NOT ANOTHER STONE AGE MOD ... for BTS 3.17

[LeftBower]

Played some, and got wiped out by barbarians. Before that however I had an insight on the hunter/defence thing - why not have an early tech that allows them to get defencive bonuses - before that no-one can. I found that I was using warriors to hunt "defencively" and the atlatls to hunt "agressively", but the warriors were having more sucess for the most part, which didn't seem right. Alternatively a promotion that allows the atlatls to use defenceive bonuses (trapper?) might be a good idea.

 

[The_Triturador]

[...]a promotion that allows the atlatls to use defenceive bonuses (trapper?) might be a good idea.

Yeah ... I think that is a good idea. It will take some time for me to develop the needed code for it. But I'll work on it .

Patch 2.05 has been released. It will be shown in the Mod Folder in a few minutes. Read the Change Log for more details .

 

[The_Triturador]

I'm sorry guys, I made a little mistake while changing the Skara Brae features.
It gives you a simple Spy instead of a Great Spy . I've already changed it so if you have already applied the Patch ... please download it again. .

Sorry about this stupid mistake .

 

[War Chicken]

After playing 2 games (or two beginnings til everything is back to normal Civ4...)
The Overall thing is great.

I do second that the frequency of washed away seed camps os way too high. I'd cut it down to at least 1/4 ot the current frequency - maybe even less, since its really a pain.
Gaterers are one shot-units that hinder growth of the tribe, and having to build one more and one more, just because another seedcamp got lost due to a damn repetitive random event is really annoying.

I'd also not remove the terrain boni for defending Atlatls.
Is it intended that the payouts they produce in Marathon is so few? I'd consider raising it a little. Not that much that you can speed up a 50-Turn production to a 5 Turn production just by slying wolves and lions, but 5 turns should be cool IMO.

Another thing that made me wonder is shortly after setteling down. Why should I uprade an Atlatl to a scout and loose my ability to attack and even get a reduced strength for a lot of money? This needs some tweaking.
The bad thing is I dont have a good solution for this - if you either make the scout better (this would greatly unbalance the game after scouts if they kept their attacking ability) or weaken the Atlatls (this would would make them nearly useless - even in the beginning of the game) - both are no good solutions. maybe someone else has a better idea...

I'd also remove the werewolves.
Maybe add some non-agressive animals to the game (Stoneage humans often hunted those 'cos they taste better and are less dangerous) like Zebras, Giraffes, Antiopes and so on (yes, the cradle of mankind was in Africa, but you could as well add goats and other non-african-animals) If you need a non agressive animal - the elephant in Fall From Heaven is unable to attack - maybe one of their team shares the knowlage how to do that. Also their Art team is godlike - if you can't do the animals yourself or find someone skilled enough they might help you.

I really like your Mod because it takes the things from the other side. Of course it's interesting to go into the future, but this would be the "future-vision" of only one guy or mod team. The Prehistoric past you cover in your mod has happened and its really great to begin a lot further in the past then with vanilla civ 4. Thank you vor developing this.

 

[LeftBower]

I'd also not remove the terrain boni for defending Atlatls.
Is it intended that the payouts they produce in Marathon is so few? I'd consider raising it a little. Not that much that you can speed up a 50-Turn production to a 5 Turn production just by slying wolves and lions, but 5 turns should be cool IMO.

Another thing that made me wonder is shortly after setteling down. Why should I uprade an Atlatl to a scout and loose my ability to attack and even get a reduced strength for a lot of money? This needs some tweaking.
The bad thing is I dont have a good solution for this - if you either make the scout better (this would greatly unbalance the game after scouts if they kept their attacking ability) or weaken the Atlatls (this would would make them nearly useless - even in the beginning of the game) - both are no good solutions. maybe someone else has a better idea...

What if we let scouts attack animals, but not people. Ditto for the AtlAtls. Then let scouts be S2 - with the increaced barbarian activity in this mod, IMHO this would not be unbalancing, since they still could only defend, and would lose against all but warriors. Maybe give warriors +20% against recon to help them still be able to kill scouts. . .

 

[War Chicken]

If this is codable, it sounds like a good solution.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

A few problems with barbarians...

I find that there are a LOT of barbarian events that occur early on and if you are not careful you can get defeated quite easily. It might help the game to lower the unit costs for the early units since production is very hard to come by in the early game and slavery is far off.

There is an event that happens when you are in the barbarism civic. You pay money, take diplomatic penalties with a civ and then you are supposed to get free owned barbarian units near that civ that you are going to war with, but you don't get the units!

NPM

P.S. Don't forget to give another hammer to the lumbermill!

 

[The_Triturador]

A few problems with barbarians...

I find that there are a LOT of barbarian events that occur early on and if you are not careful you can get defeated quite easily. It might help the game to lower the unit costs for the early units since production is very hard to come by in the early game and slavery is far off.

There is an event that happens when you are in the barbarism civic. You pay money, take diplomatic penalties with a civ and then you are supposed to get free owned barbarian units near that civ that you are going to war with, but you don't get the units!

NPM

P.S. Don't forget to give another hammer to the lumbermill!

Hi there ... I think It would be fair to reduce the Warrior cost. The slinger cost has already been reduced. Maybe it would be a good idea to give back the city defense bonus to the Warriors (+25%). However ... warriors won't be able to get the Garrison Promotions so changing it later would be a need.

About the Barbarian Attackers, they are not given to the Human Player. When Barbarians ask you for help, you just give them gold so they can send more units into the battlefield. But you will only get the diplomatic penalties if you are caught ( there are the statistics for each option ) Maybe you will wonder why you can't control the units. It's because the "Hidden Nacionality/Attack without been involved in war" abilities won't let you attack cities , just pillage improvements and attack other units.

I think I'll look for a way to solve it. But it wouldn't be possible to capture the city (since it would be easy to find out who owns the Barbarian units). Anyway, the units still appear in the other players borders and they will attack. It's true sometimes they will preffer to go to another city, but they will bother.

About the Lumbermill ... UPSSSS ... forgot it xD ... Will be fixed soon.

And for the posts above ...
About the Atlatl ... what features do you think it should finally get? I though it was right with it current abilities. Tell me

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THANKS FOR YOU COMMENTS / SUGGESTIONS

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

...
About the Barbarian Attackers, they are not given to the Human Player. When Barbarians ask you for help, you just give them gold so they can send more units into the battlefield. But you will only get the diplomatic penalties if you are caught ( there are the statistics for each option ) Maybe you will wonder why you can't control the units. It's because the "Hidden Nacionality/Attack without been involved in war" abilities won't let you attack cities , just pillage improvements and attack other units.

I think I'll look for a way to solve it. But it wouldn't be possible to capture the city (since it would be easy to find out who owns the Barbarian units). Anyway, the units still appear in the other players borders and they will attack. It's true sometimes they will preffer to go to another city, but they will bother.

I must have bad luck, this event almost always seems to cause a bunch of barbarians to attack me. This means either the ones I hire think I am a better target or the event comes up too often and the AI civs gets it at about the same time as I did.

I had one game where a volcano errupted at the same point every time I got the wheat farmed and stone quarried. After loosing that wheat and stone four times I went into world builder and turned the offending mountain into a hill

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

Hi there ... I think It would be fair to reduce the Warrior cost. Maybe it would be a good idea to give back the city defense bonus to the Warriors (+25%).

The warrior is definitely the worst unit in the mod. It gets no bonuses at all, so I think it would be a good idea to buff it at least a little. Even spawned barbarian units are not warriors - their weakest is the clubman.

About the Lumbermill ... UPSSSS ... forgot it xD ... Will be fixed soon.

Thanks, and please don't forget to give a hammer to the forest preserve as well.

And for the posts above ...
About the Atlatl ... what features do you think it should finally get? I though it was right with it current abilities. Tell me

THANKS FOR YOU COMMENTS / SUGGESTIONS

I like the atlatl the way it was in version 2.0. I'll admit that I haven't played 2.05 yet, but I think that giving it no terrain defense bonus was good. The way that it worked well was to combine one or more atlatls together in the same stack with a slinger or stone spearman or stone axeman. The atlatls would attack animals and the non-hunter unit would defend against either animals or barbarians. I see that you gave the atlatl terrain defense bonuses. Can it now receive terrain defense promotions like guerilla or woodsman? I think that it should if you allow it to keep its terrain bonus.

It was also nice to have the atlatl able to attack anything. It would usually lose against most undamaged units such as stone axe/spearmen, but against damaged ones it would have a decent chance. It was a way to give the atlatl more experience after animals stopped showing up.

The real problem is the scout. I have always though that giving it a base strength of 2 would make it much more useful. Keep everything the same but just increase the strength. The dog could also use a strength increase to 2 as well. You should also allow the dog in caravels as well.

You're welcome for my help. I enjoy playing this mod quite a lot!

NPM

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

...
Maybe add some non-agressive animals to the game (Stoneage humans often hunted those 'cos they taste better and are less dangerous) like Zebras, Giraffes, Antiopes and so on (yes, the cradle of mankind was in Africa, but you could as well add goats and other non-african-animals) If you need a non agressive animal - the elephant in Fall From Heaven is unable to attack - maybe one of their team shares the knowlage how to do that. Also their Art team is godlike - if you can't do the animals yourself or find someone skilled enough they might help you.

The only problem with this is that the non-aggressive animals are dangerous also. Pigs have been known to eat leopards for example

The Anubis mod has warthogs and some other animals. The Animal Nations mod may have some useful stuff as could the with modular animal units modhttp://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=247289. Although the latter included some water animals which may not be as useful. The WOC modding standard also has some animals.

 

[The_Triturador]

I'm working on the Atlatl right now. I was planning to set a "Trapper" Promotion that will work as a combination of "Woodsman1" and "Guerrilla1", but it will only work for the Atlatl (because it's the only hunting unit). It could also be possible to set a "Trapper2" Promotion that will work as the other Promotions next level (only the defensive bonus). What do you think about this? I think the Atlatl could keep its current features, so you can combine an attacker with a defender.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

I'm working on the Atlatl right now. I was planning to set a "Trapper" Promotion that will work as a combination of "Woodsman1" and "Guerrilla1", but it will only work for the Atlatl (because it's the only hunting unit). It could also be possible to set a "Trapper2" Promotion that will work as the other Promotions next level (only the defensive bonus). What do you think about this? I think the Atlatl could keep its current features, so you can combine an attacker with a defender.

Remember when it upgrades to a scout or an explorer, they can get the actual woodsman and guerilla promotions. So would these new trapper promotions get obsoleted by upgrading the atlatl?

NPM

 

[The_Triturador]

Remember when it upgrades to a scout or an explorer, they can get the actual woodsman and guerilla promotions. So would these new trapper promotions get obsoleted by upgrading the atlatl?

NPM

Well ... I've upgraded the Atlatl and the new Scout keeps the old unit promotions. New trained Scouts / Explorers won't be able to choose the Trapper Promotions. However, I could make the Atlatl become obsolete with some other tech, without letting him upgrade to a Scout (so you can choose between Scouts of Atlatls). But maybe the Scout should have another bonus because it would become very easy to kill .

 

[strategyonly]

I just tried to download from that Atomic crap and waited 8 minutes for it and then it said, File not found, what the heck??
Cant you use FileFront?

EDIT: OK after another 9 minute wait, it finally worked, PHEW!

OK everytime i get a python pop-up i get an error. Then i just gave up.

 

[LeftBower]

Well ... I've upgraded the Atlatl and the new Scout keeps the old unit promotions. New trained Scouts / Explorers won't be able to choose the Trapper Promotions. However, I could make the Atlatl become obsolete with some other tech, without letting him upgrade to a Scout (so you can choose between Scouts of Atlatls). But maybe the Scout should have another bonus because it would become very easy to kill .

I like the chose between thing, as atlatls are better in many ways then scouts, and aren't really the same thing.

Give the scout +100% against hunting units and barbarians, if it can't attack. That'll let them actually scout out the map as opposed to explore a little then die.

 

[The_Triturador]

OK everytime i get a python pop-up i get an error. Then i just gave up.

That's strange. Are you sure you don't have any folder or file in your Custom Assets folder? Maybe you have enabled some option that shows the Traceback screen .

 

[The_Triturador]

The real problem is the scout. I have always though that giving it a base strength of 2 would make it much more useful. Keep everything the same but just increase the strength. The dog could also use a strength increase to 2 as well. You should also allow the dog in caravels as well.

I think this would be easier, since I would only have to change a XML value. I will increase the Clubman Bonus against the Atlatl and any Recon unit by +50% ... so it will finally get a +100% against those units. That will make him more useful. The Warrior will get a +25% Bonus while defending cities.

About the Dogs ... I'm afraid they won't be able to get into the Caravel because the are another kind of Special Unit and the Caravel can only carry a single kind of Special Unit. If I change the Dog, scouts and explorers won't be able to carry it.

 

[strategyonly]

That's strange. Are you sure you don't have any folder or file in your Custom Assets folder? Maybe you have enabled some option that shows the Traceback screen .

All i have on is the python exception error reporting. Just thought i'd put them here, i will erase them on Sunday.

 

[The_Triturador]

Stone Age Mod 2.30 has been realeased . It has plenty new stuff and a new DLL. I've also uploaded the SDK files if anybody wants to use them . Please, read the Change_Log for the details.