NiGHTS: General Discussion

[Balerune]

Arabia, immortal, sparse resources (I only had 2 wonders.) I had a lot of grassland so I built a lot of town halls and embassies. Is there a cap to the bonuses that town halls and embassies give to great people production and golden age lengths? It seemed that if I had tried harder to get wonders I could have had almost continuous golden ages and I'm not too sure that that wasn't what one of the AI (America) was doing (had 10 wonders.)

I got a science victory tho but they were well ahead on points.

 

[markusbeutel]

Do you still plan to integrate mods into CvN, like the diplomacy mod?

I do - I'll post a list of the mod components that will be included soon.

Arabia, immortal, sparse resources (I only had 2 wonders.) I had a lot of grassland so I built a lot of town halls and embassies. Is there a cap to the bonuses that town halls and embassies give to great people production and golden age lengths? It seemed that if I had tried harder to get wonders I could have had almost continuous golden ages and I'm not too sure that that wasn't what one of the AI (America) was doing (had 10 wonders.)

I got a science victory tho but they were well ahead on points.

Major Traits especially haven't been balanced with buildings/units yet, (Spiritual). I'll start a pass on this tonight and hopefully have a balance update released for Saturday.

 

[markusbeutel]

I'll be releasing a pretty large balance update later tonight. Almost every building in the game has been tweaked to some extent. The end result should hopefully be a much more stable AI economy, and a Player economy that isn't so over-powered in the early-mid game.

There will also be some minor changes regarding units, resources, traits, and pre-reqs for specific buildings. (Warriors will be obsoleted by Bronze Working and not Archery so there's never the occasion where you can't actually take an enemy city early on).

EDIT: v8.9e Released to CivFanatics/Downloads/Modpacks

Changelog:
Virtually all buildings have been tweaked for balance.
Maintenance costs lowered, especially towards the later eras.
Gold yields from buildings reduced.
Warriors obsoleted by Bronze Working instead of Archery.
Fixed bug where the Charismatic trait was actually reducing Stablity instead of giving a bonus.
Fixed Hiawatha's Trait bug where it was displaying the Expansive Trait when he was actually Charismatic.
Removed Merchants being trained through Markets/Banks, (Vanilla GP are only available through Wonders).
Increased the AI's flavors for Policies and Buildings that focus on Gold.
Added maintenance to some buildings that didn't have any but were/are supposed to, (Assembly Line).
Numerous tool-tip text fixes.

This version should see the AI become much more competent with managing their economy.

 

[Tayran]

Where can I see what major and minor trait each civ has?

 

[Balerune]

Banks and Markets are generating great people -- great merchants instead of the tile improvements specialists.

I thought I had a good game as England but India built the UN and 2 moves later had 13 votes.

 

[Oohforf]

Why don't you just create a list of the things that will be added and changed in v9, on the front page of this thread, and update it from time to time? There is QUITE a lot from what I have read.

You have until June/July until the second part of the huge patch is released, so you have a while to add some more features.

 

[markusbeutel]

Where can I see what major and minor trait each civ has?

I haven't added a separate UI that distinguishes them yet - for now the Major Trait is always the top trait, and the Minor Trait is always the one below it.

Banks and Markets are generating great people -- great merchants instead of the tile improvements specialists.

I thought I had a good game as England but India built the UN and 2 moves later had 13 votes.

I caught this as well. I fixed it in a quick re-upload last night.

Why don't you just create a list of the things that will be added and changed in v9, on the front page of this thread, and update it from time to time? There is QUITE a lot from what I have read.

You have until June/July until the second part of the huge patch is released, so you have a while to add some more features.

Good idea Oohforf - makes sense to have everything in one place and not have to page through various posts looking for update info. I'll post a list sometime this weekend. There's no ETA yet - but the mod is going to be quite a bit deeper - hopefully not too much more micro-management though.

I've re-uploaded a version to CivFanatics/Downloads - no significant changes in this one, I haven't given it a new number/letter in the update hierarchy. There's mainly some tool-tip text fixes for Diplomacy modifiers and buildings. It shouldn't cause any problems with any saved games for anyone who downloads it. I've also updated the front page of this thread - it hadn't been updated in quite awhile - for anyone that's new to the mod.

Quick update on v9. There are going to be around 15-20 new units in the game. These units will all factor in from the Ancient-Renaissance era's. Many of these units will also be able to build unique improvements, (akin to the Roman Legion - but their improvements won't be as powerful as those of the new specialists and they will be focused on normal terrain, and not resources).

 

[Balerune]

I have two questions.

With resources no longer as important for stability, of what use are they in trade?

Secondly even in vanilla civ5 trading was not as good as in civ4 but they had fixed the AI to an extent with an early patch where if you traded a resource you got gpt and it would increase iirc depending on the use to the AI. I find that if I want to trade with an AI I only get bulk gold (usually 10) and open borders or worse. Is there any chance to made trading with the AI of more value (as an income stream and/or a sign of friendship) or interesting?

These are minor points. The job you have done with this mod is A1. Thanks.

 

[markusbeutel]

I have two questions.

With resources no longer as important for stability, of what use are they in trade?

Secondly even in vanilla civ5 trading was not as good as in civ4 but they had fixed the AI to an extent with an early patch where if you traded a resource you got gpt and it would increase iirc depending on the use to the AI. I find that if I want to trade with an AI I only get bulk gold (usually 10) and open borders or worse. Is there any chance to made trading with the AI of more value (as an income stream and/or a sign of friendship) or interesting?

These are minor points. The job you have done with this mod is A1. Thanks.

Resources will play an important role in the function of guild and culture victories in the next major update. I'd probably argue that they'll be even more important with their new functions as when they were purely stability/happiness boosters.

I haven't adjusted any of the AI's trading habits in NiGHTS, but I'll look into ways of making Diplomacy/Trading more interesting and varied after I release v9.

V9 Update:

Here's a list of new Techs that will be making an appearance in the next update. Most, if not all, have been in previous versions of Civilization. For the most part, they'll be replacing later-era techs leading up to Industrialization => which will function as the new Future Tech. Again, future updates will expand the Tech Pyramid to include all deleted techs and usher in much larger industrial/modern/future eras.

The reason for these changes is pretty simple: I don't think units from era's in the current version of NiGHTS and Vanilla CIV V last long enough. That is, they are quickly made obsolete by newer units - and the game becomes more of a Tech Race for the latest and greatest, as opposed to a historical/tactical simulation of era-specific wars. V9 will attempt to levy this with wars that actually feel historically accurate, (as accurate as wars can feel while playing a hex-based strategy game with mediocre AI ). This means Knights vs Knights and not Knights vs Tanks.

That being said, I'm not going to be neglecting the builder side of the game either. There will a multitude of new buildings incorporated into v9 which will tie in to resources/culture/guilds in new and exciting ways. My goal is for city-specialization to really come to the forefront, and building every single building in every one of your cities will be a lot more difficult than it currently is without proper planning.

Added Techs

• Warrior Code
• Physics
• Alchemy
• Invention
• Cartography
• Economics
• Nationalism
• Literature
• Drama
• Music
• Sanitation
• Trade
• Code of Laws
• Meditation
• Black Powder
• Tactics
• Industrialization

 

[Oohforf]

Resources will play an important role in the function of guild and culture victories in the next major update. I'd probably argue that they'll be even more important with their new functions as when they were purely stability/happiness boosters.

I haven't adjusted any of the AI's trading habits in NiGHTS, but I'll look into ways of making Diplomacy/Trading more interesting and varied after I release v9.

V9 Update:

Here's a list of new Techs that will be making an appearance in the next update. Most, if not all, have been in previous versions of Civilization. For the most part, they'll be replacing later-era techs leading up to Industrialization => which will function as the new Future Tech. Again, future updates will expand the Tech Pyramid to include all deleted techs and usher in much larger industrial/modern/future eras.

The reason for these changes is pretty simple: I don't think units from era's in the current version of NiGHTS and Vanilla CIV V last long enough. That is, they are quickly made obsolete by newer units - and the game becomes more of a Tech Race for the latest and greatest, as opposed to a historical/tactical simulation of era-specific wars. V9 will attempt to levy this with wars that actually feel historically accurate, (as accurate as wars can feel while playing a hex-based strategy game with mediocre AI ). This means Knights vs Knights and not Knights vs Tanks.

That being said, I'm not going to be neglecting the builder side of the game either. There will a multitude of new buildings incorporated into v9 which will tie in to resources/culture/guilds in new and exciting ways. My goal is for city-specialization to really come to the forefront, and building every single building in every one of your cities will be a lot more difficult than it currently is without proper planning.

Added Techs

• Warrior Code
• Physics
• Alchemy
• Invention
• Cartography
• Economics
• Nationalism
• Literature
• Drama
• Music
• Sanitation
• Trade
• Code of Laws
• Meditation
• Black Powder
• Tactics
• Industrialization

That's actually a lot of techs you got there for those eras. Do you mind telling us which eras they will be in?

I'm interested in that Cartography tech. Will it include things such as trading maps like in Civ IV? People would LOVE you for returning that.

 

[Karantaner]

I'm new to this mod and first of all I would like to say: GREAT WORK!

But i do have some questions, perhabs someone can help me out:
- is there any building which removes the unrest from occupied cities? As I learned the courthouse has a different funtion in this mod.
- there seems to be a minor bug with the grain harvester. if you build the improvement with the grain harvester on wheat which already has a farm, then the wheat symbol disapears. It return after reloading the game.
- I didn't quite understand the cultural victory: I have to finish all policies (6) of a government, e.g. monarchy before the next level government, e.g. feudalism, becomes available - even if I do not adopt it, right? I'm asking because first I thought I just have to finish one government tree and then build the utopia project. But after finishing monarchy, there was no project to build..

In general, my first game with this mod is very entertaining - I just conquered all cities of crazy Montezuma

 

[Balerune]

I'm new to this mod and first of all I would like to say: GREAT WORK!

But i do have some questions, perhabs someone can help me out:
- is there any building which removes the unrest from occupied cities? As I learned the courthouse has a different funtion in this mod.
- there seems to be a minor bug with the grain harvester. if you build the improvement with the grain harvester on wheat which already has a farm, then the wheat symbol disapears. It return after reloading the game.
- I didn't quite understand the cultural victory: I have to finish all policies (6) of a government, e.g. monarchy before the next level government, e.g. feudalism, becomes available - even if I do not adopt it, right? I'm asking because first I thought I just have to finish one government tree and then build the utopia project. But after finishing monarchy, there was no project to build..

In general, my first game with this mod is very entertaining - I just conquered all cities of crazy Montezuma

Jails reduce unrest from occupied cities.

The grain fields bug is a strange one as he has the correct coding but the pic still disappears, but will reappear on reload.

I have only done a cultural victory on are earlier version -- someone else might have better information -- I believe (as it stands now) you have to adopt the government, e.g. monarchy and complete all the policies and sub-policies of the tree; you then get a chance to build the utopia project.

 

[markusbeutel]

That's actually a lot of techs you got there for those eras. Do you mind telling us which eras they will be in?

I'm interested in that Cartography tech. Will it include things such as trading maps like in Civ IV? People would LOVE you for returning that.

I'm currently slotting them all into current eras right now - I'll post a list/screenshot when completed. Unfortunately, trading maps is probably not going to be an option. I haven't looked into how this might work with lua, (although I'll give it a shot), but as far as basic xml goes, this wouldn't be possible. Cartography will probably function the same way Satellites do in the current version while also adding some sort of bonus to various discovered land types.

I'm new to this mod and first of all I would like to say: GREAT WORK!

But i do have some questions, perhabs someone can help me out:
- is there any building which removes the unrest from occupied cities? As I learned the courthouse has a different funtion in this mod.
- there seems to be a minor bug with the grain harvester. if you build the improvement with the grain harvester on wheat which already has a farm, then the wheat symbol disapears. It return after reloading the game.
- I didn't quite understand the cultural victory: I have to finish all policies (6) of a government, e.g. monarchy before the next level government, e.g. feudalism, becomes available - even if I do not adopt it, right? I'm asking because first I thought I just have to finish one government tree and then build the utopia project. But after finishing monarchy, there was no project to build..

In general, my first game with this mod is very entertaining - I just conquered all cities of crazy Montezuma

In earlier versions of the mod the Jail did function as a courthouse - but with the amount Stability that is available through population, I had to reduce this to a +1 Stability per Population up to 5 Population mecahnic, (at a cost to your culture in whichever cities you build one in).

The Government system is getting an overhaul in the next major update. They will function more like Civics from IV with each Government being mutually exclusive. I avoided this in the current and previous versions of NiGHTS because of the Culture/Utopia element involved. Mutually exclusive Government wouldn't exactly work when going for a Culture win and I didn't want to limit this victory type. That being said, The Utopia project wont be attached to policies anymore in v9.

I did have a look through my XML for inconsistencies, (due to the fact you're new to the mod and shouldn't be getting any conflicts with Utopia not activating), and actually found that I had removed the tag that set a culture win to needing 1 active branch. (This was because I've merged some files with the current build with files from v9). I'll upload a new version in a few minutes here that corrects this so that unlocking a full branch, (Ruling + District Policies), unlocks Utopia.

The grain fields bug is a strange one as he has the correct coding but the pic still disappears, but will reappear on reload.

It's a strange bug. I tried using the Plantation graphic as well instead of the farm graphic - but still, no dice. For some reason the game bugs up when trying to add existing graphics for a new improvement on the Grain resource.

I have only done a cultural victory on are earlier version -- someone else might have better information -- I believe (as it stands now) you have to adopt the government, e.g. monarchy and complete all the policies and sub-policies of the tree; you then get a chance to build the utopia project.

Beat me to it.

EDIT: Updated.

 

[looorg]

The weird thing about the grain bug is that it doesn't happen all the time. It's just "sometimes". First I thought it had something to do with the type of ground it was one but then I sort of ruled that out since it kept happening sometimes and then another time it was fine.

Tried the latest build a bit today, AI still runs in the red and dont really properly develop early on. Their lands, I didn't check all but the couple that was close to be had their lands flooded with specialists (doing nothing, as per usual) and a bunch of troops. So they do build buildings but they just dont use the specialists properly. They did use them to settle with previously but since that option is gone they just move them around a bit.

 

[markusbeutel]

The weird thing about the grain bug is that it doesn't happen all the time. It's just "sometimes". First I thought it had something to do with the type of ground it was one but then I sort of ruled that out since it kept happening sometimes and then another time it was fine.

Tried the latest build a bit today, AI still runs in the red and dont really properly develop early on. Their lands, I didn't check all but the couple that was close to be had their lands flooded with specialists (doing nothing, as per usual) and a bunch of troops. So they do build buildings but they just dont use the specialists properly. They did use them to settle with previously but since that option is gone they just move them around a bit.

Hmm - what game speed do you play on looorg? I've reduced the rate at which the AI builds specialists but most of my testing is done on standard maps/speed. If this continues, what I'll do is add the ability for new specialists to build regular improvements, (which will use them up in the same way as special improvements). This might actually help the AI quite a bit as they're not especially quick on upgrading their farmlands/mines to begin with.

EDIT: Actually, I'm adding this right now. Not sure why I've never thought to take this route as opposed to just changing AI flavors. Thanks for the inspiration looorg. This will be added to an update for later tonight.

 

[looorg]

Always on Marathon speed. Turning them into proper workers, or that build some improvement and then "die" might do the trick. Could be worth trying anyway. Atleast better then now. But ofcause the best would be if the AI could actually understand and use specialist properly but quite clearly that just doesn't seem to be in the game so it might be to much to hope for.

 

[markusbeutel]

Always on Marathon speed. Turning them into proper workers, or that build some improvement and then "die" might do the trick. Could be worth trying anyway. Atleast better then now. But ofcause the best would be if the AI could actually understand and use specialist properly but quite clearly that just doesn't seem to be in the game so it might be to much to hope for.

That's the main problem - without dll access, I can't change the AI's weighting of specific tasks, so they will build new specialists regardless if they have the resources required for their improvements.

Playing Marathon though, that's what's adding to the problem of the specialists being spammed - as this has been largely reigned in on standard speed. I don't want to adjust flavors any more as it would make gameplay unbalanced for quick/standard and I think more people play that than Marathon - (although i could be wrong here).

I'll probably end up making a few new improvements that don't require specific resources to be built and use up the worker in the process. I'd let them build regular improvements, but this won't reduce their numbers at all, just their productivity.

 

[Fruscainte]

Do I keep both Civilization NiGHTS (v. 26) and CIVILIZATIONNiGHTS (v. 8) on at once, or just the second one?

 

[markusbeutel]

Do I keep both Civilization NiGHTS (v. 26) and CIVILIZATIONNiGHTS (v. 8) on at once, or just the second one?

v. 26 - That's very old. This mod's gone through quite a few variations where major gameplay changes were introduced.

During one of my builds, Modbuddy broke the ID number of the mod itself, so I wasn't able to carry one from v26 and I started over again at v1. (This was when the new specialists were introduced).

V8.9e is the latest update here on Civfanatics/Downloads/Modpacks. You should definitely delete v26, as having both of those installed will only cause problems.

 

[Balerune]

...

... AI still runs in the red and dont really properly develop early on. Their lands, I didn't check all but the couple that was close to be had their lands flooded with specialists (doing nothing, as per usual) and a bunch of troops. So they do build buildings but they just dont use the specialists properly. They did use them to settle with previously but since that option is gone they just move them around a bit.

I play on immortal normal speed not marathon and I find that their gold and development ability seem to depend on the terrain and their starting position. Most games I've had they seem to do well (sometimes gold in hand of >100k); this last game (which I aborted as I didn't want to try for a science victory again) Spain didn't expand, got a settler captured by barbs early on and I don't think they liked the desert, only Rome was in the red, but Ottomans and Iroquois were both running surpluses and had @ 35k gold in hand each.

I only got a good look at Rome and they did have specialists lying around but I think it was worse in earlier versions.