Nordic Autobahn Workshop

[Leoreth]

Just enter the coordinates like (12, 34) instead of tPlot.

 

[1SDANi]

Just enter the coordinates like (12, 34) instead of tPlot.

Oh, that's really easy

EDIT: What was originally supposed to be a small post giving a patchwork fix to the Nordic Autobahn turned into a multi page discussion. I'm going to make a new thread about this, could a mod move the related posts to it if necessary?

 

[1SDANi]

It worked, but while they do produce crossbowmen now, the Vikings are still too weak to contest the Holy Roman starting army. It's starting to look like patching the Viking Autobahn will either require a change to the AI or giving the Vikings really strong defenses/the Holy Romans really weak defenses.

Here's the new file, any thoughts on how I could work around this?

 

[1SDANi]

We are gathered here today to figure out how to handle the terror known as the Nordic Autobahn, a monstrous stretch of roadway around Scandinavia and into the Netherlands. I have made a small fix, but it's still heavily unbalance. Hopefully, we can stop this menace with out powers combined. Captain Midgard.

 

[need my speed]

Well, into Germany. But I like your writing style.

 

[1SDANi]

Well, into Germany. But I like your writing style.

Thanks. I google searched netherlands before posting, must have mistakenly thought the map was depicting northern Germany.

And thanks, I'm minoring in creative writing, so I'm happy I don't suck.

 

[Royal Tenenbaum]

And thanks, I'm minoring in creative writing, so I'm happy I don't suck.

Me too. Are you majoring in destructive writing?

 

[1SDANi]

Me too. Are you majoring in destructive writing?

Destructive? Whazzat?

EDIT: That's a pun, ain'tit?

EDIT2: I'm Majoring in Software Development, I want to make video games.

 

[1SDANi]

Updated the patch to the latest GIT Revision

 

[Rodnok]

It's starting to look like patching the Viking Autobahn will either require a change to the AI or giving the Vikings really strong defenses/the Holy Romans really weak defenses.

and then the fix can cause more problems than we had before. I havent played much to see this but is it really a problem? If I understand things correctly, Baltic is an inland sea in the fix?

 

[1SDANi]

and then the fix can cause more problems than we had before. I havent played much to see this but is it really a problem? If I understand things correctly, Baltic is an inland sea in the fix?

Yes it is an inland sea, I placed Kopenhagen (whatever the Viking city is that Holy Rome can easily capture) in a strategic point so that you need to own it or have friendly relations with it's owner to pass through it, keeping with the historical nature of that area.

The main problem is that the Holy Romans spawn with 4 catapults, 3 crossbowmen, 3 swordsmen, and 3 lancers, yet the Vikings start with their cities only having walls and 2-3 units defending, usually crossbowmen and Huscarls. This makes it too easy to rampage through the Viking land.

I've been thinking over how to fix this and I believe I've come up with some ideas, I'll just have to test it.

1) The Vikings start off with 1-3 more defense-centric units and some of their crossbowmen will instead be heavy spearmen, that way they can better hold off the lancers. I'd rather not do this as I'd either be buffing human Vikings or giving the AI Vikings a bigger bonus than the human one. I'm already giving them an extra settler, crossbowmen, and worker, though only to make up for the fact they'll never put out nearly as good of a defense as humans will against the Holy Romans.
2) The Holy Romans do not spawn with Lancers, they already have 3 swordsmen and 4 catapults. I haven't played too many non-3000 BC or European civs, but I don't believe I've seen a nation with so strong a starting force. They already have more than enough production resources to get going within 20 turns and churn out a huge army, so I don't believe it'll really impact them.

 

[Rodnok]

I meant, if the Nordic Autobahn is really a problem.

 

[1SDANi]

I meant, if the Nordic Autobahn is really a problem.

Oh. Well yes I believe it's a problem. The Vikings lose a lot of time building a huge tract of 20+ roads when they could be using their workers to improve their terrain. It also is a giant back door, which just feels weird when a road the Vikings built helps you invade them.

Making the Baltic an inland sea will also help human Vikings because it gives them an easy path into Europe, making invasions a bit easier to pull off and thus making Kopenhagen an even more important stronghold for both invading and defending Scandinavia.

The main problem before is the fact that AI Vikings waste their workers on a long term project that will soon not even help them what with Holy Roman expansion and Polish spawn taking the roads away. The problem now is that it makes early game Holy Romans too strong unless I can make the invasion of the Vikings inconvenient until the time it normally would aka after getting a new army. (3 boats before/3 soldiers now) The pleasant side effect now is making Kopenhagen even more important. Not only is it a port city that controls access to the Baltic like before, but now it's also integral in capturing Scandinavia. If you ask me and my limited knowlege of the region, turning the sea route between Copenhagen and Scandinavia into a land route isn't too farfetched. It seems like the only place in Germany or Poland that is close enough to Scandinavia to sail quickly and easily to it.

EDIT: Wow, took me 11 minutes to write this post. Cool!

 

[need my speed]

Worldbuilder an invisible underwater road between the city in Denmark and the city in Sweden, and see if the AI considers this to be enough (despite it being a literally useless road) to not build its famed Autobahn?

 

[Leoreth]

It doesn't. I think a better solution to this problem would be to make the AI regard Scandinavia like a separate "continent" or island. Something similar is done to split East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa from the Eurasiafrican supercontinent, to make the AI use ships instead of land connections. This would probably lead to the AI rarely using the land route through Finland, but use ships a lot more.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Wouldn't it be easier to just constantly spawn a bunch of weak barbarians in the Baltics?

 

[1SDANi]

It doesn't. I think a better solution to this problem would be to make the AI regard Scandinavia like a separate "continent" or island. Something similar is done to split East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa from the Eurasiafrican supercontinent, to make the AI use ships instead of land connections. This would probably lead to the AI rarely using the land route through Finland, but use ships a lot more.

How would I implement this to test it for myself? Just add a new continent, or do I have to do a lot of coding and such?

EDIT: Huh, it was easier adding Scandinavia as a standalone continent than I thought it'd be. Religions and Victories still refer to it as part of Europe, but what I'm doing is more of a rough test anyways. I'll test it and see if I did it right. All I did was use file search with Notepad++ for Europe and edited as I thought would be needed.

 

[Leoreth]

That won't do it, you need to edit CvMap::calculateAreas() and recompile the DLL.

 

[1SDANi]

So I tried splitting Scandinavia from Europe and it didn't seem to work, then I tried turning Copenhagen into a European territory and it still didn't work. Did I do something wrong?

EDIT: Wow, right as I posted. Okay, time to dive into the DLL once more.

 

[1SDANi]

Is is okay to use Windows SDK 7.1 or would it be better to use 7.0a like is currently in the makefile? If so, where can I find it, I've been searching and haven't yet any luck.