Playground Mod

No. I don't expect them, but I'd like them. (Sort of just feedback. Anything that you notice or think should be changed post, and I'll get to it when I have time.)

Check your E-mail for the DL link.
 
Slight change:

I've decided to make Chase treat all terrain as grassland and keep that 1 movement point, rather than treat all terrain as road. Just for balance reasons.

Home Guard: (Barbarian defense unit, AKA spunky kid)
Available from start, 1/6/1 unit, 30 shields. Foot unit. Standard everything else. (Revised? Or is it ok?)

And here's a question that I've been thinking of:

Since the AI uses some weird formula to determine what unit it builds independant of cost, what do we do about the teacher units? I've got 3 options:

1. Make them cheaper, weaker, and have Staff Gov support more units.
2. Make them require Homework.
3. Make them unable to be built at the start, and instead need some techs to build. (Looking at Intel)

Omega, decided yet? Or are you still AP World Historying?
 
Sorry I haven't posted here in a while. My school seems to have this idea that they should go at a rather nice, slow pace for most of the year, then when they're only a few weeks away from the end of school, attempt to cram everything they haven't gotten to yet in the space of two weeks. I've had to write at least one essay every night.....

I think the "Require Homework" is the best idea.
 
Hi.

After playing a game until about 4th Grade, I haven't encountered any problems.

Volcanos seem to erupt surprisingly often. If this isn't intentional, you might want to check out your settings for max eruption period.

Maybe rename Hospital to Nurse's Office or First-Aid Kit?
 
Good.

It's intentional.

There's already a Nurse's Office improvement for the staff. And it's Hospital for the purpose like kids building their own "cities" and thus "hospitals".
 
Hey guys. I took a little break from Civ3 for a while, but I got around to playing the mod some more.

I've been playing a game with The Chase, and have noticed lots of problems regarding unit upgrades. Before I get to that, I have two general problem to address:

Pollution is an unfun pain-in-the-ass part of Civ3. It's even more of a pain in this mod. In the regular game, you'll at least get railroads around the same time you start getting pollution, so you can at least go clean it up right away. In the Playground mod, however, most civs don't get railroads (or the equivalent). This means either your workers take forever to reach the pollution, or you have to put groups of workers scattered around your empire. This, to me, is an annoyance. I propose this as a solution: Some time around mid-game, once most empires will already be fairly well-developed, workers should upgrade to have 2 or possibly 3 movement points. That way they can reach the pollution a lot sooner.

Some of the luxury resources aren't showing up. Bananas, Cute Stuffed Animals, and Fresh Fruit all have an appearance ratio of 0. They still show up sometimes (somehow), but rarely. Nintendo also has a fairly low appearance ratio and does not show up often. On the other hand, there is a lot of sugar. Is this intentional?

Now, on to the unit upgrade problems:

My biggest problem is that Chasing Soldier upgrades to the weaker Chasing Swarm, which then upgrades to Elite Chaser. This can't be right. I propose that Chasing Soldier upgrades to Elite Chaser, while Chasing Swarm does not upgrade at all. I like the idea of keeping the cheap cannon fodder unit around.

Chasing Spearman and Chasing Knight both lack the "Upgrade Unit" flag. This needs to be corrected. Also, the Chasing Knight is designated to upgrade to Chasing Soldier, which I disagree with. I think Chasing Knight should not upgrade until Elite Chaser.

Master Chaser and Final Chaser are only one tech apart, which is odd. I recommend either eliminating Master Chaser, or moving Final Chaser up to 7th Grade. Either way seems fine to me.

Finally, whose idea was the Ghost unit? This thing is crazy. 10 movement points, all terrain as roads, and blitz? It's insane how much pillaging you can do, especially if you put them in an Army. I think Ghost is overpowered and should be removed. If you really want to keep it in the game, however, at least get rid of the all terrain as roads.

That's all for now. The actual gameplay is just fine and I've been having fun. The UF built up a huge army of mercenary units, but I'm dealing with them. I'm not really sure how they made such a huge army since other civs about the same size do not have nearly as many units. It may just be because UF has been in Fascism for a while.
 
Pollution is an unfun pain-in-the-ass part of Civ3. It's even more of a pain in this mod. In the regular game, you'll at least get railroads around the same time you start getting pollution, so you can at least go clean it up right away. In the Playground mod, however, most civs don't get railroads (or the equivalent). This means either your workers take forever to reach the pollution, or you have to put groups of workers scattered around your empire. This, to me, is an annoyance. I propose this as a solution: Some time around mid-game, once most empires will already be fairly well-developed, workers should upgrade to have 2 or possibly 3 movement points. That way they can reach the pollution a lot sooner.
Taken into consideration. And it will give us an excuse to put in the workers of the world stuff! :D

Some of the luxury resources aren't showing up. Bananas, Cute Stuffed Animals, and Fresh Fruit all have an appearance ratio of 0. They still show up sometimes (somehow), but rarely. Nintendo also has a fairly low appearance ratio and does not show up often. On the other hand, there is a lot of sugar. Is this intentional?
Empty mindedness lead me to forget to put them in. I was going to add an appearance/disappearance ratio, but I forgot.

Nintendo is supposed to appear less, as it requires money to get. And it is intended sort of like those pocket Game Boys that people bring to school. And since the teachers tend to ban those, and parents don't like kids bringing it to school...

Sugar is common, due to the processed nature of our food. ;) But not as common as pokemon, as the addictive nature of it forced kids to worship it, and will go into withdrawal without it.


Now, on to the unit upgrade problems:

My biggest problem is that Chasing Soldier upgrades to the weaker Chasing Swarm, which then upgrades to Elite Chaser. This can't be right. I propose that Chasing Soldier upgrades to Elite Chaser, while Chasing Swarm does not upgrade at all. I like the idea of keeping the cheap cannon fodder unit around.
I wasn't exactly sure what you meant by that earlier, so I modeled it after the Boy Union unit lines. They had their soldiers upgrade to a weaker unit, and is much cheaper. Later, they will increase in strength in greater porportion to their costs, so it works out in the end.

Will change it.


Chasing Spearman and Chasing Knight both lack the "Upgrade Unit" flag. This needs to be corrected. Also, the Chasing Knight is designated to upgrade to Chasing Soldier, which I disagree with. I think Chasing Knight should not upgrade until Elite Chaser.

Oops. Never noticed it because the AI bypasses it. And I play as the UF mostly because they seemed like a generic civ.

So what unit use niche does the Chasing Knight fill as?

Master Chaser and Final Chaser are only one tech apart, which is odd. I recommend either eliminating Master Chaser, or moving Final Chaser up to 7th Grade. Either way seems fine to me.

I'll move Final Chaser up to 7th grade. They just seemed to need a unit somewhere here, as the Chase unit lines were very weak. Though cheap, and I altered the

Finally, whose idea was the Ghost unit? This thing is crazy. 10 movement points, all terrain as roads, and blitz? It's insane how much pillaging you can do, especially if you put them in an Army. I think Ghost is overpowered and should be removed. If you really want to keep it in the game, however, at least get rid of the all terrain as roads.
My idea! :D

The purpose was to give them an Uber unit to match their tactics. And Chase is sort of the Blitz tactics, so it seemed fitting. (other Uber units there are also pretty close in deadlyness though)

It requires inspiration though. Which is really rare. And will hopefully be something that people will fight massive wars over. (it also allows the production of Mobile fortresses, Uber Battleships, and other weapons of mass destruction.)


That's all for now. The actual gameplay is just fine and I've been having fun. The UF built up a huge army of mercenary units, but I'm dealing with them. I'm not really sure how they made such a huge army since other civs about the same size do not have nearly as many units. It may just be because UF has been in Fascism for a while.
No idea. Usually in my games they are weak and overrun when I'm not UF. Senso and Chase expand massively, and FA stays weak until later. And the Girls are always the tech leaders.


Thanks for your imput! :)
 
It requires inspiration though. Which is really rare. And will hopefully be something that people will fight massive wars over.

Well, if Ghost requires Inspiration then I suppose it isn't so overpowered.

So what unit use niche does the Chasing Knight fill as?

I don't really know how Chasing Knight should fit in. A mounted unit should be faster than other units, but with The Chase all of their units are fast already. Maybe increase the Knight's movement to 3 and increase their cost a little? I think that would make sense. Also reduce their defense to 1 to make them an entirely offensive unit.

No idea. Usually in my games they are weak and overrun when I'm not UF. Senso and Chase expand massively, and FA stays weak until later. And the Girls are always the tech leaders.

I'm pretty sure Fascism is they key. I beat up the UF pretty well, then made peace. Reb then went into Fascism and built up a huge army. It looks like the AI really thrives under Fascism in this mod. Other civs like Senso and Galaxy Wars who are in Democracy have these tiny little armies and are getting smashed by Reb right now.
 
I don't really know how Chasing Knight should fit in. A mounted unit should be faster than other units, but with The Chase all of their units are fast already. Maybe increase the Knight's movement to 3 and increase their cost a little? I think that would make sense. Also reduce their defense to 1 to make them an entirely offensive unit.
Yeah, I'll have them be an offense unit with the increased movement.


I'm pretty sure Fascism is they key. I beat up the UF pretty well, then made peace. Reb then went into Fascism and built up a huge army. It looks like the AI really thrives under Fascism in this mod. Other civs like Senso and Galaxy Wars who are in Democracy have these tiny little armies and are getting smashed by Reb right now.
Interesting. Does the Civil War Complex work fine with Chase?
 
Too well, it seems. I have more unit support than I could ask for. Corruption is barely noticeable once I have a Forbidden Palace (or whatever it's called in the mod) and a Public Executions in every city. Of course it has its downsides. Research can be a little slow without commerce bonus, and xenophobia makes conquering enemy cities a bit of a chore since their borders won't expand until you have a majority population in the cities.

Overall, Civil War Complex is an amazing wartime government and a decent peacetime government. It would be less overpowering, I think, if The Chase didn't start with it from the beginning of the game. Don't most other civs start in Despotism? That would explain why The Chase has a very strong early expansion in your games.
 
Yeah, I intended it to help make up for Chase's poor unit quality in terms of pure attack and defense values.

I think it is the fast units that help it in expansion, with the expansionist trait that helps it get lots of stuff from huts. Senso tends to do that as well.

So I guess I'll move it to its own tech somewhere in the 2nd era.
 
I just thought of another possibility. What about making a new government for everyone (except the teachers) that's pretty much the same as Despotism without the tile penalty? Then Chase could keep its government (and others, like The Girls with their Blissful Anarchy) without being too powerful at the beginning of the game. Not sure what it would be called...maybe Monarchy since there doesn't seem to be Monarchy in this mod already. Just attach the gov to the Children tech.

Just a thought. Getting rid of Despotism might make the 1st era go by too quickly, though.
 
Don't know really... So Despotism will be removed altogether I presume?

I'm not so sure about this though. Personally I prefer the creating of a new tech, or moving it to Chase's Unique tech, instead of having it at the beginning. *cue in Omega to actually respond*
 
Yeah, I'm starting to dislike my own suggestion. Simply moving Civil War Complex is the better choice.

I just get so annoyed by Despotism. I'm playing a game as Char right now, and have had to watch helplessly as the Girls swallowed up most of the territory near me. Oh well, a little pointy stick expansion should set things right.
 
Like, the box not checked?

No, there's no upgrade path. After researching Sword Fighting, you can build both Girl Infantry and Girl Samurai.

Also, I've been consistently getting a CTD right after I research aircraft, and tell my science adviser which tech to research next.:(
 
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