Playground Mod

[Bluemofia]

Nice.

I'll start working on this... After winter break starts. (December 22nd) In the mean time, apps and lots of homework.

 

[The Omega]

Kay, here's the civilopedia entries for the civs, and for the last war.

 

[Bluemofia]

Nice.

Is char supposed to last from 4th grade to 4th grade, and the golden age being from 3rd to 4th?

 

[The Omega]

Yes. Do not question the civilopedia!

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

That's some crazy stuff.... I may have to try out the Playground Wars mod sometime (I'm thinking of doing a story with them as the Girls)....

 

[The Omega]

Hehe. I told Chris Playground Mod 2.0. He now says he might get civ3.

And he particularly liked the part in the new civilopedia where I change history, so that instead of Senso not fighting Death Strike because they were too lazy, they now don't fight Death Strike because they were too evil and clever to fight.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

I just DL'ed the mod, and am playing as the Girls and noticed that they, well, seem to be a bit light unit-wise.... I mean it is no wonder that they always get wiped out in everyone's game!!

Maybe you could, you know, give them some more units (even if they are weaker), to match more of the categories that the other civs have available.....

I mean, it isn't like there's a huge shortage of female units anymore (thanks mostly to me).....

 

[Bluemofia]

I know. IIRC, we are adding a few more units to them in 2.0.

In our games though, they turn out to be the tech leaders of the AI, always. And anyways, they are intended for a cultural win, to compensate their inefficient combat skills.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Yeah, well I tend to play for a cultural win in most of my games too, but the way the AI plays at Monarch and up, I've "accidentally" gotten a domination victory more than once just by "brushing off the sparks that landed on me" as the saying goes....

The AI on even Regent level tends to like to warmonger, and on Monarch and above, you're guaranteed to get sneak-attacked at least once, even if it's absolutely NOT in the AI's best interest to do so. Case in point: In my latest play test session as the dwarves for the FF mod (I wanted to be able to post some in-game shots of the Crusaders), the only other civ on my continent, The Kingdom of Baron decided to attack me without warning.

The reason THAT was sheer stupidity on their part was that they'd JUST gotten 1 industrial age tech (nationalism, which allows them to build gunners, which are the Ind age def unit), and I had just researched motorized transportation and am getting amphibious war in 4 turns, meaning that I not only have access to the techs and most of the resources for your most powerful industrial age units, but I had already completed upgrading all my old units. On top of that, I had a bigger army and about 150% of their land area.

Needless to say that not only did they fail to take the one city they attacked their turn, but when my turn rolled around, I took over about 7 of their cities.

Of course, with the Girls units being so pathetic, my only hope is that I can somehow survive long enough (hopefully by massing ridiculously large amounts of units) to get the SW that allows you to build your own armies and photon ballistas.... Once I get those, I'll just mass them (they actually have high enough bombardment to actually be worth building) and blast the living snot out of anyone who's attacking THEN hit them with my armies....

The only problem is that in the current game I'm playing the Staff are in, which does not bode well for any of the kids (I mean they've got units with almost 100 attack and/or defense!!!!)....

...And The Omega (a.k.a. S) is at war with himself (I started near Freak Attack and Galaxy Wars Club, and GWC is fighting FA)

 

[Bluemofia]

This is done to reflect their inability to gain enough aggression causing testosterone to fight effectively. Also, they are prone to being pushed into war weariness. They become more useful later on though, when kids hormones start kicking in. (enslave to boyfriends! A worker with double work rate, defense, and the ability to be sacrificed for culture).

The staff are actually hard to play as (AI can't play as effectivly, for they will try to build their best unit and spend like 100 turns doing so, and then end up settling a grand total of 2 cities by the time the game is over). They emphasize quality over quantity, and take very long to build their units. They need to set their tech rate to as low as possible, in order to get the funds to be able to produce large numbers of units and to support them (10 gpt per unit over the limit).

If this is early on, I'm betting on GWC, for their Jedis, Infantry, and other Sci-Fi goodies will own the generic units FA has. Later the tables are turned though, and FA will start to own.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Actually, I ended up re-starting the game from turn 1... I figured out that I should have waited 1 turn to build a city and settled accross the river so I could work both the Sugar!!!11!one tiles.... This time FA and GWC are playing nice.... I've posted the first chapter of the story, BTW (up to 2nd grade), and played ahead almost to the end of 2nd grade.

As for the girl units and stuff..... I still say either (a) make them more powerful (and give them analogues to boy units for the techs that currently give boy factions units, but not girls) or (b) give virtually all girl units stealth attack (and give them analogues to boy units for the techs that currently give boy factions units, but not girls)

The reason for this is that, thanks to being in the Navy, I've spent more time in close quarters with women than you, or most people probably have. Women are more than capable of being aggressive, and they hold grudges like nobody's business... I mean we're talking 15 years and still not talking to each other type grudges, and over the smallest slight, too.

The reason I say give them the stealth attack, is due to the fact that girls also tend to fight dirty, and get you back for something when you least expect it....

Also, girl units should even out with the boys by middle school, because they've pretty much mastered The Look by then... You know, the one where they get that certain expression on their face, and you just KNOW you're in deep trouble or did something bad, but don't have any idea what it was, and that she's going to let you convict yourself as you're trying to worm your way out..... I've known guys who could bench 250 lbs literally run off when their wife or girlfriend came striding towards them with The Look on their face.

Of course it all comes down to this: To borrow a quote from the lead designer of Age of Empires I, II, and III.....

"Gameplay > Historical Accuracy"

Currently, it would appear that the girls and staff are broken; The girls any which way you look at it, and the staff from an AI perspective (The Omega demonstrated that when he totally Pwned the schoolyard in his story.... The kids barely even scratched his units, while he just rolled over them like they weren't there), and the girls are far too weak to defend themselves long enough to achieve a cultural or grad victory.....

Of course, another way you can reflect the lack of girls aggressiveness would be to make them mostly defensive (i.e. they have the same or higher defense values than equivalent boy units, but lower attack values)....

Also, maybe make the Girls Unique tech more useful.... So far it's good only for 4 things; a government (which aint all that great... If you'd make it communal corruption, then we'd be talking, not to mention it would be more reflective of the way girls are always sharing stuff), a lux resource (that seems to be about as scarce as hen's teeth), a Wonder (which requires said almost nonexistant resource), and a city improvement (which is actually useful, but still...).

The boy factions, with Male Nature alone (not counting other even more unique techs, like what FA, GWC, Rebs and Char get) get access to about 5 governments (a few of which are actually good), about 6 or so wonders, at least 1 luxury (nintendo), and a slew of other buildings and such.... I think you can see where I'm going with this. I'm beginning to SERIOUSLY doubt that anybody playtested this as the Girls, especially the more I look behind the code......

...and on another note, the Big Statue GW is broken..... IIRC, for the "happy in all cities" bit to work, it has to have a "happy" value higher than 0 (see: the Hanging gardens)... I could be wrong, though.

 

[The Omega]

Well, in 2.0, the Girls get two very powerful types of artillery early in the game (Cootie Carrier and Cootie Bomb) which help out alot. I've held off entire invasions just using them, in combination with a handful of mercenaries to kill off the few redlined survivors. And the Girls do get access to more governments and wonders than in previous versions.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

ROFL cooties, that's classic!

Well, I did make another edit to my previous post.....

What do you think of my suggestions (and PLEASE tell me you're turning the plague off in 2.0)?

Also, any plans to add bonus resources to the water? The only reason I'm asking is because I'm on a tundra penninsula in my current game, and if there were some, you know, fish and stuff, then maybe I might actually have a few cities down there that would be worth a darn.... Also, maybe enable forest planting (possibly even as a girl-only ability, which, IMO would do a lot to even out the girls other weaknesses).

Oh, and how's it like, running two factions at once? I've taken to calling the GWC S "Good S" and the FA S "Bad S" (You're Good S... I'm Bad S! You're goodie little two-shoes! goodie little two-shoes! ....Okay, enough Army of Darkness references already).

Oh, and one last thing... The story is in Stories and Tales and is called "Girl Power!! A Playground Mod Story" Please feel free to read and/or comment on it.

 

[Bluemofia]

As for the girl units and stuff..... I still say either (a) make them more powerful (and give them analogues to boy units for the techs that currently give boy factions units, but not girls) or (b) give virtually all girl units stealth attack (and give them analogues to boy units for the techs that currently give boy factions units, but not girls)

We've added a sort of "cruise missile" unit for the girls (cootie carrier), and they are pretty much the only ones that get that type of unit early on. Later they can't though, for their tactic of spreading cooties become "obsolete", and non-lethal.

The reason for this is that, thanks to being in the Navy, I've spent more time in close quarters with women than you, or most people probably have. Women are more than capable of being aggressive, and they hold grudges like nobody's business... I mean we're talking 15 years and still not talking to each other type grudges, and over the smallest slight, too.

The reason I say give them the stealth attack, is due to the fact that girls also tend to fight dirty, and get you back for something when you least expect it....

Noted. Will probably give it to some of their units, but not all.

Also, girl units should even out with the boys by middle school, because they've pretty much mastered The Look by then... You know, the one where they get that certain expression on their face, and you just KNOW you're in deep trouble or did something bad, but don't have any idea what it was, and that she's going to let you convict yourself as you're trying to worm your way out..... I've known guys who could bench 250 lbs literally run off when their wife or girlfriend came striding towards them with The Look on their face.

I use this as the "Boyfriend" enslaving part. They enslave them, and they control them utterly. But it probably won't work against someone who hasn't been enslaved to their will yet.

Of course it all comes down to this: To borrow a quote from the lead designer of Age of Empires I, II, and III..... "Gameplay > Historical Accuracy"

So true. I've had to actually give more units that never existed to factions not FA, Senso, and BU to bolster their strengths. This is most clearly shown in 2.0, for we've even added 2 more civs in. (Barbarians, the group that specialize in HN as well as highly decentralized style, and some other Blitz based group who specialize in speed warfare.)

Currently, it would appear that the girls and staff are broken; The girls any which way you look at it, and the staff from an AI perspective (The Omega demonstrated that when he totally Pwned the schoolyard in his story.... The kids barely even scratched his units, while he just rolled over them like they weren't there), and the girls are far too weak to defend themselves long enough to achieve a cultural or grad victory.....

Of course, another way you can reflect the lack of girls aggressiveness would be to make them mostly defensive (i.e. they have the same or higher defense values than equivalent boy units, but lower attack values)....

Staff we've finally come up with a solution to the Staff's brokenness. We make their teacher units require homework, and give them a less powerful, and less expensive unit as their basic units to allow them to spread before getting powerful units to match their economies.

Also, the Girls are strangely well played by the AI. They are always the largest AI faction, and most advanced. Always. Their unique gov allows them to ignore the penalty normally associated with early developing factions' despotism. They always end up as the tech leader, and always end up as the dominant power. Of the AI.

And actually, generally their units are fairly defensive already. Just the early ones aren't as much, but it's when they were more aggressive, but still poor fighters.

Also, maybe make the Girls Unique tech more useful.... So far it's good only for 4 things; a government (which aint all that great... If you'd make it communal corruption, then we'd be talking, not to mention it would be more reflective of the way girls are always sharing stuff), a lux resource (that seems to be about as scarce as hen's teeth), a Wonder (which requires said almost nonexistant resource), and a city improvement (which is actually useful, but still...).

Yeah, the government isn't good in the long run (awesome in the very beginning), but it's better than Despotism. We'll probably change it to communal in 2.0.

Luxury scarce? It's set to be slightly higher than 2 per player on the standard maps. And they are the only ones who can see it. But Luxuries group themselves, so that's probably what you're getting the scarce from.

In 2.0 they get a unique tech, which will grant them the ability to build 2 more cultural buildings, and 1 more wonder. Which generate lots of culture.

The boy factions, with Male Nature alone (not counting other even more unique techs, like what FA, GWC, Rebs and Char get) get access to about 5 governments (a few of which are actually good), about 6 or so wonders, at least 1 luxury (nintendo), and a slew of other buildings and such.... I think you can see where I'm going with this. I'm beginning to SERIOUSLY doubt that anybody playtested this as the Girls, especially the more I look behind the code......

We've playtested as the Girls, just it's hard for 4 people to do all 10 civs in a reasonable amount of time, and do it well. And it happens to unfortunately be, that the most serious playtesting was during the period between what you are playing now, and serious working on 2.0.

Meanwhile, the Girls get the Flowers luxury (as opposed to the Nintendo luxury, which is rarer), a bunch of culture buildings and improvements (in 2.0. Like, 2 more improvements, and a wonder), and the ability to sacrifice and enslave.

Not all civs are created equal. FA and Senso are one of the strongest factions in the game. Unrivaled units (except for each other), powerful units, and not without their bonuses.

...and on another note, the Big Statue GW is broken..... IIRC, for the "happy in all cities" bit to work, it has to have a "happy" value higher than 0 (see: the Hanging gardens)... I could be wrong, though.

From what testing I've done, it does work. One happy in all cities, but if I add the "happy" value to be greater than 0, the host city will have 2 happy, and all others just 1 happy.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Luxury scarce? It's set to be slightly higher than 2 per player on the standard maps. And they are the only ones who can see it. But Luxuries group themselves, so that's probably what you're getting the scarce from.

There's only 3-4 sources of flowers, and those are entirely within Staff territory in the game I'm playing... I don't know whether to or Even worse, the Staff have the entire world's supply of soda (which is required for some of the better units).... It's just that C3C lumps luxury resources, but tries to distribute strat resources evenly....

SO, I dunno, maybe make flowers a strat resource and in addition to making them required for the Flower mound, also have some kind of flower garden or Flower arrangement city improvement that costs 0 upkeep and makes 1 person happy but produces 0 culture? (sort of like the breweries in WH 2.x) and/or make it a requirement for some of the Girls more powerful units (FLOWER POWER!!!)... I dunno, just some ideas I'm throwing out there...

Also, I tried building the Big Statue, and my capital city had 1 unhappy before it was build, yet after it was completed, the unhappy person didn't go away... As I said before, you have to have the "Happy" box have a value greater than 0 for the "happy in all cities" to work right... In the FF mod, the Ru'uLude Gardens works in a similar fashion, except that it makes 3 people happy in your home city and 1 in all other cities... I checked and it does exactly that: Precisely 3 people in the city that builds it are made happy, and 1 person in made happy in all other cities.... It may work for all other cities if the "happy" box is not checked, but no people in the city that builds it will benefit from it.....

One more thing, about the teachers... I was thinking a good Idea for a cheap, mid-range unit for them would be a "Student Teacher" that could enslave defeated kids as "Traitorous kids" or something (because of how popular student teachers tend to be).

Also, I was wondering if I could possibly propose 2 possible factions...

You see, my friend Scott and I had such battles in middle school between our lego armies (and the one thing your schoolyard mod is missing, IMHO, is at least 1 Lego maniac faction)... Of course, my faction would be rather wierd, since I openly associated with girls in Elementary and early middle school, as well as had some rather feminine hobbies (I actually like growing flowers, for one), which got me called all sorts of names, as you may well imagine, but I was close friends with a number of girls throughout school, though, which would mean that my faction would share some units with the girls... I'll give more data if they get approved....

Oh, and you can count me in for playtesting 2.0 (especially since my unit production methods have gotten more efficient and I'm MUCH closer to getting my mod done with).

 

[The Omega]

There's only 3-4 sources of flowers, and those are entirely within Staff territory in the game I'm playing... I don't know whether to or Even worse, the Staff have the entire world's supply of soda (which is required for some of the better units).... It's just that C3C lumps luxury resources, but tries to distribute strat resources evenly....

Well, that just means the RNG hates you. Not our fault.

SO, I dunno, maybe make flowers a strat resource and in addition to making them required for the Flower mound, also have some kind of flower garden or Flower arrangement city improvement that costs 0 upkeep and makes 1 person happy but produces 0 culture? (sort of like the breweries in WH 2.x) and/or make it a requirement for some of the Girls more powerful units (FLOWER POWER!!!)... I dunno, just some ideas I'm throwing out there...

Maybe. We've already added alot of unique things for the Girls, though.

Also, I tried building the Big Statue, and my capital city had 1 unhappy before it was build, yet after it was completed, the unhappy person didn't go away... As I said before, you have to have the "Happy" box have a value greater than 0 for the "happy in all cities" to work right... In the FF mod, the Ru'uLude Gardens works in a similar fashion, except that it makes 3 people happy in your home city and 1 in all other cities... I checked and it does exactly that: Precisely 3 people in the city that builds it are made happy, and 1 person in made happy in all other cities.... It may work for all other cities if the "happy" box is not checked, but no people in the city that builds it will benefit from it.....

Okay, we gonna fix that.

One more thing, about the teachers... I was thinking a good Idea for a cheap, mid-range unit for them would be a "Student Teacher" that could enslave defeated kids as "Traitorous kids" or something (because of how popular student teachers tend to be).

Already added. They've got the power to teleport.

Also, I was wondering if I could possibly propose 2 possible factions...

You see, my friend Scott and I had such battles in middle school between our lego armies (and the one thing your schoolyard mod is missing, IMHO, is at least 1 Lego maniac faction)... Of course, my faction would be rather wierd, since I openly associated with girls in Elementary and early middle school, as well as had some rather feminine hobbies (I actually like growing flowers, for one), which got me called all sorts of names, as you may well imagine, but I was close friends with a number of girls throughout school, though, which would mean that my faction would share some units with the girls... I'll give more data if they get approved....

Well, it'll depend on if we can get enough units..... And you gonna have to write your own civilopedia entry.

Oh, and you can count me in for playtesting 2.0 (especially since my unit production methods have gotten more efficient and I'm MUCH closer to getting my mod done with).

Righto. We're still working on the most current version, so no playtestings going on right now, though.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Well, that just means the RNG hates you. Not our fault.

Yes, yes it does.... I bought Civ III when it came out in Dec 2001, and didn't get a single MGL in an unmodded game until after I got Conquests in Feb 2004.... I regularly lose units with 20 Att, 10 Def and 2 movement to units with 20 Att, 4 Def and 2 movement.... Yes the icon was made just for me.

Maybe. We've already added alot of unique things for the Girls, though.

Okay, fair enough... Also maybe make sodas strat, also (again due to the fact that they are gonna be lumped in one spot, and on Monarch and above the AI is super-duper stingy with lux trading or any other trading for that matter).

Okay, we gonna fix that.

Glad I could help

Already added. They've got the power to teleport.

Well, then, to quote Ash from army of darkness: Groovy!

Well, it'll depend on if we can get enough units..... And you gonna have to write your own civilopedia entry.

Don't worry about that.... Many of my own units will fit my faction, as well as "Revots's" faction (Scott would use a backwards version of his own name for his charachter in these games), and a number of Star Wars and Star Trek units would fit for his as well (he was a big trekkie as well as a Lego freak, and we were always trying to compete to see who could build a better rendition of various Star Wars fighters and Star Trek ships in Lego) One of Revots Ttocs's UUs will be a boxy air transport called 4-FUS (4-Fast Utility Service), which can transport 4 units (this was his most proud Lego creation)... One of mine will be a "space" fighter called the Sky Spear II (I built the original version in 1989, and improved it in 1993, and I still have that particular lego creation hanging around).... Plus, I was big into collecting the Pirate sets, so Captain Jack Sparrow will be my late-game amphibious unit (except I'll call him Lego Pirate Captain or something)....

As for the Faction Names and flags, Scott's faction would be Blacktron, since he had every single Blacktron set made (I was more into Futron on the space side, since they were the "good guys".... Which should give an idea of how long Scott and I have been out of school). I wouldn't mind my faction being called the Lego Pirates (since I own more Pirate and Adventurer sets than anything else)... I usually went under the monikker of "Captain Benjamin Science" for these things.... As for city lists, I usually tended to name places in our lego wars after either (a) local towns or (b) other real-world places (one time, during one of our wars, I managed to gain control of Canada, the Eastern Seaboard States (Maine-Georgia), and China, resulting in the creation of the United States of Chino-America or USCA).....

The flags would be easy: Jolly Roger for mine, and the Hojo flag (the one with 3 triangles arranged in a triangle) for Revots', since that symbol was used by the Blacktron faction in the original Lego sets. His traits would be Scientific and Commercial (or Industrious... That guy graduated at the top of every class he was in) and mine would be Scientific and Seafaring (Pirate's do a lot of sailing, you know)

 

[Bluemofia]

Well, if you have soda powered armies, you wouldn't want to give soda away easily will you?

Jolly Roger has been taken by Senso already unfortunately. And also, we're trying to keep to a single set of flags created by Paasky (his country/state flags).

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Well, I've been doing some thinking, and ahve finally gotten through some of the cobwebs (I mean for me, many of these lego battles happened almost 20 years ago), and remembered some more details: I usually called my faction in the various Lego Wars "The Republic of Pennsylvania" (which was partially a tongue-in-cheek reference to the then infamous "Republic of Texas" militia), so the PA flag would work....

...Also, in addition to the Pirates, I was also majorly into the castle playsets, particularly the Forestmen (which I used as elves/robin hood, but mostly elves), and actually came out of Lego retirement in 1999-2001 just to buy the Japanese Castle playsets, so basically my faction would have some female units (I deliberately bolstered the number of girl lego people in my army), and the rest of the units would basically be a combination of Pirates, Elves, Medieval/rennaisance dudes (Even as a kid I was interested in history and found out that cannons and guns were invented in the late medieval period, so I made bombard cannons for the castles and fashioned hand-cannons for some of my lego knights), so finding units definitely won't be a problem... As for the King unit to represent me, I think that the Final Fantasy X crusdaer I'm making right now will do nicely, since the minifig that I last used to represent myself in the Lego world is one of the samurai minifigs....

Of course, the unique tech for my faction would be Legos!!!! or something like that

...and about the soda-powered armies... Since most of those units also require Money (which the Boy Union controls) and Sugar!!!11!one (which I control about 80% of the world's supply), fat lot of good it'll do them (especially since, IIRC, the teachers can't see it).

Speaking of the teachers/staff, I have some other ideas for cheaper initial units that the staff can have:

Caffeteria lady (requires School Food), Janitor (faster worker), Secretary (dunno what her stats would be), and school nurse (maybe be an improvement to allow cities over size 12?).....

EDIT: This would be a good candidate for the Caffeteria Lady (she DOES serve up yuky green stuff in cups for her attack.....)

 

[Bluemofia]

Teachers have got a nurse (2.0), and an Armed Worker already. The improvement to allow cities over size 12 is, IIRC, bonuses (implemented already). Or some building of that nature. Janitor needs to wait until Plot makes a good janitor worker for it.

What would the Cafeteria lady do though? And the secretary, that seems more of the worker type person, for they really don't do much in terms of discipline until High School. (then some of them are in charge of giving the kids notices of their ditching class)