Most annoying "features" in A New Dawn

[Czacki]

You're welcome I also hope those issues will be addressed. Right now RoM: AnD is very very impressive, but practically unplayable Unless you deliberately force yourself NOT to use many new features.

Oh, and one "graphical" suggestion... I really don't like the appearance of future fighters. F-14, F-22. F-117 look AWESOME, much better than vanilla game units, but Orbital fighter/Bomber is a blurry mass of uninspiring brown "something". Seeing how awesome other future units look (Assault Mechs, Dreadnought Armors, Thermobaric Armors, and so on), the hi-end fighters/bombers really stand out

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

4. Religion bonuses not mutually exclusive

Why is it possible to take ALL the religion-based upgrades? Most of the time I just get all religions first then just convert to allow my warlord to get another bonus. Shouldn't it be like that: you pick one religion-based promotion, say crusader, and the rest becomes unavailable. Because the unit being a crusader and muslim's equivalent at the same TIME is pretty illogical.

Religion-granted wonders don't stop working when you convert! You only lose their bonus, the rest remains. In a Islamic country, would you expect a wonder like King Richards Crusade to work? Not to mention that some are definitively bigger than others (see Buddhism wonders - Palace of Potala: +50% , +20% :gold, +20% stored after growth and +20% , never becoming obsolete? That's like the best "commerce" wonder there is for a cottage economy! Compared to, say, Apadama Palace of Zoroastrianism.. lower maintenance and a free promotion? nice, but doesn't even compare.)

So, the player isn't rewarded for getting a religion... he's awarded for getting all of them since he's pretty much the only one who can gain access to powerful wonders and promotions thanks to it...

It worked better in Vanilla Civ4: BTS, imho. I absolutely love the new bonuses of religions, but they ought to be mutually exclusive. (Afaik a wonder like Palace of Potala keeps working after you convert to a different religion, you just lose the " bonus if Buddhism is state religion"... while logically it should cease giving bonuses)

So, a better balance of bonuses for religions and mutual exclusiveness of them would be a step in right direction.

Cheers!

Being part of the problem here, with my conversion of AAranda's religions to RoM/AND (only up to 1.74h so far), I have some comments.

The purpose of religion in Civ IV is to encourage war among civs.

There are a number of problems with religions in RoM which takes the BtS system to its limits.

• Religion civics are biased towards monothesim
• Religions do not go out of favour but hang around for ever

There are three groups of religions non-theism (Atheist, Secular, and on the border line Buddhism, Shinto and Taoism), and the thiestic Polytheism and Monotheism.

Ancient polytheistic religions just merged in new religions as new cults with in their own or by saying that the new gods were just the current gods with different names; Zeus is Jupiter for example. I this case state religion is not so relevant except as the war mechanism.

For a polytheistic civic I suggest that all wonders of any religion should work as specified under such a civic but at a largish (10-20%) cost to production due to all the religious holy days involved. Perhaps with a boost to population.

For non-theism civic non-theism wonders should work as is but other wonders should not.

For monotheism civic(s) only wonders of the state religion work.

Unfortunately I don't know how to go about achieving this without some overhaul of the civic and religion XML and processes. BUG was going to have expose a change civic event to python but hasn't as far as I know so I don't have the skills needed.


There has been much discussion on religions evolving and fading out. No one has come up with a good solution yet. In RoM/AND there is a Religion Decay game option which will cause some religions to disappear from a city but nothing nation or world wide.

As to promotions unfortunately the system does not work that way. I suppose it may be possible in SDK but that is beyond my skills.

 

[BlueTemplar]

Some resources are extremely rare compared to what they should be, both realism-, and gameplay-wise: horses, salt and maybe lead.

In my current game, large map, there is only 2 horses, and 2 salt available in the whole world. Compare this to the availability of Ivory, of which there are 4. There are 11 horse-enabled units, and only 2 ivory-enabled ones. So we should rather expect to see horses twice more often than elephants, rather than the other way around! It makes a whole part of the game unavailable unless you happen to be lucky, or dedicated to beelining towards Equestrians Guild (which still require wheat or corn).
IMHO there should be one horse for every 2-3 empires. They were widely used in the whole world across history.

It's similar for salt. You need salt for glassware, which you need for some buildings and wonders. But in this case you can't even use the Guilds card because to build the Glassblowers Guild you need the glassblower building which requires salt too! So the only way is to buy the guild from someone else, if by chance they have founded it and are willing to sell it. BTW, I think the AI sells the guilds for way too cheap.
And salt was historically fairly easy to extract once you had ocean access.

In another game, standard map, there was only 1 horse, and no salt nor lead.

Could we also have more insight in the Civilopedia about how guilds work? You can find out after some digging, but a dedicated page would be great.

Why was the whipping mechanic removed btw? I like the new slave specialists concept, but I feel that an interesting option was removed...

Could we have the automatic landmark names list come from a real landmarks list instead of some made up names?

I'm not sure the following can be modded, but I write them down anyway:

It would be nice to see a "smart zoom" implemented, when the screen zooms towards where your cursor is.

Foreign advisor resources and techs screens:
When I left click on a leader icon, I'd like to speak to him instead of resetting the list.
I'd like to be able to scroll these lists with the mouse scroll wheel.

I'd like to when I right or left click a building in a already built buildings list in the city screen, that it would take me to that building civilopedia page.

And when I talk to a leader, the only music playing should be the leader one. The era background music should be disabled at that time.

 

[pmarvin]

I've played Civ4 for years...many mods...this is clearly the best one, head & shoulders. Kudos.

It's so deep, in fact, that I as a new player can't enjoy all the features! Is there a set of "instructions" that shows me how? A forum thread that describes what the new screen displays and icons mean?

Thanks.

P M

 

[BlueTemplar]

Look in the BUG configuration : when you hold your mouse over an option, it explains what it does : for instance that the fist in the civilizations list means that civ is preparing for war.

 

[streetdog]

Religions should be founded by great prophets.
This is will banalce a little bit the game too

 

[Itzcolotl]

This isn't really a problem with and AND features per se, but I find the name of the Aztec religion annoying. Right now it is called Nagualism, but Naguals were nothing but relatively minor myth. They were similar to werewolves, and were thought to be certain shamans in the countryside who could transform themselves into jaguars. It doesnt really make sense to name the entire religion after them, its almost like calling christianity werewolfism.

A much better name would be Teotl/Teotlism, which is the name many Europa Universalis 3 mods use for the religion. Teotl was the central concept in the Aztec religion, it is often translated as god, but it also meant everything from mysterious/unknown to the universe itself. They thought everything on earth were just manifestations of teotl, and opposites were just different aspects of the same manifestation. So good and evil would be different versions of the same part of Teotl, or the universe for example. Anyways, I've gotten a bit off topic, but Teotl would overall be a much better name for the religion then Nagualism.

Also, I think that some more religions should be added, if you end up making another version. Right now all of Africa and South America don`t have a single religion, while Eurasia has 10. Plus AND hasn't added any more than ROM so far.

In particular, Intiism, the Incan Religion should definitely be added IMO. It was a large organized religion with a full-time priesthood, and was the state church of the Incans, as well as 2-3 more civs in the extra civ pack. Plus it is by far the best choice for a south american religion. It was also very different than the Aztec religion, since it had almost no human sacrifice, just to name one difference. It was actually probably closer to Kemetism then the Aztec religion overall. I could easily find sounds, buildings and an icon for it, if you decide to add it. I could probably find something for an African religion as well, If you are interested.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

This isn't really a problem with and AND features per se, but I find the name of the Aztec religion annoying. Right now it is called Nagualism, but Naguals were nothing but relatively minor myth. They were similar to werewolves, and were thought to be certain shamans in the countryside who could transform themselves into jaguars. It doesnt really make sense to name the entire religion after them, its almost like calling christianity werewolfism.

A much better name would be Teotl/Teotlism, which is the name many Europa Universalis 3 mods use for the religion. Teotl was the central concept in the Aztec religion, it is often translated as god, but it also meant everything from mysterious/unknown to the universe itself. They thought everything on earth were just manifestations of teotl, and opposites were just different aspects of the same manifestation. So good and evil would be different versions of the same part of Teotl, or the universe for example. Anyways, I've gotten a bit off topic, but Teotl would overall be a much better name for the religion then Nagualism.

Also, I think that some more religions should be added, if you end up making another version. Right now all of Africa and South America don`t have a single religion, while Eurasia has 10. Plus AND hasn't added any more than ROM so far.

In particular, Intiism, the Incan Religion should definitely be added IMO. It was a large organized religion with a full-time priesthood, and was the state church of the Incans, as well as 2-3 more civs in the extra civ pack. Plus it is by far the best choice for a south american religion. It was also very different than the Aztec religion, since it had almost no human sacrifice, just to name one difference. It was actually probably closer to Kemetism then the Aztec religion overall. I could easily find sounds, buildings and an icon for it, if you decide to add it. I could probably find something for an African religion as well, If you are interested.

You could change all this by finding the appropriate GAMETEXT file and replacing the text. This would be a very simple, in principle mod.

If you want more religions see my tag. I think they work fine in all versions of AND. they were originally put together by AAranda who also complained about the lack of African religions. I have inherited the maintenance and expansion of them.

The main problem with adding more religions is graphics. Graphics for the buttons, missionaries, buildings and movies. I have a bunch of partially built (or more correctly pillaged) religions that need more graphics.

 

[Camber]

Hi Dancing Hoskuld, nice to see you on here. I have gotten back into Civ4 now that my new computer died. I'm interested in working on the religions mod with you again if it is still happening.

I tried out the new version of AND this weekend, and played as the Vikings. I was very surprised at the features for their Trading Post. It is supposed to replace Lighthouse (+1 food for water tiles) and instead gives +1 gold. I hope this was just an oversight, because it makes water tiles mostly unusable for a Seafaring civ, which I find ironic. Any other civ uses large numbers of their water tiles, but playing as the Vikings, I rarely had more than a couple per city used, because it makes a food deficit for the city.

Could I suggest the Trading Post instead either still give +1 food like the lighthouse (and perhaps give 2 free promotions to sea units rather than its current 1) OR replace the Harbor and let the Vikings have normal Lighthouses. I realize that Harbors get replaced by upgrades fairly early, so I'm not sure if there is a better solution or not.

I recall an earlier version that had Fishing Boats give +1 food/water and Lighthouse gave +1 gold/water. That was a very good solution also, since the Trading Post then wasn't replacing the improvement that made food in the water.

 

[stljeffbb]

One thing that bugs me is that some tech's don't have those little quotes, I really love them even learned most of them by now

lol, this is COMPLETE THREAD NECROMANCY (and I love it!)....

Anyone put Leonard Nimoy into xVASynth? (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/44184)

I have used v2 quite a bit for Skyrim, but I haven't touched it in over a year and have recently started playing Civ 4/RoM/AND again (and glad to see there is still activity!)...(we can rebuild him...we have the technology!)

Regards,

Jeff

 

[<Nexus>]

Yeah, that was one thing that bothered me, so I've spent dozens of hours to find some good alternative quotes with voice from other sources (Civ5, SMAC, PAE, films, etc) for my modmod.
And now... There are tools that can make the dead speak, e.g. Mr Spock.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it

 

[stljeffbb]

I have not seen anyone who has "trained" (as it is called) Nimoy's voice at this point (but someone might have!). Also, there have been at least one (currently living) Skyrim actor who did NOT approve of their voice being trained, so as far as I know the community did not train that voice (or at least make it available publicly). Now, Mr. Nimoy has gone to the great beyond, however, I wonder if there is some kind of trademark on his likeness that could possibly preclude making it public.

Still, training a voice was not all that difficult. Basically, you need at least 200 medium length lines of a person speaking (more tends to be better), and they need to be in (IIRC) .wav format. You also need a Nvidia graphics card that has Cuda. I bought the cheapest one I could get my hands on about 3 years ago or so (prices were higher because of Crypto mining); it is an RTX 3050. It took about 10 solid hours total to synthesize a voice into a workable format (EDIT: now that I think about it, it took something like 30-40 hours solid). The results with xVASynth v2 were pretty good, albeit a bit robotic at times. It looks like with v3 you can add even more refinements.

Regards,

Jeff

 

[stljeffbb]

Yep, I went to the xVA discord, and someone *has* done Leonard Nimoy!

 

[<Nexus>]

Can you share a link where to look for it?

 

[stljeffbb]

OK, here is what you do: Go to the website I showed above (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/44184)

Scroll down and find the Discord link:

You didn't have to in the past, but now-a-days you need to register with Discord (in a general sense) to gain access. Once you get to the main "lobby" (whatever the landing page for xVASynth is called), find "# model-showcase" and search Nimoy...this will come up!

I use Audacity for sound editing, and it is easy enough (lol although perhaps tedious) to manually edit the sound files and give yourself the lines you need if you wanted to make your own version. Since these messages are from 2022, this is probably version one, and version two was a good upgrade in quality (and I bet version three is even better). The voice tracks I hear in these samples from 2022 are good, but IMHO rather robotic. Newer versions of xVA allow for much more fine tuning.

So, there you go!

Regards,

Jeff

 

[robbyextreme]

I have not seen anyone who has "trained" (as it is called) Nimoy's voice at this point (but someone might have!). Also, there have been at least one (currently living) Skyrim actor who did NOT approve of their voice being trained, so as far as I know the community did not train that voice (or at least make it available publicly). Now, Mr. Nimoy has gone to the great beyond, however, I wonder if there is some kind of trademark on his likeness that could possibly preclude making it public.

Still, training a voice was not all that difficult. Basically, you need at least 200 medium length lines of a person speaking (more tends to be better), and they need to be in (IIRC) .wav format. You also need a Nvidia graphics card that has Cuda. I bought the cheapest one I could get my hands on about 3 years ago or so (prices were higher because of Crypto mining); it is an RTX 3050. It took about 10 solid hours total to synthesize a voice into a workable format (EDIT: now that I think about it, it took something like 30-40 hours solid). The results with xVASynth v2 were pretty good, albeit a bit robotic at times. It looks like with v3 you can add even more refinements.

Regards,

Jeff

I did one with elevenlabs it turned out pretty good.

example:

Vocaroo | Online voice recorder

Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs.

vocaroo.com

thread:

Leonard Nimoy Voice Synthesizer

Hey Civ4 modders I happened across this and the Leonard Nimoy voice actually came out pretty good and it reminded me of Civ4 techs. So if you guys are still adding techs with quotes give it a shot (read the guideline first!) https://fakeyou.com/

forums.civfanatics.com

lost interest in finishing it though since civ4 doesn't have many developers or players anymore so it's hard to stay motivated when I could be doing other projects.

 

[<Nexus>]

lost interest in finishing it though since civ4 doesn't have many developers or players anymore so it's hard to stay motivated when I could be doing other projects.

Too bad, I could have used such help