My own personal LOR

[bigfatjonny]

I have altered some of the XML to change LOR to my own personal preferences, I thought I would share them with everyone.

If you want to use, simply unzip the zip into the MODs/LOR/Assets/XML folder (back up the originals first!) or use my ideas to mod only a part to match your preferences. I have tried to show where each part can be modded in the XML.
This uses LOR 0.9.6b, dont copy over other versions as it will create errors.

Main ideas for this mod are in the Balance tread and are based around a classical city defender, reducing the rush to bronzeworking, siege making units unimportant http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=325260&page=3 as well as me undoing a few of the changes that I didnt like.

Thanks to Phungus for the mod, imitation is the most honest form of flattery, and Roland Johansen for his ideas, amazing knowledge and balancing tweaks.

Edit: Correct zip file below. Do not use this one, it has several files missing.

 

[bigfatjonny]

Units
Added - Classical Age Composite Bowman Str 4
This is to fill the gap between acrhers and lowbows. Now that their is siege equipment in the ancient and classical ages, swordsmen can easily overpower archers - this unit is in response to this.

Spoiler :

STR 4 Cost 35 +25 city defence PreReq Writing, Archery & Bronzeworking.
CIV4GameText_Objects_BTS.xml
CIV4GameText_Objects_Bowman.xml

Archer - Changed - city defence reduced +25% (& Babylon Bowman)
Special Forces - Invisibility removed (& SAS)
Chariot – Changed to +50 to Axeman (& Sythe Chariot)
Pikeman – Returned to BTS
Spearman – Prerequisite Bronzeworking

Siege Units
To alter the emphasis of using siege see Roland’s post.
Major adjustments to max damage and max collateral to everything pre cannon. More likely to win attack against city, but can’t cause as much damange.


Technology
Changed rush to bronze working. Reveal bronze now with mining, slavery moved to masonry, chopping still with BW.
Costs changed to reflect moves.

Spoiler :

Technologies/CIV4TechInfos
<Type>TECH_BRONZE_WORKING</Type>
<iCost>100</iCost>

<Type>TECH_MASONRY</Type>
<iCost>100</iCost>

<Type>TECH_MINING</Type>
<iCost>65</iCost>
Terrain\Civ4BonusInfo.xml
<BonusInfo>
<Type>BONUS_COPPER</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_BONUS_COPPER</Description>
<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_BONUS_COPPER_PEDIA</Civilopedia>
<BonusClassType>BONUSCLASS_RUSH</BonusClassType>
<ArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_BONUS_COPPER</ArtDefineTag>
<TechReveal>TECH_MINING</TechReveal>
<TechCityTrade>TECH_MINING</TechCityTrade>
Gameinfo\CIV4CivicInfos.xml
<CivicInfo>
<CivicOptionType>CIVICOPTION_LABOR</CivicOptionType>
<Type>CIVIC_SLAVERY</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_CIVIC_SLAVERY</Description>
<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_CIVIC_SLAVERY_PEDIA</Civilopedia>
<Strategy>TXT_KEY_CIVIC_SLAVERY_STRATEGY</Strategy>
<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Civics/Slavery.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/Civics_Civilizations_Religions_Atlas.dds,8,2</Button>
<TechPrereq>TECH_MASONRY</TechPrereq>

Tile Defence
Forest & Jungle - Changed to +25% rather than +50%.
Balances attack/defence abilities on forest with hills. Makes forest promotions more useful as can be used in attack more.

Spoiler :

CIV4BonusInfos.xml
<iDefense>25</iDefense>

 

[rkade8583]

Very interesting.

 

[OnmyojiOmn]

I hope you don't mind me tacking my little modmods onto your thread.

- IdleCities adds an "Idle" build item which is available from the beginning of the game, produces nothing, and discards all hammers. The city governor will automatically switch to food/commerce/specialists.

- SpeedFix rebalances marathon speed based on my experience with the Marathon Accelerated mod. Tech costs are greatly increased and unit costs, improvement build time, and chop output are decreased.

- BWFix is is the same as your changes to BW and Masonry. We even came up with the same tech costs. High five!

- FeatureFix allows farms and cottages to be built in forest and jungle tiles without removing the forest/jungle, but adds -1 food to forests. Trees will even poke through around the edges of the improvement. As a side effect, cottages can no longer be built on hills, but can now be built on non-freshwater tundra, and farms can be chained onto non-freshwater tundra with CS. I'm not 100% sure I like these changes, but they're very interesting to play so far.

 

[rkade8583]

Yeah this is definitely going to grow. I have to admit, I prefer the original mod mod to the mod mod mod... all the same, I want to hear the Phunguy and the official peeps' opinions on this.

Question answered! Groovy

 

[bigfatjonny]

Updated zip attached.

Some files were missing from the previous one.

- BWFix is is the same as your changes to BW and Masonry. We even came up with the same tech costs. High five!

Haha, thats great. Have you played with this much? I really, really like it. It actually means you have to make a choice over which tech you will research. Before it was an automatic that you got BW as soon as possible. This change means that you have to choose, what do I need more? Bronze visability, slavery or chopping & units. Also if you know you dont have bronze (from mining) then you can skip BW for a while until you need to chop.

- FeatureFix allows farms and cottages to be built in forest and jungle tiles without removing the forest/jungle, but adds -1 food to forests. Trees will even poke through around the edges of the improvement. As a side effect, cottages can no longer be built on hills, but can now be built on non-freshwater tundra, and farms can be chained onto non-freshwater tundra with CS. I'm not 100% sure I like these changes, but they're very interesting to play so far.

Sounds interesting, I might give it a go next game. I can see it could make a lot of differences.

- SpeedFix rebalances marathon speed based on my experience with the Marathon Accelerated mod. Tech costs are greatly increased and unit costs, improvement build time, and chop output are decreased.

What does this address? Is there a thread wit the changes?
I actually think marathon is more balanced that normal speed, but thats because I usually play with it.

Yeah this is definitely going to grow. I have to admit, I prefer the original mod mod to the mod mod mod... all the same

Yeah me too, well at least some of the changes. What are you personal preferences about LoR that you would change back?

 

[phungus420]

With those changes Mali needs a second UU, or a buff for the skirmisher.

 

[bigfatjonny]

Yes, good point. I know that there are a few Unique things out of kilter now, but I haven't tried to solve them yet.

Do you have any suggestions for the Mali? At the moment I think their unit is the same as a Classical Bowmen, but just needing archery.

I changed the bowmans pre-reqs to Iron working and Archery as I kept finding that they arrived too early, and I had put military units in the research stream of techs.

 

[phungus420]

Personally my change would be to give the skirmisher 15% withdraw odds, and give them flanking1, then make flanking 2 available to archery units (which in effect means only the skirmisher could get it), make the skirmisher a beast, but not too overpowerd, and wol't extend it's lifespan any.

 

[achilleszero]

For extra Mali UUs, you could use Sofas or Mandinkas.

EDIT: just saw phungus idea on pumping skirmisher, that looks like a good UU.

 

[OnmyojiOmn]

What does this address? Is there a thread wit the changes?
I actually think marathon is more balanced that normal speed, but thats because I usually play with it.

Tech cost raised from 300% to 560%, unit costs lowered from 200% to 100% (same as normal speed), building cost lowered from 300% to 200%, project cost raised from 300% to 400%, improvement build time lowered from 300% to 200%, chop output lowered from 300% to 150%. Also increased palace commerce from 8 to 10, to balance early tech costs without having to edit the techs.

This lets you do much, much more with your units and cities before the next tech makes everything obsolete. You can go to war at least once in every era, often several times per era with incremental upgrades. I'll never go back to vanilla speeds.

 

[phungus420]

Oh, you'd also need to buff the Bowman too. Though personally I'd just give them access to they Sythe Chariot along with the Persians.

 

[rkade8583]

Yeah me too, well at least some of the changes. What are you personal preferences about LoR that you would change back?

I'm saying I prefer your mod of LOR (a mod itself so it's a mod mod) to Onmy's mod of your mod of LOR (a mod mod mod). The reason being that the mod mod mod seems to just change too many things whereas your mod mod, in my opinion, keeps to the spirit of LoR (less is more and all).

Plus it works with lor 9.6b light!

 

[Roland Johansen]

Good job bigfatjonny and thanks for the compliments.

I agree with Phungus that adding the classical bowman should lead to some unique unit changes. Some options to keep in mind: a unique archer unit could become a unique bowman unit if that fits better and you should probably let unique archer units upgrade directly to the longbowman and not the classical bowman so that their timespan is extended. Likewise a unique variant of the classical bowman could get its life extended by giving it a double upgrade path to both longbowmen and musketmen. If such a unique unit would have some properties that were better than the longbowman, then you could still build both. I haven't really thought about what bonuses exactly would work although Phungus already posted some interesting ideas.

 

[rkade8583]

Now I don't know if it's the mod mod or if it's the script but when I run my normal small maps using tectonics, perfectworld, or planet generator, EVERYONE gets WAAAY behind on techs and I notice that it takes a lot longer to build things.

LOR XML v2.rar (60.3 KB)
That's the file I used. I overrid version 1 (LOR XML.rar (58.7 KB) which was an override of LoR Light 96b

Testing it now with, sigh, the old shuffle script.

 

[OnmyojiOmn]

I'm saying I prefer your mod of LOR (a mod itself so it's a mod mod) to Onmy's mod of your mod of LOR (a mod mod mod). The reason being that the mod mod mod seems to just change too many things whereas your mod mod, in my opinion, keeps to the spirit of LoR (less is more and all).

Plus it works with lor 9.6b light!

The files I posted are modmods for LoR, not modmodmods for bigfatjohnny's mod. Obviously this is all a matter of taste, but I will say that if you're playing any of the vanilla game speeds, your game is basically broken. So flawed in terms of pacing as to be a completely separate, unplayable game. I won't claim that my changes are perfect, but I think you owe it to yourself to try either my modmod or Marathon Accelerated.

 

[rkade8583]

Ok, I'm game. Sell me your points. I don't want to add mods to the mod of a mod unless I'm SURE, you know?