Mods that aren’t too deterministic?

[gja102]

I am looking for some good Civ III mods to play that aren’t overly deterministic in their design. By this I mean that the mix of units and buildings available aren’t heavily influenced by the specific choice of civ… a lot of mod makers seem to feel that it is ‘realistic’ to, say, give the Americans nothing but generic choices until the modern era, where they get 50 kinds of tank and jet plane. Or giving the Greeks dozens of unique units in the ancient era, but nothing thereafter. Basically every civ's strategy ends up specialising in one aspect / era of the game, to the detriment of everything else.

I don’t mind a little civ-specific flavour, but if excessive or unbalanced then I don’t find it realistic at all. Civ games should have their own flow of events, rather than prescriptively following our own history to the letter. Even vanilla is faintly absurd when the Mongols start on a small island with no horses, yet are still somehow inherently expert at producing better horse archers. It doesn’t create a plausible history, and, for me, deterministic mods exacerbate the problem.

I realise most Civ players don’t share this view, but can you recommend some mods that improve gameplay, without being too deterministic?

 

[Elephantium]

CCM is pretty good in this regard. There aren't many units in it that every civ gets -- even Settlers are divided into Northeuropean Settlers, American Settlers, Asiatic Settlers, etc.

Buildings are mostly generic, but that's unavoidable given the limits of the game.

 

[timerover51]

Any modification of the game is going to reflect the viewpoint, biases, and knowledge of the designer of the mod, within the limitations imposed by the game structure. As I am a military and naval historian, I spend a lot of time working on the ship units, and trying to get them accurately balanced historically, which gives England, with its Man-o-War a big advantage. In the Test of Time Mod, by TeTurkhan, he does a pretty good job avoiding deliberate imbalances, but there is an inherent problem with the Iroquois of having no opposition in North America to expanding as rapidly as possible, while in Europe, your starting positions are on top of each other. which results in immediate conflict.

I like the Age of Discovery scenario that comes with the game, but playing and winning as the Dutch is really tough. What I would recommend is checking in the Creation and Customization forum for some of their recommendations, and also try some of the mods there. If you find one that is close to what you are looking for, then do not be afraid to mod it into being what you want.

 

[TLF]

Making the game historical pretty much destroys it's value as a game.

And then adding that into random map games is even worse because history is mostly an outcome of geography.

 

[timerover51]

Making the game historical pretty much destroys it's value as a game.

I concentrate on making the units reasonably accurate historically in terms of combat capability, transport capability, and with respect to the naval units, movement factors. I do not concentrate on trying to make the game as a whole historically accurate, as I like having the "what if" factor.

And then adding that into random map games is even worse because history is mostly an outcome of geography.

When I am testing some modifications to the game, I use random maps. I then go to a real world map for the really fun games. On a World Map of good size, the strategic importance of the Suez and Panama Canal is enormous.

 

[gja102]

I guess the trouble I have with searching for mods is that a lot claim to be more historical or realistic, without stopping to define what they mean by that. Several take the view that realistic = tonnes of UUs and highly differentiated civs. Whereas if you agree with TLF’s view that history is mostly an outcome of geography (which I do), then that level of predetermined specialisation is fairly unrealistic, at least on a random start.

A truly non-deterministic game would have situational UUs - like having Man-O-Wars produced by a Royal Shipyard wonder that requires lots of coastal infrastructure (e.g. five harbours), so only a geographically seafaring civ could build them. I don’t think any mods take this exact approach though, so I’ll keep looking for one that keeps the civs fairly even.

 

[timerover51]

Having taught World Geography for a college, I can fully understand the importance of geography in history, but other factors have as much or more importance. Geographical position is meaningless unless it is accompanied by adequate resources and a reasonably good government and societal infrastructure.

I am not a fan of an enormous number of unique units in any game of Civ. If I want to play a game like that, I much prefer going at it with miniatures on a table top or gym floor. I use the standard game units, with some modifications, one of them being the Carthaginians get War Elephants and not that peculiar Numidian Mercenary unit.

However, I also have fun, like having a pack or two of Trex's wandering around, wreaking havoc and chowing down on whoever they encounter.

 

[timerover51]

he does a pretty good job avoiding deliberate imbalances, but there is an inherent problem with the Iroquois of having no opposition in North America to expanding as rapidly as possible, while in Europe, your starting positions are on top of each other.Moderator Action: *snip* thanks for quoting this bot. Webbug removed.

I am assuming that you are referring to the Age of Discovery (World Map) scenario or the Test of Time scenario. Having the Iroquois without competition is a major headache, so I have been working on controlling them.

In the Age of Discovery, I have the Colonists set to auto-produce from the Navigation Schools every 10 turns. The 10 turns is so that my older laptop can handle the game. The settlers available to the New World natives cost 6 population and 100 shields, which slow them down a bit, and help to keep the game even.

I use the same technique for Test of Time, although I have also discovered that locating some pre-placed raging Barbarians close enough to a capitol also really acts as a break on AI expansion.