NiGHTS: General Discussion

[markusbeutel]

V9 Update

The Bad News: So it goes without saying that I won't be releasing V9 until after the patch is released as it's going to do quite a number on it based on the list of balance fixes, new policies, new tech connections, and new resources.

The Good News: I've finally finished adding all of the Buildings, Policies, Techs, and Units to the update. Now I need to start working on the UI side of things - tooltips, fonts, layouts, buttons - that sort of thing. Overall, progress is probably around 60%.

I'll try to get around posting a list of new Units/Buildings in the coming days, but for now - here's how everything breaks down.

Policies: 100+ (plus the new finisher policies that I'll have to adjust to fit with Governments).
Buildings: 150
Units: 75 (includes workers/settlers)
Wonders: 50
Techs: 110

The Future Age goes pretty deep in V9 and it will be impossible to research every Tech in the game. Likewise it will not be possible to build every building/unit in the game as their will be numerous instances of mutual exclusivity. This should all lead to increased replayability - and each game should feel very different from the last.

Also, all Civ's will adopt a Government at the very beginning of the game w/o having to first build up culture. This is to offset some Civ's starting the game with a Culture advantage over others and is also to correlate with how Governments and Culture wins are going to work, (more on this later).

Resources will also function differently in regards to terrain. Part of the reason why CIV V maps feel bland in comparison to CIV IV maps, (besides the lower yields), is that resources have been much more limited to specific terrain types. This was done so that a Civ like Russia would have access to resources like Deer, (only available on Tundra), while other Civ's would alternatively have access to Cow, based on their start biases.

Seeing as I've removed start biases, (every Civ instead now starts next to a river to promote equal opportunity growth), resources also have been adjusted accordingly. A far greater variety of resources will result on multiple terrain types, and terrain types in general will be much more interspersed. For example, Jungle was only ever previously on Plains, while now it will also be on Grasslands. Overall, expect a much more varied and diverse map. And on that note - only bonus resources will be initially visible on the world map - while luxury resources will be tied to specific Tech's that will unlock them.

The mod's also now getting up there in size, (around 10MB), so hopefully I don't run into any upload problems with ModBuddy...

 

[thadian]

this is great news! One thing that bothers me about specialist buildings is that i can build them in cities that have no access to the resource it claims OR builds a specialist for - and i almost wish some buildings, maybe stable for example, consumed a unit of its resources.

I love pretty much everything about this mod, as ive said - this IS my civ 5 experience. I advise you make advanced buildings not display until its basic is built. For example, I can build a trading post without having built a tannery - i shouldn't even SEE it until i do. It's more like a suprise that i can upgrade a building with an "addition" to keep it contempeorary and specialized. This is a great example because tannery has maintenance costs - offset by the upgrade.

I also feel that certain tiles are virtually worthless in every regard because i can't put trading posts on them when i realized my worthless sheperd could settle a "town" - it would be great if this unique improvement could get district policies to upgrade it. in fact, just remove trading post and replace its district upgrades to towns so we have a way to usefully burn our specialists AND get the feel of civ 4 cottages by their "district policy growth".

About jungles: sometimes i really prefer NOT cutting them and it hurts when iron appears on a vanilla tile under a jungle. same with cows or wheat.

On hidden resources: I don't know if i like this, i would be irked not knowing weather my map has viable luxuries. For instance, i want to know if i have horses, cows, gems and marble before wasting time on animal husbandry, mining and masonry.

Lastly: The tech, Archery says it grants entrance to the classical age and it doesn't - maybe it did at one time and was moved?

 

[Cross Cowboy]

Any idea when the new patch for Civ 5 will be and then how long you might need before you release your patch for your mod? Im excited about what Ive read and just cant wait much longer...I have a bday on July 4th if you want to release it then lol!

 

[markusbeutel]

this is great news! One thing that bothers me about specialist buildings is that i can build them in cities that have no access to the resource it claims OR builds a specialist for - and i almost wish some buildings, maybe stable for example, consumed a unit of its resources.

I love pretty much everything about this mod, as ive said - this IS my civ 5 experience. I advise you make advanced buildings not display until its basic is built. For example, I can build a trading post without having built a tannery - i shouldn't even SEE it until i do. It's more like a suprise that i can upgrade a building with an "addition" to keep it contempeorary and specialized. This is a great example because tannery has maintenance costs - offset by the upgrade.

I also feel that certain tiles are virtually worthless in every regard because i can't put trading posts on them when i realized my worthless sheperd could settle a "town" - it would be great if this unique improvement could get district policies to upgrade it. in fact, just remove trading post and replace its district upgrades to towns so we have a way to usefully burn our specialists AND get the feel of civ 4 cottages by their "district policy growth".

About jungles: sometimes i really prefer NOT cutting them and it hurts when iron appears on a vanilla tile under a jungle. same with cows or wheat.

On hidden resources: I don't know if i like this, i would be irked not knowing weather my map has viable luxuries. For instance, i want to know if i have horses, cows, gems and marble before wasting time on animal husbandry, mining and masonry.

Lastly: The tech, Archery says it grants entrance to the classical age and it doesn't - maybe it did at one time and was moved?

Hidden resources are 50/50 right now - (still deciding if I'll feature them or not). On the one hand, I like making Tech's feel more unique with resources unlocked through them, but on the other hand, I don't like how the world map feels sparse when luxuries aren't all revealed at the onset of a game...

As far as unique improvements - I'm rethinking these as well. With the list of new additions getting pretty large at this point for V9, I may initially leave out custom improvements/workers and revert to tile yields more along the lines of CIV IV where regular worker improvements actually feel like improvements. If I take this route, then vanilla farms/mines would yield +1 Production or +1 Food, while when built on top of a resource, they would yield an immediate +3 (food, production, or gold).

I'm also playing around with .lua to see if I can get cottages back into the game a la CIV IV where they upgrade over time... Also, I'm working on a pollution and corruption mechanic that, (I'm hoping) feels strategic rather than punishing - but I'll have to see if what I've got so far is affected by the upcoming patch.

Some of the text in V8.9 is incorrect and I haven't updated it as it's just going to be updated again in v9 - nice find though, I thought I had all the era's correctly labeled.

Any idea when the new patch for Civ 5 will be and then how long you might need before you release your patch for your mod? Im excited about what Ive read and just cant wait much longer...I have a bday on July 4th if you want to release it then lol!

Late June or early July seems to be what Firaxis is going with in regards to the ETA for the next patch. I think I should have V9 finished around the end of June, and then it's just a matter of weeding out the bugs that the patch will inflict. Previous patches have had done varying degrees of damage to NiGHTS and it's taken me anywhere from 1 day to 2 weeks to fix things in the past. This patch also introduces some new things like the Stone resource that I'll probably manipulate for NiGHTS as well, (by making it a strategic resource instead of a bonus resource). I'd say there's an outside shot of completion by July 4th if everything runs flawlessly...

 

[thadian]

I wish goody huts either gave you a choice within certain peramaters:

"You discovered survivors lost in the ruins!"
"A: Survivors become a warrior"
"B: Survivors settle in Capital"

or

"You discovered many writings at an ancient gathering site!"
"A: Gain 50 Culture"
"B: Gain 50 Beakers".

How about "items" like boots that give +1 movement or a "weapon" that gives "+1 attack". anyone remember Fall Further?

Items would be "droppable" on the hex or on a hex next to it or "picked up", and no unit may have more than one item of the same type. (one weapon, one armor).

Lairs. Lairs were like ancient ruins. Only they didn't "pop" but you clicked a button to pop them and it gave you one of several option/events from random exp, damage or an item to a monster ambush or appearing at another random lair.

Lastly, early resources feel less good hidden because weather to keep or re-roll a start is in part based on this knowledge. However, with stone entering the game you could make marble hidden until construction to represent that ancient people used stone for wonder building or possibly as a strategic resource for catapualts and trebuchets.

however, there is nothing wrong with making a few luxuries hidden as long as it were done in a way that doesn't leave the opening map empty. as a final note, its annoying to learn later you borked a city spot, settling on a hidden resource of any kind. i would only ever settle on an iron or a grassland cow as far as resources go.

 

[markusbeutel]

I wish goody huts either gave you a choice within certain peramaters:

"You discovered survivors lost in the ruins!"
"A: Survivors become a warrior"
"B: Survivors settle in Capital"

or

"You discovered many writings at an ancient gathering site!"
"A: Gain 50 Culture"
"B: Gain 50 Beakers".

How about "items" like boots that give +1 movement or a "weapon" that gives "+1 attack". anyone remember Fall Further?

Items would be "droppable" on the hex or on a hex next to it or "picked up", and no unit may have more than one item of the same type. (one weapon, one armor).

Lairs. Lairs were like ancient ruins. Only they didn't "pop" but you clicked a button to pop them and it gave you one of several option/events from random exp, damage or an item to a monster ambush or appearing at another random lair.

Lastly, early resources feel less good hidden because weather to keep or re-roll a start is in part based on this knowledge. However, with stone entering the game you could make marble hidden until construction to represent that ancient people used stone for wonder building or possibly as a strategic resource for catapualts and trebuchets.

however, there is nothing wrong with making a few luxuries hidden as long as it were done in a way that doesn't leave the opening map empty. as a final note, its annoying to learn later you borked a city spot, settling on a hidden resource of any kind. i would only ever settle on an iron or a grassland cow as far as resources go.

I've actually thought about somehow adding items to the game - I think it's a safe bet that at some point in the next few months this will happen. Obtaining them through goody huts would be an interesting addition.

I agree with you that it is incredibly annoying when resources pop up underneath City tiles, so to that end - I've also reconsidered my feelings on luxuries being hidden - they'll be visible in V9. They will also be worth a considerable amount of Happiness/Stability, more-so than in Vanilla CIV V - as I'm currently retooling the entire system in regards to what produces Happiness/Stability, (and by how much).

So far, this is how Happiness/Stability is breaking down:

You start the game with +25 across all game settings.

• Each City costs (-15) (for a normalized start value of +10).
• Each Military Unit costs (-5).
• Each Citizen produces (+1).
• Each Luxury produces (+10).
• Each additional Luxury, (of the same type), produces (+5).

From my early testing, this system also adds a layer of strategy/planning in regards to building units vs building cities in the early eras that's interesting to play around with and changes quite a bit from game to game based on luxury availability and variety.

Policies and Buildings also grant Happiness/Stability bonuses. So far, the AI seems competent with these values. My main goal here is to increase the value of Luxuries make trading with the AI an important facet of the game. I still want your citizens to produce Happiness/Stabilty, but I don't want that to be where the majority it comes from.

Cities also now cost more relative to other values - and this is to minimize early City spam that currently favors the Human in V8.9 as the AI will invariably, (at least on Standard/Standard), wait until at least Turn 40 before building it's second City.

Also, I don't want to add any sort of micro to Military Units - by that I mean, when upgrading units, I don't want math to come into the equation, (how much more/less will this cost, etc). Units costs a flat (-5) Happiness/Stability across the board - and stronger units will offset the equal opportunity costs by requiring more/varied strategic resources to be built. I'm also working on a conscription mechanic that I'll talk more about at a later date.

Strategic Resources in V9 will include Cotton, (for specialized wooden ships), and Stone, (for various early ancient/classical units). I was planning on adding Bronze/Copper, but I have a feeling that with the arrival of Stone, Bronze/Copper will eventually make it's way back into the game on it's own. I may also remove the ability to purchase tiles from the game. I've always felt that this devalued culture to some extent...

 

[thadian]

also i think the more math in an althagrim the more mess and processing that happens through attrition, i wish it was just a 1d20+ series of modifiers/penalties type of system

 

[Strategist83]

Greetings, I just downloaded the mod on Thadian's suggestion and I am thoroughly impressed. This mod leaves an impression of extreme professionalism and attention to detail. I plan to delve into this at least until the upcoming patch is released which I obviously will have to check out.

Thanks for making this available, Beutel!

Now, I have a question: I Only loaded up a quick game of NIGHTS so I haven't really gotten into it that much. But one thing that struck me as conspicuous is the specialist system. My question is, not having done the math on it: Is it really worthwhile to take the time to develop specialists for all these resources - sheep, cattle, dyes, banana etc etc etc when you can alternatively just build on them the 'normal' way? Granted, I wasn't playing as a philosophical civ but I got the impression you've built this in-depth specialist system which I unfortunately wouldn't be making much use of as it seemed better to more or less just ignore the specialists and build the 'normal' way. With so many specialist improvements possible, if one plans to create them all, specialist costs are going to get awfully high even if they seem to increase in cost much more slowly than in vanilla CiV. Are specialists really so powerful they're worth sacrificing working the land and slowing your growth just to get their special improvements?

Thanks again for what appears to be an absolutely superb mod!

 

[markusbeutel]

also i think the more math in an althagrim the more mess and processing that happens through attrition, i wish it was just a 1d20+ series of modifiers/penalties type of system

Agreed.

Greetings, I just downloaded the mod on Thadian's suggestion and I am thoroughly impressed. This mod leaves an impression of extreme professionalism and attention to detail. I plan to delve into this at least until the upcoming patch is released which I obviously will have to check out.

Thanks for making this available, Beutel!

Now, I have a question: I Only loaded up a quick game of NIGHTS so I haven't really gotten into it that much. But one thing that struck me as conspicuous is the specialist system. My question is, not having done the math on it: Is it really worthwhile to take the time to develop specialists for all these resources - sheep, cattle, dyes, banana etc etc etc when you can alternatively just build on them the 'normal' way? Granted, I wasn't playing as a philosophical civ but I got the impression you've built this in-depth specialist system which I unfortunately wouldn't be making much use of as it seemed better to more or less just ignore the specialists and build the 'normal' way. With so many specialist improvements possible, if one plans to create them all, specialist costs are going to get awfully high even if they seem to increase in cost much more slowly than in vanilla CiV. Are specialists really so powerful they're worth sacrificing working the land and slowing your growth just to get their special improvements?

Thanks again for what appears to be an absolutely superb mod!

Thanks Strategist83 - as for specialists, they're more or less an early feature of the mod that's sort of evolved over time. They used to be much more prominent but have been scaled back over various updates. They'll be trimmed down even further in the next release as the focus of the mod is taking on a larger scope, (units/buildings/governments).

In their current form - it's true that costs do ramp up, although at a far slower pace than in vanilla CIV V. I'd say the ones focused on food improvements are probably worth it early on while specialists focused on gold/production are more stop-gap units that should be trained when you have the means/population.

 

[Cross Cowboy]

The only issue I have with removing the ability to purchase tiles is that I dont like how the computer decides which ones to buy. Say, I have a city near gold, iron, or a flood plain. Whats to stop the ai from using my culture on the flood plain, leaving me out of the gold or iron? If we have the option to choose, then I would say removing the ability to purchase tiles is ok. Otherwise, it could be possible that we would have to wait very long periods of time while the AI decides what is important to us, which I dont like. I want to decide what my city has...not the AI. Any chance on the ability for us to choose the tile when we culture up?

 

[thadian]

My question is, not having done the math on it: Is it really worthwhile to take the time to develop specialists for all these resources - sheep, cattle, dyes, banana etc etc etc when you can alternatively just build on them the 'normal' way?

On your district policies, there are 2 routes: If you do it the normal way, you can use policies to give bonuses to these improvements like pastures, farms and mines. Otherwise, there are buildings that give bonuses to the "special" ones and those buildings can also be improved in this way.

The specialists don't give culture, gold, hammers or anything else but they can be used to create a "town" improvement. i wish this could be enhanced through social policies but to my knowledge there is no way right now.

And i agree with cross cowboy for civ in general - i wish i could "direct" the tile/hex i want my culture to expand to. not only does this let the player and AI's have another ground to fight on (in terms of flavor) but it lets you feel like your really customizing where your cities expand to which most leaders did.

 

[markusbeutel]

The only issue I have with removing the ability to purchase tiles is that I dont like how the computer decides which ones to buy. Say, I have a city near gold, iron, or a flood plain. Whats to stop the ai from using my culture on the flood plain, leaving me out of the gold or iron? If we have the option to choose, then I would say removing the ability to purchase tiles is ok. Otherwise, it could be possible that we would have to wait very long periods of time while the AI decides what is important to us, which I dont like. I want to decide what my city has...not the AI. Any chance on the ability for us to choose the tile when we culture up?

On your district policies, there are 2 routes: If you do it the normal way, you can use policies to give bonuses to these improvements like pastures, farms and mines. Otherwise, there are buildings that give bonuses to the "special" ones and those buildings can also be improved in this way.

The specialists don't give culture, gold, hammers or anything else but they can be used to create a "town" improvement. i wish this could be enhanced through social policies but to my knowledge there is no way right now.

And i agree with cross cowboy for civ in general - i wish i could "direct" the tile/hex i want my culture to expand to. not only does this let the player and AI's have another ground to fight on (in terms of flavor) but it lets you feel like your really customizing where your cities expand to which most leaders did.

Directing your culture is what I would prefer as well - I remember when I first tried CIV V I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out why I couldn't do this as it seemed like the most natural and logical method. I imagine it wouldn't be easy to program this in .lua, but I'll take a look and see if there's a way.

 

[ComradeKristov]

I hope you don't give up being able to buy tiles, I quite like it as I use that ability to block off large swaths of land from the AI by buying 2-3 tiles between cities. I wouldn't like the human to be able to choose what tile via culture they get next, we are too much smarter than the AI, so we should play at a fair level. I can't wait for the new mod to come out!!! Looks even beter than it did before and thats saying something.

 

[Cross Cowboy]

We maybe smarter than the AI, but once you start getting 10+ cities, would we really want to micromanage each of them? I only brought this up, because of the talks of removing the buying of tiles. I personally like the ability and use it much like you do, to cut off the AI, but also use it when I want a resource. I dont even know if its possible to change the game to allow us to pick the tiles, but if buying is removed it would be nice to have this.

 

[thadian]

I wouldn't remove BUYING - that removes player freedom of gold-spending.

I hope my many proposals and ideas arent too ambitous or unworkable - this is already a great mod that can only get better and better.

 

[Strategist83]

I'd have to advice against the removal of purchasing as well - at least until they fix the culture expansion algorithm. The game discriminates heavily against water tiles, so without being able to buy it will be too difficult in many cases to unlock fish tiles.

I've got quite a few suggestions now that I've played the mod for a bit, but I'll wait till having seen your next version to post it as it sounds like a major update.

 

[dasvidania]

I have got only Mongolian DLC , i have to disable anything for this mod ?

 

[markusbeutel]

I hope you don't give up being able to buy tiles, I quite like it as I use that ability to block off large swaths of land from the AI by buying 2-3 tiles between cities. I wouldn't like the human to be able to choose what tile via culture they get next, we are too much smarter than the AI, so we should play at a fair level. I can't wait for the new mod to come out!!! Looks even beter than it did before and thats saying something.

My reasoning in removing the ability was that it seems that it's more of an exploit rather than a feature - in that we take advantage of the ability to a far greater extent than the AI ever does. But I understand that it's inclusion is mainly to offset the unpredictable nature of getting cultured tiles.

We maybe smarter than the AI, but once you start getting 10+ cities, would we really want to micromanage each of them? I only brought this up, because of the talks of removing the buying of tiles. I personally like the ability and use it much like you do, to cut off the AI, but also use it when I want a resource. I dont even know if its possible to change the game to allow us to pick the tiles, but if buying is removed it would be nice to have this.

If I can't add the ability to direct cultured tiles I'll keep the buying mechanic in the game.

I wouldn't remove BUYING - that removes player freedom of gold-spending.

I hope my many proposals and ideas arent too ambitous or unworkable - this is already a great mod that can only get better and better.

That's a good point. Personally, I think it would be interesting if you could pay to direct which tiles are going to be gained through culture acquisition, but this would be incredibly difficult to code...

I'd have to advice against the removal of purchasing as well - at least until they fix the culture expansion algorithm. The game discriminates heavily against water tiles, so without being able to buy it will be too difficult in many cases to unlock fish tiles.

I've got quite a few suggestions now that I've played the mod for a bit, but I'll wait till having seen your next version to post it as it sounds like a major update.

I agree - the game doesn't really deal well with the acquisition of water tiles. I'll probably keep the buying mechanic in the game but tweak the algorithm so it at least puts some semblance of value on water tiles.

I have got only Mongolian DLC , i have to disable anything for this mod ?

Nothing needs to be disabled as far as DLC go. Though I'd advise first trying it without other mods active, (and make sure to delete the contents of your ModUserData folder and you cache folder before starting it up for the first time).

 

[snoochems]

Question for the creator: NiGHTS was one of the coolest games I've ever played. Any relation to this mod?

 

[markusbeutel]

Question for the creator: NiGHTS was one of the coolest games I've ever played. Any relation to this mod?

Not directly, but it is more or less an homage to some of the elements of that game. The Civilization series were the only games I've ever had dreams about, (ridiculous, I know). One more turn was never enough, and sessions would always go late into the night - and that's now equally true in regards to modding CIV V.

CIV V is essentially my Nightopia, (a world from the 1996 Sega Saturn game for anyone that doesn't get the reference).