NOT ANOTHER STONE AGE MOD ... for BTS 3.17

[The_Triturador]

Seed Camps obsolete with Agriculture again

Didn't we decide that this was a VERY bad idea?

I would be much happier to see:

Agriculture gives: -1 to Seed Camps
Animal Husbandry gives: -1 to Seed Camps

Mining gives: -1 to Stone Tools Workshop
Bronze working gives: -1 to Stone Tools Workshop.

Sorry to be a pain about this... but it isn't fun to have to start over when researching farms crushes your empires size...

Hi again there ... I don't really think it is a pain just because you lose the commerce yield from the old improvements. That's why you are able to build cottages from then ( but they don't grow until you research Pottery ). Also, you don't have to research Agriculture just after getting Sedentary Lifestyle because the food yields are not lost. The same happens with Mining. Well, the Pottery Shop was for testing. It will be removed if it really affects the game balance. Well, I've played a couple of maps and they were really interesting . If anybody finds something strange, thinks something should be changed or has new ideas ... please post .

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Thanks a lot for yoru comments/suggestions

 

[digitCruncher]

Ah, I see. I forgot the old rules where Seed Camps TOTALLY obsoleted with Sedintary Lifestyle I thought that we reverted to the old style...

The problem, for me anyway, is that although you DO get Farms with Agriculture, you have to build them. That takes time... In in the time between researching the tech, and building the farms, you have MASSIVE starvation problems!

It's not as critical as what it used to be... but it is still a major issue.

I found another use for the Pottery Hut however.

400 (Instead of 200 )
Effects: 1 free engineer

This means that you get 3 Great Engineer GPP early on (which is a powerful ability, as Engineer GPP are the most valuable of GPP's, AND they are only really available with the Pyrimids wonder / Hanging Gardens Wonder (as running a Engineer specilist with a Forge early on is very risky...), but it requires a MASSIVE resource requirement.

I do have some small ideas... How about merging resources to give new ones? I got the idea from the RoM mod... but it could be used here. You would need to use National Wonders with a limit of 3 buildings per nation, but it will mean that a nation with a large amount of cities, and with clever trading, could export some very rare resources around!

I know how the mechanics would work, and I know it would be balanced, but it would require a *tiny* amount of work on the AI (IE. If it lacks one specific resource to make the national wonder, it will offer a resource it has only one of). Remember, as they are National wonders, your main cities won't be able to support that infrastructure.

So basically, each of these factory resources would have the following atributes:

Moderate cost
National Wonder: 3 allowed
Requires (3 or 4 resources)
Produces (Some rare resource, that gives either big bonuses to happyness and/or health, or possibly unlocking some nice buildings later on down the line). This will be like the Hollywood wonder producing Hit Movies, etc. etc.

If anyone has any ideas to elaborate, that would be great. It would be like early-game corporations. It also fits in nicely with this mod (as it focuses on the early-game... these buildings would all be built by the medieval era... with maybe one or two exceptions)

[Edit] Possible bug: You can only build 5 cities with settlers...

I have 5 cities, and I cannot build any more cities. I could provide a save if it is needed... but I doubt it will be needed.[/Edit]

 

[The_Triturador]

Possible bug: You can only build 5 cities with settlers... I have 5 cities, and I cannot build any more cities.

Hello there ... it's not a bug unless you have already reached the Classical Era. In the 1.6 Change_Log I specified the limitations for cities before the Classical Era.

1. Tribes cannot been trained if you have 3 cities or more.
2. You can't train Settlers or found cities or capture them if you have 5 or more cities AND haven't reached the Classical era.

Once I got a map where Boudica had more than 10 cities before Classical Era and she completely messed up her economy. If you train more than many settlers just to build more cities, that won't work because you will not only be forbidden to train more settlers but to found cities (and capture them). Why you can't capture cities? Because if you don't have Sedentary Lifestyle, you should not have anything to capture, also capture wouldn't be something you would understand (in the terms of a city. Also you are supposed to be a tribe ). Yeah, sounds a little complicated, but I think 5 cities on the Neolithic era should be enough. Once you reach the Classical era you will be able to manage unlimited cities, founding or capturing them. I've tested it on Worldbuilder and on beta game tests and it has proved to work fine. Hope I'm not wrong .

 

[LeftBower]

Hmmm, downloaded Stone age mod v2.0, hoping that this mod might work. Again I have this issue:

"Everything works (I get into the moai statues screen, custom game, etc.) until the game propper is about to start - and then I get the computer tellng me that "Sid Meier's Civilization 4 : Beyond The Sword has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." it then asks if I want to tell miscrosoft, etc. Help?"

However with a bit of poking around I may have fount the issue. This is for BTS3.17, but I'm on build version 3.0.0.93. Is this the issue? I click check for updates, but it tells me that my version is up to date.

Can anyone help?

 

[The_Triturador]

However with a bit of poking around I may have fount the issue. This is for BTS3.17, but I'm on build version 3.0.0.93. Is this the issue? I click check for updates, but it tells me that my version is up to date.

Well ... I've taken a picture and it seems you have the wrong version. Are you sure you have Patch 3.17 installed? Try downloading the PATCH from the links that appear on this website and install it manually (not from the game).

 

[digitCruncher]

I will provide you with a link to download the 3.17 patch manually (As the ingame patcher is VERY buggy, to the point that no-one uses it)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279381

There you go

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

I have played one game with the new mod and it has gone fairly well so far.

Plus, with the new Pottery shop.... ouch!! +1 for ALL citizens is NOT balanced... especially so early in the game. Citizens suddenly become the BEST specalist in the game! Try and beat +1 , +1 ... I will probably remove it entirely from this mod...

Personally, I don't find this very game breaking. Even though each citizen will produce 1 in addition to their 1, this means that the specialist will only produce as much resources as if they were working an unimproved, non-riverside, plains. Most of the time there are better tiles to work. This does mean that hammer and/or food poor cities (such as on tundra, ice, or small islands) can now produce 1 and 1 per population, but this does not change the game much.

The real reason that I think this does not break the game is that citizens do not produce GP points. So you can't break this national wonder by working a couple of high food spots and then making lots of citizen specialists to rack up GP points.

Yes, I know that wonders like the pyramids and sistine chapel increase citizen specialist yield, but still remember that any specialist cannot produce 2 and so completely support themselves. I could see citizen specialists being used over priests, perhaps (and those without Angkor Wat), but not many others.

NPM

 

[LeftBower]

cheers guys, patching now.

 

[War Chicken]

Hello. I'd like to play your mod, but Atomic Gamer tells me (after waiting...grrr) that it can't find the file I want to download.

Is there an alternative source?

 

[digitCruncher]

Hmm.... you ARE right... but specialists in general have rather pathetic yeilds anyway...

But, what would you rather have? 2 hammers, or 1 hammer, 1 food. If you look at specilists solely at thier yeilds, then engineers are just an unimproved plains hills tile, and scientists are a town on a desert (if that is possible)

The REAL power, however, comes in running Representation. Representation makes all specilists, including citizens, turn into scientist specilists , plus a bit more, minus a beaker. However, this includes citizens too... as a result, instead of running 1 scientist (for 7 beakers), you could run 2 citizens!! (for 6 beakers, 2 hammers). IMO, this makes citizens much stronger than scientists. They also beat engineers hands down too (2 hammers, 3 beakers, vs. 2 hammers, 6 beakers). And priests. And... well every single specilist, simply because of one fact, since there are two of them (due to the halved food requirement), they get double the bonuses from civics / wonders.

There is a couple of exceptions. Since the population is higher, you need more happyness resources. Also, the maths assumes that you are below the unhealthiness limit. Being above the unhealthiness limit means that citizens, again, become weaker than regular specilists (And when you remember that citizens are an unlimited source of hammers, that is an important ability). As a result, giving all citizens a +1 bonus means that the extra food ONLY occurs when you have unhealthiness, increasing the power of citizens, but not too much. A few other bonuses could also make it worth building (IE. the small boosts to the specilists main yields), but if that is implemented, the hammer cost has to increase too...

IMO, trading 3 GPP's for 2 beakers (plus multipliers, which make it something like 4 beakers eventually), or 2 hammers (plus multipliers, which make it something like 3 hammers) is a rather bad trade...

 

[digitCruncher]

no, but one of the links (Texas #2, I think) is broken. Try texas #1 instead.

 

[War Chicken]

no, but one of the links (Texas #2, I think) is broken. Try texas #1 instead.

Yep, thanks - thats what I did wrong - wanted to use it 'cos the wait was shorter...

 

[Yarnosh]

Playing the mod in Marathon mode. But I'm having some trouble with the gameplay. I'm finding that hunting is just not at all worth the resources used to create the hunter. Even with Hunting Instruction, my hunters get killed way too easily by some rogue elephant or werewolf. There's just too many dangerous animals running around. I try to hide in the woods or hills, but even taking the defensive, my hunters ultimately succumb to the RNG in after only about 3 or 4 encounters at most. Some don't even last that long. Sometimes while I'm trying to recover from the previous encounter. Is there some secret to hunting other than to draw the animals into high defense tiles? The AI seems to do OK.

And what the heck is with the events destroying my seed farms? They're constantly being destroyed. They last maybe 10 turns and then POOF. Have to build a new harvester. It is to the point where I don't even really want to DO anything except construct buildings and such. Anything I do outside of my little village seems like a waste of time. So I spend most of the game just hitting ENTER-ENTER-ENTER...

 

[War Chicken]

The Werewolves are a problem. The elefants are mostly avoidable - they move only one tile, but the werewolfes are both too dangerous AND unsuitable since its not a fantasy MOD. But aside that I like your mod a lot. Its something nicely different.

 

[Yarnosh]

There must be a relatively simple way of removing the werewolves. Some XML file to edit? But besides werewolves and elephants, do you find that your hunters can last for a while? I just realized that the hunters don't get defensive bonuses, so perhaps I should be using them more aggressively since hiding in the woods would have no effect.

Though sometimes you can't help coming face to face with an elephant. If you both happen to move into ajacent tiles, you're pretty much screwed.

And about the events... why do my seed camps keep getting wiped out within just a 10 or so turns??? THat's hardly enough time for them to pay for themselves.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

Playing the mod in Marathon mode. But I'm having some trouble with the gameplay. I'm finding that hunting is just not at all worth the resources used to create the hunter. Even with Hunting Instruction, my hunters get killed way too easily by some rogue elephant or werewolf. There's just too many dangerous animals running around. I try to hide in the woods or hills, but even taking the defensive, my hunters ultimately succumb to the RNG in after only about 3 or 4 encounters at most. Some don't even last that long. Sometimes while I'm trying to recover from the previous encounter. Is there some secret to hunting other than to draw the animals into high defense tiles? The AI seems to do OK.

This frustrated me for a while, too, but then I discovered the "buddy system". I always take my hunters outside the city in pairs. One hunter can attack animals, and then get damaged while the other one protects him as he heals. BTW, if you check atl-atls closely you will see that they do not receive defense bonuses from terrain! So don't worry about terrain defense. If both hunters get heavily damaged (or one loses his buddy), make a beeline for your territory so that they can heal in peace. Hunters are pretty much the only units that have a decent chance to survive all animal encounters early.

And what the heck is with the events destroying my seed farms? They're constantly being destroyed. They last maybe 10 turns and then POOF. Have to build a new harvester. It is to the point where I don't even really want to DO anything except construct buildings and such. Anything I do outside of my little village seems like a waste of time.

I feel your pain there. Personally, I think that this random event is too unfair to the human player. AIs can build units much faster than humans (and they start with some units as well) so that they aren't as affected if they lose a seed camp or two. Human players, however, have to spend a long time replacing these vital seed camps. This random event can get so bad that on some games I have gone into worldbuilder after each one of these disastrous events and replaced the seed camp! My advice is to build more seed camps than you need.

So I spend most of the game just hitting ENTER-ENTER-ENTER...

Welcome to Marathon mode!

NPM

 

[The_Triturador]

Yeah ... I think you are right. Werewolves will be removed from the MOD. Also, a Hunter III promotion could be added. I'll reduce the Seed Camp destroyer event probabilities a little ... Hmmm, I still don't think the Pottery Shop is really annoying since it works like a Plains tile and gives no GP score.

[Edit]By the way ... I removed the defense bonus from the Atlatl because I think Hunters used to look for their preys, not to hide in the forests/jungles and wait the animals to attack them. I don't think that would be fun. But I may be wrong [/Edit]

 

[Deon]

1) Werewolfs seem to be out-of-place.
2) Pottery shop is OK IMO.
3) Hunters hunt not for fun but for food. So they should get defence bonus since the most dangerous animals were always caught in traps and not hunted in a plain field. Consider "defending" hunter as a trapper which lays traps and calls animals to finish them off.
Also terrain HIGHLY affects hunting. You can ask any boy who went with his daddy to shoot a duck at least once in his life.

Just 2 cents. Too tired to write in details. But thank you.

 

[civ dude]

link is brocken

 

[The_Triturador]

link is brocken

Try the first Link ... it seems the second one is broken.