With the release of DoC 1.18, it is time for what comes next for the mod. As you can tell from the title, I want to do things a bit differently this time and actually cover the next two versions. This is how I plan to continue development for the mod:
Immediate 1.18 Support
Regardless of any further development of new features for the mod, of course I will continue to support the current version and address bugs and balance issues. There is always a line between addressing a balance issue and a major change to the game. Certain issues in the games may only be addressed by more fundamental changes (e.g. new UHV goals, new mechanics etc.). I might decide to consider these long term goals and not address them immediately.
Break
Beyond immediate 1.18 support, I want to take a step back from the current pace of development for some amount of time. Despite the long time spent on it, finishing 1.18 required quite the intensive time investment from my side. For example, for the recent months it wasn't uncommon to have daily updates or at least 3-4 times a week. Certain efforts that were less visible, such as completing the city name logic, also required a lot of my time. I have been working in this mode for a long time and I want to take it down a level now that 1.18 has been released. There are also some ideas and projects unrelated to Civ4 modding that I want to spend some time on but couldn't really get to because I wanted to bring 1.18 to a close.
I cannot say how long this break is going to last, or even how much it will actually be felt in practice. This is why I started by affirming that support will still be ongoing, I will still visit this forum as usual, and still address bugs etc. (but perhaps in more focused sessions with more time inbetween). Please continue to stay engaged on the forum and report your experiences as usual. I will file away anything that comes up and get to it eventually.
Dawn of Civilization 1.19
Trying once again to have versions with more manageable goals and shorter development periods, I want the primary focus of this version to only be the introduction of further civilizations with a secondary focus of introducing new scenarios if that helps supporting these civilizations.
Technically, we introduced a lot of new civilizations with 1.18 already, but in practice for people following along with the development, that was quite early during its development and therefore already quite some time ago. I also originally promised more scenarios for 1.18 as well but eventually decided to drop it to limit the scope (from being even bigger), but I haven't forgotten the idea.
If you recall the motivation for the new civilizations in DoC 1.18, they were specifically chosen to support the introduction of the new map: areas that were opened up by the enlarged map could now support additional civilizations compared to before, and the idea was to add them because their existence was going to have a balance impact on other surrounding civilizations that had to be rebalanced for the new map anyway.
The civilizations I want to focus on for DoC 1.19 are kind of the other side of the coin of that perspective: civilizations that do not really impact the development of the game or the interaction with other civilizations, but that would be fun and interesting to add to the game regardless. That could be for several reasons: these civs are either small or optional, they only appear late in the game and wouldn't impact its course much, or they occupy the same geographical area as already existing civilizations. I cut many of them from 1.18 and now they can be added with DoC 1.19.
In a similar way, if I think it makes sense to add a scenario to give a better starting experience for these civilizations, or simply to avoid excessive autoplay times, I can also do that.
For now, I don't want to share a list of civilizations to be included. Unlike 1.18, it isn't crucial for the whole endeavour to identify them in advance, so I don't have a definitive list. I might think of something else to include along the way, or decide that something I wanted to add didn't work and drop it. Even for the ones I am pretty sure are going to be in, I think it is more fun to reveal them gradually. I think for both sides it is more fun if an interesting new civ is added to the game without much expectation, rather than it being a to do list for me to work on completing.
Dawn of Civilization 1.20
This version is going to be more ambitious again, and might require a greater scope that is difficult to estimate in advance. The goal for DoC 1.20 is to Incorporate the Advanced Civ Mod.
In case you are not aware, Advanced Civ is a mod focused primarily on improving the game performance and the opponent AI. Both of these are aspects that DoC still sometimes struggles with. Even if the negative impact is not as bad as I anticipated, introducing the larger map did lead to a worse performance for the mod, especially in the late game. And of course, we are all aware that the AI often struggles with certain aspects of the game, even surprisingly simple ones.
I made some efforts to improve on both of these fronts when the problems were especially egregious. But I am not an expert on either of these points, and instead of reinventing the wheel it makes a lot of sense to incorporate solutions that already work very well. In fact, for many AI issues that have been reported in the past I decided not to attempt to improve them because I knew I would rather have the more comprehensive and already well tested improvements from Advanced Civ.
Doing this is probably going to be a lot of work. Even though the tagline is to incorporate Advanced Civ into DoC, from a practical point of view it is probably going to be incorporating the DoC code into the Advanced Civ codebase and using the result as the new mod. Not only is the extent of the changes from Advanced Civ greater than from DoC, it is also easier for me to incorporate things that I am familiar with and understand well, rather than the other way around.
Another issue with this is that it is a very "all or nothing" effort. It would make things even more complicated to gradually include certain Advanced Civ features into the mod. So most of the effort of 1.20 is going to be invisible until it is suddenly completed - of course followed by subsequent playtesting and addressing any issues that arise.
I hope completing this sets DoC up well for the future and forms a good baseline for any features that come after 1.20.
Development Stages in Practice
Even though I introduced these stages as a clear sequence, in practice it is going to be more likely that they are going to occur in parallel. For example, I might go on break for some time, then return to development work on 1.19 and 1.20 in parallel, and then decide to go on break again. And regarding 1.20, it is probably more fun for everyone if I make some progress on it in a separate branch, come back to 1.19 to add another civilization, and then continue with 1.20. So it is very likely that 1.19 and 1.20 proceed mostly at the same time. That way it is both better for my own motivation and will keep the mod alive and interesting.
I hope that is enough information about my plans for now! If there are any comments or questions, feel free to let me know. You are probably going to hear about 1.19 sooner rather than later. Part of the process is to identify art that could be used for new civilizations, and I plan to involve the community where possible if people are willing to help. At least, that should give you some clues about what's coming up.
Immediate 1.18 Support
Regardless of any further development of new features for the mod, of course I will continue to support the current version and address bugs and balance issues. There is always a line between addressing a balance issue and a major change to the game. Certain issues in the games may only be addressed by more fundamental changes (e.g. new UHV goals, new mechanics etc.). I might decide to consider these long term goals and not address them immediately.
Break
Beyond immediate 1.18 support, I want to take a step back from the current pace of development for some amount of time. Despite the long time spent on it, finishing 1.18 required quite the intensive time investment from my side. For example, for the recent months it wasn't uncommon to have daily updates or at least 3-4 times a week. Certain efforts that were less visible, such as completing the city name logic, also required a lot of my time. I have been working in this mode for a long time and I want to take it down a level now that 1.18 has been released. There are also some ideas and projects unrelated to Civ4 modding that I want to spend some time on but couldn't really get to because I wanted to bring 1.18 to a close.
I cannot say how long this break is going to last, or even how much it will actually be felt in practice. This is why I started by affirming that support will still be ongoing, I will still visit this forum as usual, and still address bugs etc. (but perhaps in more focused sessions with more time inbetween). Please continue to stay engaged on the forum and report your experiences as usual. I will file away anything that comes up and get to it eventually.
Dawn of Civilization 1.19
Trying once again to have versions with more manageable goals and shorter development periods, I want the primary focus of this version to only be the introduction of further civilizations with a secondary focus of introducing new scenarios if that helps supporting these civilizations.
Technically, we introduced a lot of new civilizations with 1.18 already, but in practice for people following along with the development, that was quite early during its development and therefore already quite some time ago. I also originally promised more scenarios for 1.18 as well but eventually decided to drop it to limit the scope (from being even bigger), but I haven't forgotten the idea.
If you recall the motivation for the new civilizations in DoC 1.18, they were specifically chosen to support the introduction of the new map: areas that were opened up by the enlarged map could now support additional civilizations compared to before, and the idea was to add them because their existence was going to have a balance impact on other surrounding civilizations that had to be rebalanced for the new map anyway.
The civilizations I want to focus on for DoC 1.19 are kind of the other side of the coin of that perspective: civilizations that do not really impact the development of the game or the interaction with other civilizations, but that would be fun and interesting to add to the game regardless. That could be for several reasons: these civs are either small or optional, they only appear late in the game and wouldn't impact its course much, or they occupy the same geographical area as already existing civilizations. I cut many of them from 1.18 and now they can be added with DoC 1.19.
In a similar way, if I think it makes sense to add a scenario to give a better starting experience for these civilizations, or simply to avoid excessive autoplay times, I can also do that.
For now, I don't want to share a list of civilizations to be included. Unlike 1.18, it isn't crucial for the whole endeavour to identify them in advance, so I don't have a definitive list. I might think of something else to include along the way, or decide that something I wanted to add didn't work and drop it. Even for the ones I am pretty sure are going to be in, I think it is more fun to reveal them gradually. I think for both sides it is more fun if an interesting new civ is added to the game without much expectation, rather than it being a to do list for me to work on completing.
Dawn of Civilization 1.20
This version is going to be more ambitious again, and might require a greater scope that is difficult to estimate in advance. The goal for DoC 1.20 is to Incorporate the Advanced Civ Mod.
In case you are not aware, Advanced Civ is a mod focused primarily on improving the game performance and the opponent AI. Both of these are aspects that DoC still sometimes struggles with. Even if the negative impact is not as bad as I anticipated, introducing the larger map did lead to a worse performance for the mod, especially in the late game. And of course, we are all aware that the AI often struggles with certain aspects of the game, even surprisingly simple ones.
I made some efforts to improve on both of these fronts when the problems were especially egregious. But I am not an expert on either of these points, and instead of reinventing the wheel it makes a lot of sense to incorporate solutions that already work very well. In fact, for many AI issues that have been reported in the past I decided not to attempt to improve them because I knew I would rather have the more comprehensive and already well tested improvements from Advanced Civ.
Doing this is probably going to be a lot of work. Even though the tagline is to incorporate Advanced Civ into DoC, from a practical point of view it is probably going to be incorporating the DoC code into the Advanced Civ codebase and using the result as the new mod. Not only is the extent of the changes from Advanced Civ greater than from DoC, it is also easier for me to incorporate things that I am familiar with and understand well, rather than the other way around.
Another issue with this is that it is a very "all or nothing" effort. It would make things even more complicated to gradually include certain Advanced Civ features into the mod. So most of the effort of 1.20 is going to be invisible until it is suddenly completed - of course followed by subsequent playtesting and addressing any issues that arise.
I hope completing this sets DoC up well for the future and forms a good baseline for any features that come after 1.20.
Development Stages in Practice
Even though I introduced these stages as a clear sequence, in practice it is going to be more likely that they are going to occur in parallel. For example, I might go on break for some time, then return to development work on 1.19 and 1.20 in parallel, and then decide to go on break again. And regarding 1.20, it is probably more fun for everyone if I make some progress on it in a separate branch, come back to 1.19 to add another civilization, and then continue with 1.20. So it is very likely that 1.19 and 1.20 proceed mostly at the same time. That way it is both better for my own motivation and will keep the mod alive and interesting.
I hope that is enough information about my plans for now! If there are any comments or questions, feel free to let me know. You are probably going to hear about 1.19 sooner rather than later. Part of the process is to identify art that could be used for new civilizations, and I plan to involve the community where possible if people are willing to help. At least, that should give you some clues about what's coming up.
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