[Modmod]Sunset of Civilization

Welcome one and all to the grand reboot of my personal modmod, now with a more creative and less narcissistic name! Also it's just in time for the birthday of Jesus, which is a neat little coincidence.

You might be wondering what's wrong with the old mod, and you are free to figure that out yourself. It's outdated, it's buggy, I honestly found it easier to just start over and take a more organized approach this time. Don't worry, I did recreate or straight up copy a number of features I liked, and others will probably come back in the future, but for my own peace of mind it's better to make small consistent steps rather than throwing kitchen sinks at the wall, or however that saying goes.

Among the features that did NOT make it for now are 2nd Uniques and range bombardment, but we'll see what the future brings. There's also no great changes regarding civics, I'm actually relatively happy with the current roster for once.

Well, what did I retain from old Dawn of Knoedel then? Mostly a few minor things like some more Independent cities, Taoism being founded upon construction of a Confucian Temple, Cultural Golden Ages at certain thresholds etc.

I did program (by which I mean I copy-pasted some snippets of code) a few new mechanics though:

-The thresholds for Cultural Golden Ages are now more dynamic and increase with the number of cities, colonies and your era instead of being just a flat value. Every civ should now have a practically free Golden Age relatively soon after its spawn to help its rise along, but successive Golden Ages naturally become more and more expensive as the civ expands and progresses.
-Units move faster along rivers after the discovery of Sailing but get slowed down when crossing them if they are not Amphibious or ignoring Terrain Movement Penalties. Units have more moves in general, with only pre-modern Siege Weapons still having only a single move.
-Founding a city atop a forest grants a one time hammer boost in it. Founding a city on top of an improvement yields a lump sum of gold and makes the city start off with extra population.
-Capturing workers is again always possible, the Slavery civic just grants a 35% chance of turning defeated military units into workers.
-Losing a fight you had more than 90% chances of winning now results in your unit retreating instead of dying.
-Pillaging an improvement heals a unit as if it had just been promoted if it was damaged.
-Improvements on features (forest, rainforest, jungle) now no longer remove the feature's defense bonus
-Female Great People now have the actually female voice acting from the BAT mod. (all in English I'm afraid, but I figure that's less immersion breaking still)
-Pagan Temples are now only blocked by Christianity, Islam and Secularism.

There's also some other minor stuff like adjusting UHV deadlines and tweaks for some buildings and wonders. Civic Squares now grant a free Specialist per Town and most National Wonders yield +1 Production for a given specialist type.

Finally, some UHVs were completely overhauled:

-The first Argentinian goal is now about acquiring gold from trade by 1930.
-The English colonization goal has its first check in 1860 for the colonies itself and a second check in 1920 for the Cape to Cairo Railway.

That should whet your appetite. If you want a more detailed description of everything I did, you can check my uploaded Changelog.

If you want to give it a try, there's three ways of installing, roughly in order of complexity:

a) Downloading the ZIP from Github.

Spoiler How to :

Short and simple for you, though your internet connection and your computer will probably take longer for this than the other options:

1. Follow this link.

2. Click on the green button that says "Clone or download".

3. Click on "Download ZIP".

4. Unpack "Sunset-master.zip", which you just downloaded, into your "Beyond the Sword\Mods" folder.

5. Rename the unpacked mod folder to just "Sunset".

6. Download "PrivateMaps.zip", which is attached to this post.

7. Unpack "PrivateMaps.zip" into the "Sunset" folder, and again let it overwrite as it pleases.

You are done!

b) Downloading the smaller ZIP I attached here to overwrite an already existing DoC folder.

Spoiler How to :

This is for those with low bandwith or no patience for long download times. The ZIP I attached in this post ONLY contains the files that Sunset has in addition to the Dawn of Civilization 1.15 release version, and thus requires you to already have DoC 1.15 installed. However, it needs a bit more input from your side:

1. If you want to keep your already existing DoC 1.15 installation, create a copy of it in the Mods folder and rename one of the now two versions you have to "Sunset of Civilization". If you don't care about 1.15 anymore, just rename it outright.

2. Download "Sunset of Civilization.zip" below.

3. Extract "Sunset of Civilization.zip" into your Mods folder. When asked whether to overwrite any files, say Yes to all.

4. You now should have a folder called "Sunset of Civilization" in your Mods folder.

You are done!

c) Setting up a folder that's linked to my development version on Github. See here for details.

Spoiler How to :

If you have more faith in my capabilities than I do, you are free to stay up do date with me whenever I upload my work to Github. You set it up like so:

1. Download and install Git for Windows.
2. Download and install Tortoise Git.
3. During the installation, you will be prompted for a number of settings. Most of these are only relevant to developers, since you only want to use Git for access you can simply accept the default values.
4. Right-click on your Beyond the Sword\Mods folder and choose "Git Clone".
5. In the prompt, enter the following as "URL": https://github.com/Imperator-Knoedel/Sunset.
6. Wait for the download to complete.

If you encounter any problems, glitches or bugs you are welcome to inform me of them and/or ask me for help, and I'll try my best to fix them.

For posterity's sake I also included the source code for the Release version in this post.

 

So, I'm sure you people all have lots of burning questions. I would like to create a FAQ to address them, but calling it FAQ (for Frequently Asked Questions) isn't really that appropriate if the whole point of it is to pre-empt questions you might have before you can actually ask them, so nobody ever gets to ask them in the first place, let alone frequently. That's why instead you get:

QYPWTABIAATH (Questions You Probably Wanted To Ask But I Already Answered Them Here) :

What version of Dawn of Civilization is this mod based on?
Release Version: 1.15, with some really minor changes thrown in from the development version.
Development Version: 1.16.

Can I use Blue Marble, Varietas Delectat and the soundtrack module with this modmod?
Yes! In fact, if you downloaded this mod from Github, you already have all of these modules!

Why not just update Dawn of Knoedel instead of starting over with a reboot that's mostly just carrying over stuff from your old mod anyway?
Because I like puns and dislike myself, so there was no way I would miss this opportunity after it formed in my brain. Also, like I said in the OP, this time I want to take a more organized approach, with proper release versions and a clear plan and focus for each release version.

You keep saying you want more structure, but how can you guarantee that you don't just stop developing again for months at a time, abandon the project, and then start yet another mod two years from now?
Because this time I have a Five Year Plan! Or, well, a plan in general. For starters, I won't even bother trying to stay up-to-date with the development version of the main mod. I'll only merge Dawn of Civilization back in after each real proper release, so 1.17 features will only be in Sunset after 1.17 is actually out. Furthermore I will try to keep each of my own releases focused on a certain area of the game instead of spreading out all over the place and losing oversight. For instance, there will be one release focused on units, which will rebalance the roster a bit, maybe add a few new units, add range bombardment etc. Another release will be focused on buildings, a few now and then will only focus on merging in DoC features after a proper release etc. See below for what I have in mind specifically.

So what are these plans you have for the future?
I'm glad you asked, hypothetical reader!

Now that 1.16 has been released and all of its features been included in the development version of Sunset, the next few weeks will only see minor changes, bugfixes, responses to feedback I receive etc. before packing it all up in a neat little bow for the second proper release. After that I will bring you something new, something bold, something unprecedented, something unexpected, something that's never been done before in this mod forum:

A grand restructuring of the entire tech tree!

But wait a minute, wasn't that the big feature of Dawn 1.15? How come you want to do the same thing again?

Because I'm not happy with the new tech tree. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't happy with the old tech tree either, but I figured Leoreth and whoever else worked on it would do a good enough job with the new one. Well, in my opinion they did not. Many of the same issues that bother me are still there (such as some techs requiring techs that are in the same column, which is especially egregious in the late game). It seems to me that historicity and user friendlyness were sacrificed on the altar of some lofty aesthetic goal, that is a strict 3 columns exact same number of techs per era rule. Since I couldn't care less for aesthetics, I'll re-organize the whole thing top to bottom, left to right until it makes good enough sense in my eyes.

Any other big surprises you want to spring on us?
Yes. The Legitimacy civics category is going to be transformed like so:

Tribalism/Authority/Traditionalism:
Starting Civic, no effects

Imperial Cult:

• Represents: Empires that treat their ruler as the king of kings, as a god-like being that rules everything. Other civilizations are considered barbarians that may or may not pay tribute to the one true emperor, but can certainly never be on the same level as the one great civilization.
  
• Unlocked by: Some Tech in the Ancient Era, possibly Priesthood, Ceremony or Law
  
• Possible Effects:
  • High Upkeep
    
  • No Foreign Trade Routes
  • +1 Happiness per Military Unit Stationed in a City
  • +50% Extra Experience Gain within Cultural Borders
  • +100% Domestic Great General Birth Rate
  • Great General Threshold is reset when the Palace is moved
  • +2 Food from Paddy Field
  • +25% Production in Capital
  • Double Production Speed for Monument
  • something useful for civs with many cities and few or no trade partners
• Civs that should run it: Ancient Egypt, Babylon, China, maybe Persia, Imperial Rome, Byzantium, possibly Japan
  
• Should synergize with: Despotism, Monarchy, maybe Elective, Redistribution, Deification, Isolationism
  
• Should NOT synergize with: Republic, State Party, Democracy, Individualism, Egalitarianism, Secularism, Nationhood, Multilateralism

Aristocracy:

• Represents: Pre-modern civilizations with a ruling class of nobles. May be a feudal patchwork or a state with a central government, but if it's the latter the king or emperor is relatively weak as the real power lies with the nobility.
  
• Unlocked by: Some Tech in the late Ancient or early Classical Era, possibly Law, Riding, Philosophy or Politics
  
• Possible Effects:
  • Medium Upkeep
  • +1 Production from Farm
  • Double Production Speed for Castle, Library, Market, Stable, Theatre
  • +1 Happiness from Castle, Library, Market, Stable, Theatre
    
  • Its main benefit compared to Imperial Cult should be the ability to have foreign trade routes, so it doesn't actually need to be that good on its own as it shouldn't really be competitive with later civics anyway.
• Civs that should run it: Republican Rome, Phoenicia, Greece, Medieval Europe, really all civs before the Renaissance era that aren't supposed to run Imperial Cult.
  
• Should synergize with: Monarchy, Republic
  
• Should NOT synergize with: Despotism, maybe State Party, Democracy, Egalitarianism, Secularism

Conservatism/Absolutism/Authoritarianism:

• Represents: Absolutism and authoritarian right wing governments that are not fascist.
  
• Unlocked by: Statecraft maybe? Definitely in the Renaissance era.
  
• Possible Effects:
  • Medium Upkeep
  • +50% Gold, Culture and Espionage in Capital
  • +10% Building Production with State Religion
  • Double Production Speed for National Gallery, National Theatre
    
  • -1 Commerce from Town
• Civs that should run it: pre-revolutionary France, Imperial Russia, really most of Europe until the 19th century, some Latin American civs
  
• Should synergize with: Monarchy
  
• Should NOT synergize with: Egalitarianism, Secularism

Liberalism/Liberty:

• Represents: Parliamentary democracies which guarantee individual human rights and probably have a constitution.
  
• Unlocked by: Some Tech in the late Renaissance or early Industrial era.
  
• Possible Effects:
  • Medium Upkeep
  • +2 Commerce from Villages, Towns (stolen from Individualism which has its upkeep reduced to low in compensation)
  • +1 Gold per Specialist
  • +1 Happiness from Great People Buildings (Academy, Stock Exchange etc.)
  • +25% Trade Route Commerce
  • Double Production Speed for Central Bank
    
  • Something related to trade, cottages and/or great people
• Civs that should run it: USA, Western Europe starting in the late 18th century
  
• Should synergize with: Democracy, Individualism, Egalitarianism, Free Enterprise, Tolerance, Secularism, Multilateralism
  
• Should NOT synergize with: Despotism, Slavery, Manorialism, Caste System, Totalitarianism, Redistribution, Central Planning, Deification, Theocracy, Conquest, Tributaries

Fascism/Fraternity/Purity/Harmony/Racial Supremacy/National Supremacy/Collective Supremacy/Supremacy:

• Represents: Fascism, duh.
  
• Unlocked by: Some Tech in the early Global Era
  
• Possible Effects:
  • Low Upkeep
  • Free Military Unit Upkeep for X Units
    
  • +1 Experience for All Military Units
  • No Unrest on City Capture
  • No Instability from razing cities but increased instability from religious and national diversity
  • something related to military and conquest
• Civs that should run it: Germany, Italy and Japan during the first half of the 20th century when they are going for their respective conquest UHVs
  
• Should synergize with: Despotism, State Party, Totalitarianism, Conquest, Nationhood
  
• Should NOT synergize with: Democracy, Individualism, Egalitarianism, Tolerance, Multilateralism

Communism/Equality/Collectivism:

• Represents: Proletarian dictatorships that seek to abolish capitalism and establish a new global socialist order based on the principles of Marxism.
  
• Unlocked by: Some Tech in the late Industrial or early Global era
  
• Possible Effects:
  • Low Upkeep
  • +15% Production in All Cities
  • +1 Production from Workshop, Lumbermill
    
  • +1 Happiness from Factory, Industrial Park
  • Double Production Speed for Ironworks, National College
  • Research and espionage boosts?
• Civs that should run it: literally everyone Russia and China in the 20th century
  
• Should synergize with: State Party, Totalitarianism, Egalitarianism, Central Planning, Secularism
  
• Should NOT synergize with: Monarchy, Republic, Elective, Slavery, Manorialism, Caste System, Individualism, Merchant Trade, Free Enterprise, Clergy, Monasticism, Theocracy

Also I might rename Tributaries to Vassalage.

 

FTFY

 

Nobody cares, you nerd!

 

Just a heads up, this mod shares zero revisions with DoC so merging this into other mods would have to be completely done by hand.

 

What can I say, deep in my heart I'm a technically illiterate grandma.

 

I'm trying to merge the cultural golden ages into a particular mod I'm working on privately but am afraid of missing some code while trying to pick the cultural golden age code out of the rest. By any chance, do you have a list of files and terms I can search to find the cultural golden age code?

 

I once uploaded a minor mod with only this feature here. I commented all lines I changed with "KNOEDEL" or if it's several lines at once with "KNOEDELbegin" (or was it KNOEDELstart?) at the beginning and "KNOEDELend" at the end. You can also run a Winmerge comparison between the Vanilla BtS code and the source code there to be sure.

However, I didn't update that version in ages, so there are two features missing: The threshold increasing based on era and number of cities and Great Artist culture-bombs being added to the counter, the latter of which should only be a single line IIRC.

 

Is my tech progression as Mughals atypical? I'm asking because people often write here about them how they have bad modifiers for industrial and later ages, yet I'm on par with European civs in tech and have the highest score (and I won the UHV). Is it because I'm playing at Regent and the difference only becomes appearent on higher difficulties?

 

Why?

 

Just read the text of the quote box carefully. Perhaps you should consider playing at some other difficulty level?

 

The Mughal Emperor is playing the Mughals on Regent.

 

Oh sorry for getting touchy then, I deleted the message because it was dumb. But seriously, what's the general experience when it comes to tech progress of non-Western nations? I ask because some people say how bad it is yet I didn't experience it so.

Regent is not the highest difficulty, but I'm not exactly a civ expert, I used to play unmodded Civ (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) always on Warlord and shamefully, sometimes even lower, and I haven't played Civ IV for literally years.

 

For a lot of the countries with poor modifiers, you should be able to reach parity with the nations with good modifiers (e.g. the Euros) if you are successful in expanding and developing your empire. As examples, in your Mughal game I'm guessing you had the entire subcontinent colonized, with every tile improved, and well developed cities, at a minimum. The Indian subcontinent is very, very good land on the map. It'd be unfortunate and overly railroading if you could not compete against the Euroes with such conditions.

However, try out a game as Britain or France, and if you're doing well, you absolutely obliterate the competition in tech, not simply meet parity. I'm talking like you're fielding Destroyers and making 5,000 beakers/turn when the Americans spawn. The same is true when one takes classical civs like Greece or Rome into the Medieval Era in the 3000BC start. There's even some really obscene China games out there, albeit the conditions which allowed for the Chinese snowballs to materialize have been made more difficult in recent revisions.

Long story short, I highly encourage you to give England or France a try and to see what the difference in modifiers can feel like. No matter the civ, for a dedicated and skilled human player, modifiers will not stop you from getting to the top of the scoreboard or reaching tech parity or leads, but when you play a civ with good modifiers, the experience is quite different.

 

I did win as England with the spaceship, but wasn't really so far ahead (and ironically, my main powerhouse as England was actually India and China). Yes, I got the whole subcontinent colonized, the culture also helped, however England in my Mughal game have failed so hard they're actually a vassal state of Germany. They got me the first time, so I reloaded and prepared for their arrival and defeated their doomstacks so hard that their civilization actually collapsed and only respawned later! I posted the save, England only has their home isles there. I actually won the UHV with Mughals, only continued playing them to see how far I get. It is true though my England game was my SoC game first though.

Another factor might be avoiding mass wars. I only fought Iran and Khmers while Euros seem to declare a multi-sided war against each other every 5 turns.

I see Euros have a tech advantage, so what's their disadvantage and other civ's advantage?

 

Isn't their starting point bad and low available space until you colonize?

 

The euros are lacking in (happiness) luxury resources...

Which are mostly regarded as exotic and luxury, because they were not available in Europe.
I mean, there are banana resources in the tropics. While pears and apples seemed to be too ordinary to implement in the game.