, marsh and jungle - but you probably don't want every game to be like that!

 

[timerover51]

I'm going to similar values exept I don't want sea barbarians to make AI civs even more reluctant to settle overseas. I don't mind if AI instances sometimes get hurt by strong land barbarians though.
The problem with making strong barbarians in my random map testing worlds was their spawning points were very few and their appearence was quite late. I wonder how to make them spawn earlier and from more points if possible.

As I make my own maps, I have to place the Barbarian Camps myself, as the map generator only generates goody huts. I spread the Barbarians out to get a reasonable distribution on the map, and will put a few camps on one-tile islands to keep causing trouble with ships until you get to Amphibious Warfare and can start to deal with them. The Warhammer Fantasy map is ideal for this.

 

[5trannik]

Concerning conditions forcing low number of cities, I consider a lower "Optimal number of cities" value. And, maybe, a higher value for "Corruption" (in "Difficulty levels"). It seems it provides the wated result. There would hardly be point to build expensive settlers to found cities plagued with corruption (government forms providing low corruption could be modified too), except for strategic needs.

 

[Herbert George]

As I make my own maps, I have to place the Barbarian Camps myself, as the map generator only generates goody huts. I spread the Barbarians out to get a reasonable distribution on the map, and will put a few camps on one-tile islands to keep causing trouble with ships until you get to Amphibious Warfare and can start to deal with them. The Warhammer Fantasy map is ideal for this.

Do the random barbarian spawns in the inter-turn only happen if it's a random map? Good idea about pre-placing them on islands to work as pirates.

 

[5trannik]

I've tried Huge 3 billion years old worlds with only two players in order for barbarians to have a lot of wilderness to spawn. Ironically, it was very hard to find them there, while in tiny worlds they are much easier to find. It looks the bigger the world the rarere barbarians are.

 

[timerover51]

I've tried Huge 3 billion years old worlds with only two players in order for barbarians to have a lot of wilderness to spawn. Ironically, it was very hard to find them there, while in tiny worlds they are much easier to find. It looks the bigger the world the rarere barbarians are.

That is why on my very large maps, 300 X 240 or larger, I preplace the Barbarians.

 

[5trannik]

That is why on my very large maps, 300 X 240 or larger, I preplace the Barbarians.

I see, but for me exploration is the biggest fun in such games.

 

[timerover51]

I see, but for me exploration is the biggest fun in such games.

I may place the Barbarians, but I never really pay that much attention to the map, so exploration is fun for me too.

 

[5trannik]

It seems higher difficulty levels provide more barbarians, so I'm going to tune Sid. However, they say some settings change with difficulty levels and they can't be tuned in the editor:

The AI players play as regent players when it comes to these factors. It means that on emperor/deity you have only your first citizen born content, while the AI still has two..

 

[5trannik]

I may place the Barbarians, but I never really pay that much attention to the map, so exploration is fun for me too.

Yes, if not paying much attention, it's possible to spare the fun of exploration at least to some degree. Alternatively, it's possible to ask someone else to place camps on your map.

However, I've tried placing 10 barbarian camps manually on a custom map and they were populated from the very start. The problem was all of them produced only several naval units in the whole game up to 700 A.D. And it's when the player had many cities and one of them only two tiles away from barbarian camps.
No additional camps appeared either.

 

[5trannik]

I've played a scenario in which a citizen requres three food instead of two.
Settlement in hills, deserts and tundra was prohibited (in swamps too).
The cost of a Settler was 3 pop. and 100 shields.
So a Settler was very hard to produce. To balance it, the Despotism tile penalty was removed and the Settler got 4 Defence and +2HP.

Barbarians were Raging at had these stats:
Basic - 3/2/1 +3HP
Advanced - 4/2/2 +3HP

Some of AI civs showed good developement in this world. But some others expanded very slowly and here's a bad pattern I've noticed:
An AI Settler would go far beyond own borders and stay there alone for a long time. Maybe not having any unit to protect the town, once it's found, AI didn't settle at all. Yet, didn't move the settler to a safer place either. Any ideas for modifications to avoid such a pattern?

 

[SayHayKid]

I want to add a Holy Relic resource that is required to build the Crusading Order SW. It should be rare so that not every Civ can build. I was thinking of making it a Bonus resource so it can't be traded. Does appearance ratio work with Bonus resources?

 

[Civinator]

A bonus resource cannot be a prerequisite for a building (or a unit) - and it cannot be traded. As far as I know, there is no appearance ratio for bonus resources.