New Tech Tree Playtesting + Feedback

[Tigranes]

Don't you think that Indian civ named Gupta in 295 BC is a little early? At least Maurya, perhaps?

Also, how to disable Babylonian tech pop ups during autoplay?

 

[merijn_v1]

Also, how to disable Babylonian tech pop ups during autoplay?

Uncomment line 596 in UniquePowers.py

 

[Leoreth]

Gupta vs. Maurya is based on religion, not era.

I thought I had removed the popup for the Babylonian UP, will do so officially later.

 

[Tigranes]

Gupta vs. Maurya is based on religion, not era.

I thought I had removed the popup for the Babylonian UP, will do so officially later.

But Guptas in BC look too anachronistic! Perhaps Nanda Empire? Or Shunga, if religion switched from Buddhism to Hinduism.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, I could probably refine that a bit, it's not like we lack Hindu dynasties in India.

 

[xugening]

will you add any other special features from HR to the next version of DOC? such as new resources?

 

[Leoreth]

The branch I'm working on is not just new techs, it also comes with lots of other related stuff, mostly new buildings and units. Many are inspired by History Rewritten, although I changed some of them considerably. New civics are also currently being actively worked on, with HR again serving as inspiration.

I considered adding some of the new resources from HR as well, but considering the available space on the map I concluded that they wouldn't fit into the game.

Do you have anything else in mind?

 

[xugening]

not really, but I have a question about the current vision, everytime I play the 1700 scenario, China is destined to collpase around late 1800s, is there a bug? or is just how it works

 

[Tigranes]

I just played as Kongo from 1700 all the way to 1840s -- China was stable.

There are few curious bugs, which I think found in both versions. When Poland becomes Austria's vassal -- message just said Poland became a vassal of (blank). Also apparently one can enslave as Congo with population 7, while tooltip says -- 6. Also tooltip incorrectly shows in red "Requires Slavery" as if I am not running Slavery (but I do). Sometimes Pope send Inquisition to Congo which is all-Catholic. Not sure what it does to my civ Also, those who defy Pope do not incur any punishment from what I can see, making AP votes sort of irrelevant, which is sad.

As a side note -- I absolutely love unhealthiness from Improvements idea. Very realistic and gives a new feel to the game. Have to adjust strategies now.

 

[Leoreth]

Do you have a save for the wrong Slavery button as Congo?

The Inquisition grants espionage points in your civ to the Pope. I think the Pope gets some feedback on that, but you're right I should also include a message for the target.

I also like improvement unhealth/unhappiness. Can't take credit for the idea though, it's Xyth's.

 

[Tigranes]

Do you have a save for the wrong Slavery button as Congo?

The Inquisition grants espionage points in your civ to the Pope. I think the Pope gets some feedback on that, but you're right I should also include a message for the target.

I also like improvement unhealth/unhappiness. Can't take credit for the idea though, it's Xyth's.

Here you go. I just started 1700 with size 8 and enslaved 2 times to get to the size 6. Did not enslave during the current turn.

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks, will give it a look.

 

[soul-breathing]

New update: rebalanced tech costs across all eras

I somewhat increased the costs of classical techs and significantly increased them for ancient techs. Costs for Renaissance, Industrial, Global and Digital era techs were reduced to progressively larger degrees. I hope you give it a go and share if the balance works better now.

I've played an Ameica game in 1700 scenerio(Monarch Epic), find AIs' tech rates a bit fast in scenerio 1700ad. As we see, American initial techs are Column12 and two techs in Column13, and I find when America begin in 1774ad, European such as England, France and Spain have almost all Column13, some have Ballistics(14), and are researching Electricity and Railroads, also I find England research Refining(15) in about 1810ad. Here below is my game save in 1828ad.

On the other hand, some days ago I played Babylonia for a couple of times, find it impossible to get UHV victory(Monarch Epic). If you get Calender before India start, then you can't get Construction before Greece, vice versa. Maybe tech costs in Ancient for Human player is a bit much. But I can finish Greece and Roma UHV successfully, think it's no problem about Classical tech costs.

Also, Happy Chinese New Year!

 

[Leoreth]

Okay, thanks for the information. Not sure if Babylonia is too hard because tech speed is too slow, or because the civs after them spawn with too many techs. That's still on my list to investigate.

Happy New Year!

 

[Tigranes]

I feel that if only Greeks are not given the Construction -- Babylonia is doable with the right strategy on default difficulty and challenging at higher difficulties -- like any UHV should. I don't know how/if soul-breathing gets Arithmetics, COnstruction and Writing on turn 50. Greeks indeed get way too much this early on. Alternatively Babylon's UP can be getting 5 free techs instead of 4.

While we on this tech subject -- is there any way to color code known civs to distinguish them from those already known. I understand there is a beaker button there in F6 screen, but sometimes its useful to assess the big picture with all the techs present...

Finally, there is something wrong about Musketman. It appears below all the ships, like it is not a regular Gunpowder unit and it is not grouped with those in the city build option list. Furthermore one can build both Arquebusir AND Musketman after Replaceable Parts, awkward!

 

[soul-breathing]

I feel that if only Greeks are not given the Construction -- Babylonia is doable with the right strategy on default difficulty and challenging at higher difficulties -- like any UHV should. I don't know how/if soul-breathing gets Arithmetics, COnstruction and Writing on turn 50. Greeks indeed get way too much this early on. Alternatively Babylon's UP can be getting 5 free techs instead of 4.

While we on this tech subject -- is there any way to color code known civs to distinguish them from those already known. I understand there is a beaker button there in F6 screen, but sometimes its useful to assess the big picture with all the techs present...

Finally, there is something wrong about Musketman. It appears below all the ships, like it is not a regular Gunpowder unit and it is not grouped with those in the city build option list. Furthermore one can build both Arquebusir AND Musketman after Replaceable Parts, awkward!

For Babylonia, Pastoralism(Free Property)--Mythology(Free Leverage)--Sailing(Free Divination, build Oracle)--Ceremony(Free Writing)--Arithmetics(Oracle Free Calender just before India). Impossible to get Construction.

 

[Cosmos1985]

First of all, I can't believe that whenever I return to DoC it has evolved to be a better game yet again, and now even this new tech tree and a lot of other improvements as well - Leoreth you truly are the real MVP, and of course credit to the other contributors as well.

Some minor notes:
- Netherlands start with mercantilism, but without the required tech for it.
- Privateers are very strong compared to galleons and East Indiamen. If I understand the rationale behind the new system for naval units correctly (the balancing of their strengths and so on) it makes sense for the privateers to have the power they do, but it makes them too strong imo compared to transport ships.
- Kinda related to that, frigates obsolete when you are able to build ironclads, leaving you without any ocean-going "battleship". There's a bit of a vacuum in that period.
- I may just be a bad player, but I find it real hard to keep up with all the new buildings compared to the tech evolvement. I mean, with all the new stuff there is to build, you really barely can keep up. I always play on marathon, it may be related to that.
- Agreed with Tigranes and others about the great new system for workshops and so on, it's awesome. It does however make the workshops quite strong compared to towns, perhaps too strong?
- I guess this is a general comment as well, not just related to this, but I think the AI is too prone to collapse. They don't understand stability, and I think the system should be less harsh. One of the reasons is that whenever there is a war, the AI will do what it can to capture all enemy cities, so in a lot of cases a war between Civ A and Civ B results in A collapsing because B took its cities, and then later on B will collapse as well of over-extension. Goes for indy/barb/native cities as well: the AI will capture them if they can, not understanding it may be bad for their stability. It's probably too big of a project to teach the AI stability (I guess, I'm not a programmer or anything) or not to capture cities outside their green areas, so maybe it should be considered to ease the stability hits they take. In general I'd wish for stability to be nerfed - I can't remember if it was you who once called it the crown jewel of RFC Leoreth, the stability system, in any case that may be true, but it's really the one thing that hinders my enjoyment of playing this game to constantly relate every decision and action to how it may effect the stability rating.
- It makes sense for slave plantations to give unhappiness as well as a settled citizen, but they seem a bit weak now with that effect in mind. Perhaps they should give further boni to even out.
- (Playing as England) I founded protestantism and too the option to convert fully, however it's worded in-game, but I did not get the holy city. And nor did anyone else for that matter.
- It happened more than once that non-state religions spread to me even though I was running fanaticism. At first I thought it could have been an event for another civ, but it happened with judaism as well, which noone had as state religion.

 

[Leoreth]

First of all, I can't believe that whenever I return to DoC it has evolved to be a better game yet again, and now even this new tech tree and a lot of other improvements as well - Leoreth you truly are the real MVP, and of course credit to the other contributors as well

Thanks! I'm really motivated to make stuff happen again right now.

Some minor notes:
- Netherlands start with mercantilism, but without the required tech for it.
- Privateers are very strong compared to galleons and East Indiamen. If I understand the rationale behind the new system for naval units correctly (the balancing of their strengths and so on) it makes sense for the privateers to have the power they do, but it makes them too strong imo compared to transport ships.
- Kinda related to that, frigates obsolete when you are able to build ironclads, leaving you without any ocean-going "battleship". There's a bit of a vacuum in that period.
[...]
- It makes sense for slave plantations to give unhappiness as well as a settled citizen, but they seem a bit weak now with that effect in mind. Perhaps they should give further boni to even out.

Noted.

- I may just be a bad player, but I find it real hard to keep up with all the new buildings compared to the tech evolvement. I mean, with all the new stuff there is to build, you really barely can keep up. I always play on marathon, it may be related to that.

It's intended that buildings are now more expensive relatively, in particular since the overall number of buildings increased without having their individual cost being unchanged. The idea is that super cities that have all possible buildings should be less common, and some of the added buildings offer benefits that weren't available before so they should come at an additional cost.

- Agreed with Tigranes and others about the great new system for workshops and so on, it's awesome. It does however make the workshops quite strong compared to towns, perhaps too strong?

Really? You mean compared to Towns or any cottage improvement? Because I wouldn't think +2 hammers beats the extra commerce.

- I guess this is a general comment as well, not just related to this, but I think the AI is too prone to collapse. They don't understand stability, and I think the system should be less harsh. One of the reasons is that whenever there is a war, the AI will do what it can to capture all enemy cities, so in a lot of cases a war between Civ A and Civ B results in A collapsing because B took its cities, and then later on B will collapse as well of over-extension. Goes for indy/barb/native cities as well: the AI will capture them if they can, not understanding it may be bad for their stability. It's probably too big of a project to teach the AI stability (I guess, I'm not a programmer or anything) or not to capture cities outside their green areas, so maybe it should be considered to ease the stability hits they take. In general I'd wish for stability to be nerfed - I can't remember if it was you who once called it the crown jewel of RFC Leoreth, the stability system, in any case that may be true, but it's really the one thing that hinders my enjoyment of playing this game to constantly relate every decision and action to how it may effect the stability rating.

Not sure if I said that, but I consider UHVs to be the best element in RFC actually. But you're right, and there are a couple solutions to this problem:

a) teach the AI to avoid overexpanding: I have a couple of ideas for that in mind, but you're right that currently it's not the right time to get into that.
b) reduce stability penalties for the AI as you suggest
c) limit the effects of collapses

My plan is to try option (c) first, e.g. civs that are not yet past their historical fall date should not completely collapse, but only lose their ahistorical territory. The code for this is already in place, so it should be easy to only tweak a few rules to make this happen.

- (Playing as England) I founded protestantism and too the option to convert fully, however it's worded in-game, but I did not get the holy city. And nor did anyone else for that matter.
- It happened more than once that non-state religions spread to me even though I was running fanaticism. At first I thought it could have been an event for another civ, but it happened with judaism as well, which noone had as state religion.

Do you have saves for these? Also, have you observed the latter for any other religion besides Judaism? Judaism has a special scripted spread that ensures its presence in some European and Middle Eastern cities, it might just be that it doesn't take Fanaticism into account.

 

[Temujin8k]

Something I've noticed in almost all of my games at least since the hrtechs tree, though (not sure if I observed it on the old one too): The AI tends to build workshops on almost **every** city tile. Like,... I can rarely see them building cottages. Almost every tile without a resource has a workshop instead of something else.

 

[Leoreth]

The AI probably needs to learn to take health into account better.