Most annoying "features" in A New Dawn

[NBAfan]

One thing that annoys me is the lack of naval units between triremes and caravels. Former was used in the BCs and latter in the 1400s! It's kind of a big vacuum, don't you think?

There actually was not much naval innovation outside of China untill the 1300s.

 

[CMKMStephens]

Yeah, Venetian/other Italian city state trade in the Middle Ages was pretty much Trireme based.

The North Sea had the Norse Knarr and later the 'cog', more suited for rough seas and trade due to the Clinker construction method. Cog building techniques were adopted by the Caravel for the first oceanic exploration.

 

[generalstaff]

Yeah, Venetian/other Italian city state trade in the Middle Ages was pretty much Trireme based.

Most Mediterranean naval war was based around Galleys for that matter, the last major battle being Lepanto (if I recall correctly). Maybe the solution would be having a "Gunpowder Galley" unit.

 

[Afforess]

Most Mediterranean naval war was based around Galleys for that matter, the last major battle being Lepanto (if I recall correctly). Maybe the solution would be having a "Gunpowder Galley" unit.

There is a cog unit, so you could add it in a module...

 

[46852]

Without having played any betas I would say that these points are of greatest concern:

1) AI competence is the most frustrating aspect. They seem under powered, have slow research rates towards the middle game and into the late. Their city placement is poor (but i don't think this is the main cause).

3) Player tech rate seems to have increased significantly, allowing unreaslistic advances far too early (this is made worse by the fact that the AI struggles with research)

I've got to a point where I'm considering returning back to Vanilla BtS, I just can't get further than 0AD because the AI is so slow in teching and building it's empire

I tried to play AND beta4.5 without many of the extra building modules and no revolutions. But on Emperor difficulty, it was still the same. Even with a very isolated start! Isolated start used to be doomed when I played Vanilla o n Monarch.

In this recent AND game, all the AIs had only 3-4 cities by 500BC and were trying to research Military Tradition or Alphabet still. Their cities were in poor shape, only a few buildings each: Lighthouse or Walls mostly, granary in some, starting to build School of Scribes at this point. Couple of AIs didn't have any buildings at all in their capitals! And naturally no wonders had been built, while I had snatched Oracle, Stonehenge and Colossus. I also noticed that they didn't have very strong armies either, like 1-2 archers per city and 1-3 javelineers/spearmen or axemen who had access to copper. Small barbarian uprisings would be lethal to that kind of armies.

I gave the AI control over my nation for a turn or two, and when I returned it was a total mess! The AI had turned research to 10% for no apparent reason at all (the slider retains the setting the AI had set it to, doesn't it?), it could've run 90% with surplus gold still coming in. Why did the AI favor money that much? In most games I've seen that AIs research times on the score display are veeery big numbers, like 50-100 turns... something wrong there definitely. Is the AI trying to amass too much cash?

One thing the AI isn't coping with is lack of chopping until iron working. It builds cities to forested areas then can't cut the forests down in a 1000 years. Most AIs only a couple of cottages in 500BC which is a bad thing for research.

I was sad and surprised to see that removing revolutions didn't help the AI that much, I thought it was a major culprit

I'm sorry I'm repeating myself with this AI issue, but it is very noticable, and I think the AI is for some reason very much weaker than in Vanilla.

 

[cdman1990]

That's because you play at Snail or Marathon speed, I noticed to that the AI has extra problems when playing slow speeds. On one of my last games, I was playing Noble Standard speed, and even before 2000AD the AI had Orbital Bombers, Dreadnoughts and Nanite Units.

 

[46852]

That's because you play at Snail or Marathon speed, I noticed to that the AI has extra problems when playing slow speeds. On one of my last games, I was playing Noble Standard speed, and even before 2000AD the AI had Orbital Bombers, Dreadnoughts and Nanite Units.

Hmm, I thought RoM was meant to be played at the more slow speeds? I've played my games on Marathon. Will have to try Epic still, Standard is too fast for my taste.

 

[Retrospect]

For me anything faster than marathon is no good in ROM. Obseletion becomes rediculous. Infact even at marathon at the moment that is still a problem IMO.

@cdman ROM recommended settings are Marathon game speed.

 

[46852]

That's because you play at Snail or Marathon speed, I noticed to that the AI has extra problems when playing slow speeds. On one of my last games, I was playing Noble Standard speed, and even before 2000AD the AI had Orbital Bombers, Dreadnoughts and Nanite Units.

I tried the Merged Mod 1.10 (there's no new techs and only a few new units there, no changes to civics) at Marathon/Emperor, and the difference in AI teching was noticable. The AI didn't seem to have problems with Marathon speed: Wonders were built by AI very quickly and their military strength was good, even after I started pumping axemen. I think this might be mostly accomplished with early chopping and slavery, but the tech rate is alarmingly slow in AND. I also haven't seen the AI beeline to techs as efficiently in AND as in Vanilla/Merged Mod.

 

[szemek77]

Couple of observations, with regard to other comments:

1. I don't want to sound trenchant, cause I haven't played many games in AND, but it seems to me that AI is getting weaker and weaker as the development of AND progresses. It is much like a impression not pure facts. I'm NOT happy about it but all I can only say bitterly: I told you so..... In my opinion AI can't follow up with the changes of gameplay, new rules, features, and buildings. Simple reason, and no solution. Bitter, but true

2. I don't suffer from unhealhtiness and unhappiness anymore. It goes too easy, IMHO.

3. I like the promotion and upgrade of troops became easier and cheaper. It is far more realistic this way that it used to be in BtS

4. AI civs still know how to annoy human players In my previous game, Brennus declared war on me. Why, why, why anyone would start a war to an empire which is located thousands miles away on a different continent and has 2.1 power ratio? I just don't get it. Also, I don't understand, why is the AI trying to get my tech which is worth 4000 and offers another one of 3000 value, and wants additional money for this "excellent" exchange?

5. The industry solves the problem of production (of course in later stages in the game). Excellent! On the other hand, food reduction is a big step in right direction.
I'm not sure if building industry in city cross causes unhealthiness?? It really should.

 

[Afforess]

That's because you play at Snail or Marathon speed, I noticed to that the AI has extra problems when playing slow speeds. On one of my last games, I was playing Noble Standard speed, and even before 2000AD the AI had Orbital Bombers, Dreadnoughts and Nanite Units.

The AI has problems at all game speeds, the speed actually has very little to do with it.

I tried the Merged Mod 1.10 (there's no new techs and only a few new units there, no changes to civics) at Marathon/Emperor, and the difference in AI teching was noticable. The AI didn't seem to have problems with Marathon speed: Wonders were built by AI very quickly and their military strength was good, even after I started pumping axemen. I think this might be mostly accomplished with early chopping and slavery, but the tech rate is alarmingly slow in AND. I also haven't seen the AI beeline to techs as efficiently in AND as in Vanilla/Merged Mod.

The problem with the AI, is what many have feared. The larger Tech Tree makes it harder for the AI to navigate. Specifically, the AI were coded to understand a tech tree the size of BTS's. Now, RoM's tech treeis 4x as big, which means they make 4x as many stupid mistakes. I'm working on correcting that.

Couple of observations, with regard to other comments:

1. I don't want to sound trenchant, cause I haven't played many games in AND, but it seems to me that AI is getting weaker and weaker as the development of AND progresses. It is much like a impression not pure facts. I'm NOT happy about it but all I can only say bitterly: I told you so..... In my opinion AI can't follow up with the changes of gameplay, new rules, features, and buildings. Simple reason, and no solution. Bitter, but true

2. I don't suffer from unhealhtiness and unhappiness anymore. It goes too easy, IMHO.

3. I like the promotion and upgrade of troops became easier and cheaper. It is far more realistic this way that it used to be in BtS

4. AI civs still know how to annoy human players In my previous game, Brennus declared war on me. Why, why, why anyone would start a war to an empire which is located thousands miles away on a different continent and has 2.1 power ratio? I just don't get it. Also, I don't understand, why is the AI trying to get my tech which is worth 4000 and offers another one of 3000 value, and wants additional money for this "excellent" exchange?

5. The industry solves the problem of production (of course in later stages in the game). Excellent! On the other hand, food reduction is a big step in right direction.
I'm not sure if building industry in city cross causes unhealthiness?? It really should.

1.) Oh, I agree with you 100%. However, don't make the mistake of coming to the wrong conclusion. The solution isn't to remove features, but to teach the AI to use the new tools it has better.

2.) I've tempered this quite a bit in the early game with Better RoM, but the late game is still really easy, I agree.

3.) The reason this happens is this: The AI is considering war. His worst enemy, right next to him, is in the 10 turn window of peace that they just declared. So he can't target him. So he picks the next best target, you. However, his war preparations take longer than 10 turns, and the peace expires between his enemy and him. However, the AI doesn't switch warplans and target the old rival, and stupidly heads off against you. Sound familiar? Better AI .83 solved this, which will be in Beta5.

Some things you forget to complain about:

Wonders. The AI has been completely failing to build any significant number of wonders. This was due to a type in the calculations with Better AI, which basically reduced the chances to 0. Now that I caught that and corrected it, the AI are again building wonders.

For me anything faster than marathon is no good in ROM. Obseletion becomes rediculous. Infact even at marathon at the moment that is still a problem IMO.

Then you are going to like Beta5 even more.

 

[Retrospect]

Glad to hear it, I will try the latest beta once I get my computer back to life. I had a BIOS update problem

 

[GoUtes53]

IMHO the single biggest thing that annoys me about AND, and don't get me wrong, it is still a fine addition, is that resources seem to become depleted at an alarming rate. This is a game buster for me. I understand that IRL resources don't last forever. Gold and silver mines play out and the like. I really understand that. But it seems like resources in AND play out at a much faster rate than they should. In one game a I settled near resources of copper and marble in separate cities, and they were both gone within 10 to 15 turns. That is a little hard to take when you have based your city site selection on these resources, and without them they might be relatively worthless. I would suggest toning down the depletion rate, especially on the more valuable resources like copper and iron, etc., quite a bit more. Just my $.02 worth.

BTW, this occured in beta 5.

 

[Afforess]

IMHO the single biggest thing that annoys me about AND, and don't get me wrong, it is still a fine addition, is that resources seem to become depleted at an alarming rate. This is a game buster for me. I understand that IRL resources don't last forever. Gold and silver mines play out and the like. I really understand that. But it seems like resources in AND play out at a much faster rate than they should. In one game a I settled near resources of copper and marble in separate cities, and they were both gone within 10 to 15 turns. That is a little hard to take when you have based your city site selection on these resources, and without them they might be relatively worthless. I would suggest toning down the depletion rate, especially on the more valuable resources like copper and iron, etc., quite a bit more. Just my $.02 worth.

BTW, this occured in beta 5.

I haven't seen resource depletion out of control, so I'm going to leave that as is. However, mines are depleting faster than intended, and I slowed the rate down by 33% for the next release.

 

[Retrospect]

IMHO the single biggest thing that annoys me about AND, and don't get me wrong, it is still a fine addition, is that resources seem to become depleted at an alarming rate. This is a game buster for me. I understand that IRL resources don't last forever. Gold and silver mines play out and the like. I really understand that. But it seems like resources in AND play out at a much faster rate than they should. In one game a I settled near resources of copper and marble in separate cities, and they were both gone within 10 to 15 turns. That is a little hard to take when you have based your city site selection on these resources, and without them they might be relatively worthless. I would suggest toning down the depletion rate, especially on the more valuable resources like copper and iron, etc., quite a bit more. Just my $.02 worth.

BTW, this occured in beta 5.

One thing that Afforess didn't mention in his reply that you may not be aware of is that the finite supply is a random value, so you may have just been v unlucky.

 

[Killtech]

I haven't seen resource depletion out of control, so I'm going to leave that as is. However, mines are depleting faster than intended, and I slowed the rate down by 33% for the next release.

i'm not exactly sure how depletion was implemented, but i guess it is a random event that has a static small chance to occur each turn. if so we can do all the necessary calculations to balance that chance for the games purpose. the probability distribution of depletion follows a geometric distribution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_distribution) such that we can expect the depletion of a resource in 1/p turns where p is the depletion probability (value between 0 and 1).

we can even easily calculate how many resources of a type (e.g. iron) given a fixed staring amount of deposits are expected to be depleted after n turns with this model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_binomial_distribution.

the question is just: how many percent of a resource deposits should be depleted after n thousand years of mining? considering that even in the modern age we sill have quite a lot of mineral deposits left the value for p should be pretty close to zero.

 

[damunzy]

I haven't run into the depletion or resource- I get the luck found a new resource....must just be the luck thing.

 

[Earlydawn]

There's nothing I really hate about AND, but I do wish that it was more consolidated. The Revolution mod, for example, is pretty critical to the ongoing balance of AND, but is simultaneously a separate mod - the differences in polish across builds can be jarring. I'd also like to see uniform documentation in the Civopedia, to give the impression of a retail-quality product.

 

[os79]

There's nothing I really hate about AND, but I do wish that it was more consolidated. The Revolution mod, for example, is pretty critical to the ongoing balance of AND, but is simultaneously a separate mod - the differences in polish across builds can be jarring. I'd also like to see uniform documentation in the Civopedia, to give the impression of a retail-quality product.

That can be low priority goal but a goal nevertheless. Afforess is no Phungus, with all due respect to Phungus . I personally like Afforess' style of modding :shrug:.

 

[Afforess]

There's nothing I really hate about AND, but I do wish that it was more consolidated. The Revolution mod, for example, is pretty critical to the ongoing balance of AND, but is simultaneously a separate mod - the differences in polish across builds can be jarring. I'd also like to see uniform documentation in the Civopedia, to give the impression of a retail-quality product.

Could you elaborate on what areas need better documentation? I created an entire new section in the Civilopedia for AND, and have some features documented, but it's not up to date for AND 1.60.

That can be low priority goal but a goal nevertheless. Afforess is no Phungus, with all due respect to Phungus . I personally like Afforess' style of modding :shrug:.

In case you aren't an obsessive lurker like Os79, and don't get the joke, here is Phungus's mod.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it, it's a good mod, with interesting features, and is very balanced. I'd say it does simulate a viable expansion pack.

However, I prefer RoM's re-write better.