New Version - 1.4.6 (February 18, 2022)

[danymatrix]

I don't know exactly. I heard that from few other modders.

But for sure this will mess up with many mods that are left without a master, but have worked so far. Not to mention I will have to update all of my mods :/

That is why my vote was not positive. It would affect my 200 mods. It would be the end of time. The total apocalypse (?).

On the other hand, it would be great to have a new version of VP with the fixes and improvements I've read about. thanks in advance.

 

[XSamatan]

For most mods it will be a one-line-change, that's not much work. You seem also to forget the upside - the consolidated VP will be much more user/modder-friendly and the team has fewer duplicate entries to worry about.

 

[adan_eslavo]

For most mods it will be a one-line-change, that's not much work. You seem also to forget the upside - the consolidated VP will be much more user/modder-friendly and the team has fewer duplicate entries to worry about.

My concern is, that it is bit too late. Many modders left the modding scene of VP/Civ5 and went to Civ 6 or even quit totally. Who will update and publish their mods? Me? You?

I can only suggest making a thread, pinned by the admins, where all old modmods will be gathered, and after update made by people, published in one list. @Recursive, what's your opinion on that?

I agree that such a drastic change is good and bad. Good from dev's perspective and bad from modders' one. Many people complain that VP changes things back and forth instead of making some "gold" version. I am in favour of what's @Recursive is doing to the AI, diplomacy and other hidden stuff. This is what we should focus. Not the constant balance updates of stuff that was changed thousands of times. We once talked about adding two new civilizations to the pool. But how we can do that, if we cannot balance existing ones for few years? Instead of adding new stuff we burried ourselves under the balancing blanket. This game cannot be balanced ideally, and maybe it's time to understand that. There're too many factors to apply.

I can only hope, that this change planned for v1.5 (is it right @Recursive?) will be last change from the hard cathegory. I'm not happy that I must update my modmods once and once again, because VP broke things up and users call me for help. The worst thing is I haven't played Civ5 for few years, because the stuff is changing all the time I wait for some stability.

And another hard pill to swallow is that because of your decisions another modder decided to leave the community. That's also bad new for me, because we cooperted well and my some good updates for my modmod as well as his stuff. Good luck bro.


Devs, change your game plan. Do not kill the modding community.


@pineappledan What do you think about all I wrote? We're in this for so long that I would like to hear your opinion.

 

[usadefcon1]

I'm totally for this game being updated ad infinitum, that's part of the fun!

When the new one comes out it should probably be called 2.0 so all modders know exactly when the great merge happened.

 

[Rekk]

Not the constant balance updates of stuff that was changed thousands of times. We once talked about adding two new civilizations to the pool. But how we can do that, if we cannot balance existing ones for few years? Instead of adding new stuff we burried ourselves under the balancing blanket. This game cannot be balanced ideally, and maybe it's time to understand that. There're too many factors to apply

You say this when nothing has changed balance-wise since October, and essentially nothing has been done with the polls. Ilteroi changed inquisitors on his own; Recursive moved Comanche Riders back one tech last tech, which was the easiest implementation out of that several-months-long discussion.

Even with Gazebo indisposed, the rest of the team has been reluctant to make any balance changes at all. Almost all updates have been towards fixing bugs and improving AI.

 

[pineappledan]

@pineappledan What do you think about all I wrote? We're in this for so long that I would like to hear your opinion.

The rate of changes to balance etc. has slowed down considerably in the last few patches, so I haven't had to do nearly as much updating as I once did.

Looking on a longer time frame, the last major round of balance changes was actually my doing. I created a large list of potential reworks for civs and polled the community for them. In the past, I have found that convincing the community to adopt balance changes is considerably less work than maintaining a mod with those changes in the long run. If the base VP is going to constantly be in a state of flux, there is an incentive to get your balance-changing modmods included as base content, so you don't have to keep updating them. This situation kind of pits modmodders against each other. As a result I can't help but feel responsible, in part, for AR's departure.

I will say, however, this constant need to control the conversation, and engage in rigorous polling and discussion is far preferable to the normal state of affairs pre-2020, where I found I was often reacting to balance changes that were mulled over in a single closed github ticket from 2 weeks ago, if they were discussed at all.

edit: that having been said, this new update is going to result in me having to re-post basically every single mod I maintain, just for compatibility. Not a fun exercise.

 

[amateurgamer88]

If the base VP is going to constantly be in a state of flux, there is an incentive to get your balance-changing modmods included as base content, so you don't have to keep updating them. This situation kind of pits modmodders against each other.

Sadly, this is the biggest challenge facing modmodders. Not all modmod ideas will be accepted by the entire community but they have their niches and can eventually develop into interesting ideas. I don't think it's healthy if modmodders are forced to see who can get their modmods included as base content. Of course, I agree that it's indeed much easier getting things into the base mod as opposed to constantly maintaining modmods with unexpected surprised every update. While changes to balance have slowed down the last couple of patches, there have been enough changes in the dll and files to have impact on modmods. Seemingly minor changes can have an impact depending on how mods are coded.

For instance, my mod is way too different to even get small parts of it into the base content. I've also fixed my number of issues that come up in patches and weren't there in previous patches. It does get frustrating fixing these issues when I would've preferred to spend that time for coding more. These moments feels like one step forward and two steps back. Given that we are going to have a big update coming, I am considering just staying on it. My mod is growing too big to constantly keep up with VP's monthly updates and issues aren't as apparent anymore. Maybe a gold version does eventually show up and I can then make my mod compatible to that. Until then, I think I'll spend more time modding and less time troubleshooting issues from new patches.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Not a fun exercise.

And not fun for all of the players who are posting these mods manually one at a time, for what it's worth. Unless I'm missing an automatic update through steam or something (I doubt I am tho).

 

[CppMaster]

The rate of changes to balance etc. has slowed down considerably in the last few patches, so I haven't had to do nearly as much updating as I once did.

Looking on a longer time frame, the last major round of balance changes was actually my doing. I created a large list of potential reworks for civs and polled the community for them. In the past, I have found that convincing the community to adopt balance changes is considerably less work than maintaining a mod with those changes in the long run. If the base VP is going to constantly be in a state of flux, there is an incentive to get your balance-changing modmods included as base content, so you don't have to keep updating them. This situation kind of pits modmodders against each other. As a result I can't help but feel responsible, in part, for AR's departure.

I will say, however, this constant need to control the conversation, and engage in rigorous polling and discussion is far preferable to the normal state of affairs pre-2020, where I found I was often reacting to balance changes that were mulled over in a single closed github ticket from 2 weeks ago, if they were discussed at all.

edit: that having been said, this new update is going to result in me having to re-post basically every single mod I maintain, just for compatibility. Not a fun exercise.

What if your 4UC mod would be included into the VP as an optional, additional part? Like:
(1) Community Patch
(2) Community Balance Overhaul
...
(8) Additional Unique Components

Would that make things easier?

 

[Rekk]

What if your 4UC mod would be included into the VP as an optional, additional part? Like:
(1) Community Patch
(2) Community Balance Overhaul
...
(8) Additional Unique Components

Would that make things easier?

Not exactly? Someone would needs to update the files when something changes. All this does is imply that the work doesn't need to be done by pineappledan.

 

[CppMaster]

Not exactly? Someone would needs to update the files when something changes. All this does is imply that the work doesn't need to be done by pineappledan.

Well, pineappledan could do it. Removing the constraint doesn't sound bad.

 

[jaymrobinson]

Want to give my thanks to the maintainers. VP is probably as stable as I've ever seen in. Played several games to the end now with no crashes. Overall feeling pretty good. One thing that felt frustrating is the production sabotage by spies starting in mid-game. I feel there should be more options to mitigate this, as it seems I was being sabotaged every 2-3 turns and wasn't able to build just about anything in many of my cities. This is even with full anti-spy measures including all the necessary buildings and Level 3 spies doing countermeasures (even the Great Firewall didn't seem to have much of an effect). I feel that the countermeasure spies should be much more effective in slowing this, have a better chance to kill the enemy spies, or have some other things you can specialize in to reduce the effect.

 

[balparmak]

Disrupt production action will be disabled in the next version, possibly until the espionage system gets reworked

 

[youngsteve]

That is nice to hear, as currently not playing with espionage on in recent games. So much more peaceful, though do miss spies, & damages nations like England.

 

[jaymrobinson]

Sabotage will be disabled in the next version, possibly until the espionage system gets reworked

Thanks for the response. I read through some other threads and it seems there is some negativity about the current espionage system with some people saying it should go back to the simple system it was before. I actually think it's much more interesting how it is now, it just needs some tweaks. For example, I think the production sabotage is a pretty cool mechanic, but there is really no downside to it as stands. If it had a much higher possibility to be killed for example, you could keep it as strong as it is currently.

 

[CppMaster]

Sabotage will be disabled in the next version, possibly until the espionage system gets reworked

Entire sabotage will be disabled? Only distruption of production is broken, no?

 

[balparmak]

Yeah only the disruption action, sorry for the confusion

 

[zeofig]

Not sure if this is fixed already or if it's really a big problem, but Suleiman was a bit too keen on the March+Medic combo. He would be a lot more effective without all that Medic II.

 

[YoullPay4ThisInTime]

Not sure if this is fixed already or if it's really a big problem, but Suleiman was a bit too keen on the March+Medic combo. He would be a lot more effective without all that Medic II.

Noticed that too on my previous game. Probably would be best to limit this one and most unit to "Medic I". Medic I goes quite well with march though so this is a sensible promotion strategy.

Also is my map generator completely stoned (Pangaea, all default, no relevant mods) or is RNGesus trying to tell me something ?