Playground Mod

1. Epic trees are already visible to all already. Same with Horses and Magical Stuff (they allow mounted units and magic units respectively, primarily used by Horse and Senso, though others use them, just not as often).

The soda/coffee thing I'll consider.

2. They're not supposed to... Maybe the scroll wheel got flicked up on accident when that was being worked on. I'll fix that.


3. Didn't know that trick. So would like, plains turn into grasslands and stuff like that? :) (I'll look at which ones to make reduce pollution; I'm really tired ATM and need to finish laundry, and then nap, then work, then sleep. Yes, it is 9 PM here.)

4. Hmm, and I thought I killed them all. :p Thanks. :)

-----
1. Alright.

2. Ok, but it's going to make them require horses then. ;) (only unit that rides a horse and doesn't require it is the Raider; one because they stole it from the Horse, and two, because we want the soccer player to go obsolete so the Barbarians can't annex anymore cities without declaring war ;) )

3. Yeah, the units to sacrifice was a problem for the AI, cause they cheat and do so anyways. (I've seen them sacrifice captured gatling cannons for culture.) Though, happiness probably should only be an issue if you war a lot, or get shafted in resource placement.

4. Rather hesitant on not using one of the flags from Paasky's flag leaderheads set, simply because it wouldn't fit as well with the others. Would the Union Jack be preferable over the current one?

5. Hmm, sounds a bit like stuff that goes in the "more info" box. (sort of want to keep the description page for a short summary and then unit stats/abilities, and more historical stuff/random amusement goes to the "more info")

And "rule by committee" is not anarchy! :p It's closer to an Oligarchy, or a Republic. When we say Blissful Anarchy, we mean no leader/official government. Things just get done without people telling other people to get things done. :p (course Civ III can't model that very well, so we still have to invent a leader for the girls)
 
Oh, and we've made a slight change between the versions:

1. Death Strike Trooper (FA) can't stealth attack anymore. (AI loves their stealth attack and HN too much)
2. Freak Assassins can't be built anymore. (AI loves their stealth attack too much)
3. Freak Assassins are now spawned by a small wonder available to FA at Omeganism, and thus its stats has been fiddled with a bit for being available later.
4. Resistance modifier has been added, now propaganda modifier is left to be fixed.
 
Ok, first of all, my main issue with all the unique resources is not so much the amount per se, but the distribution...

For example in my current playtest game, here's the resource spread (on a small map):

Resources available to MOST civs:

Sugar!!!!: 10 (all near me :lol:)
Nintendo: 2 (both next to my capitol, so sorry about your luck guys!)
Soda!!: 5 (near Chase and Boy Union)
Horses: 6 (all over the map)
Magical Stuff: 2 (both near Death Strike)
Mercenaries: 4
Money: 3 (all near Chase/Boy Union)
Inspiration: 2 (both near Chase/Boy Union)
Cute Stuffed Animals: 3 (all near Freak Attack)
Pokemon: 13 (all over the place, but for most factions it's only useful for 1 city improvement that goes obsolete really fast)
Iron: 3
Parts: 1!! Just freaking 1!!


Epic Trees: 4
Candy!: 4
School Food: 3

Now onto the flip side, resources visible to only one or two factions:

Flowers: 4, all near Freak Attack
Puppies!: 5
Suffering of Children: 16!!!
Coffee: 8
Mystical Ruins: 2
Homework: 7!!
Crashed UFO's: 9!

Now can you see the what I've got issues with? Logic should dictate that resources that are visible to only one or two factions should be RARER than ones available to MOST factions (I mean, GWC and the Teachers aren't even IN this game, and their resources outnumber just about all the other resources put together! :lol:)

About the flag... If you don't want to give me a chance, I'll just stick with my current one... But I would like to point out that I have been making graphics for this game for almost 10 years, so I SHOULD be able to match the general style/format (after all, it IS only one frame, and I'm used to doing LHs with 121 frames. ;))... I'll post a sample sometime later tonight or tomorrow....

I also have absolutely no issue with the Lego Knight requiring Horses... After all, I do remember ordering a Horse & Saddle pack or two from the Lego catalog in order to mount up more of our troops (so we could get a full-strength troop fielded, not to mention a couple extra for pulling Gun carriages)...

Edit: Wait: You mean that the AI was sacrificing without having researched any tech OR having the proper unit?! Well, everyone knows the AI cheats anyways, so I just learned to live with most of it (and the AI needs all the help it can get. :mwaha:

Also, about the pollution thing: I doubt that changed tiles will change back, but it DOES prevent it from happening again... In the Fallout mod, the more pollution reducing buildings I built (wind farms, rad absorbers, etc), I actually saw the global warming icon SHRINK AND DISSAPPEAR! I was like, "holy crap! I need to get that feature into the Final Fantasy mod (the 1.0 release version will give all "green" production buildings, hospitals (which I'm bringing back due to reducing city size breaks) and recycling plants have -1 pollution, in addition to any pollution reducing capabilities they may already have (hospitals reduce population pollution as well as allowing level 3 city sizes).
 
Hmm, that's weird. Pokemon is supposed to be all over the place, cause no child was without pokemon back then. ;) But all of the other things are rather disproportionate:

Crashed UFO, Puppies, and horses has an appearance ratio of 150, flowers 200, and parts 60. Pokemon's at 500, while suffering of children is at 280. Yet Suffering outnumbers pokemon, crashed UFOs outnumber flowers, puppies are about half as much as crashed UFOs, horses 2/3 of it, and parts should have 2 or 3 or something, instead of 1.

I'll have to take a look at it some more; maybe it's just because of stupid reasons or w/e. (I don't think it's the C3C randomized resource counts, as they only exist if no ratio is selected.) I did look up the appearance ratios to get about how many I wanted on the map however. (teacher stuff is "common" because the AI tends to suck. I do agree that suffering needs to be cut down a bit, and maybe puppies though; haven't gotten around to changing the numbers around)



Well, if it's similar enough style it should be good. Background color that bluish thing to match the others is what I'm mostly concerned with, otherwise as long as it's not blatantly different in the lighting, size, positioning, etc. it should be good. That, or a new set of flags to go with. :p

Not without the tech, just they sacrifice not the proper unit. They have the proper tech, but not the proper unit. (dumping gatling cannons... come on! :p )

Hmm, interesting... I'd probably give the -1 to the mass transit, but probably not the recycling bin, since they are early game improvements, and I still want *some* pollution to exist if you build a ton of factories/assembly lines, etc.
 
That is some weird resource distribution you've got there....

Although I've also noticed that there tends to be a disproportionately large amount of Suffering on the maps I've played, even when compared to resources with higher appearance ratios.
What I find to be very annoying, however, is the way the randomizer clumps together luxuries. It's especially a problem for the Staff, Girls, and Lego, as they all have units/buildings which require a luxury resource to build.:ack:
 
The Omega said:
That is some weird resource distribution you've got there....

Although I've also noticed that there tends to be a disproportionately large amount of Suffering on the maps I've played, even when compared to resources with higher appearance ratios.
What I find to be very annoying, however, is the way the randomizer clumps together luxuries. It's especially a problem for the Staff, Girls, and Lego, as they all have units/buildings which require a luxury resource to build.:ack:
Click to expand...

I tend to find the puppies are off on an island somewhere. ALL the puppies are on the island. :p

And suffering usually appears in the jungle somewhere.
 
Here's the results of the initial Bug Hunt: I've identified and corrected all the tech icon pallettes, as well as made a better icon for the Girl techs...
 
Err... This looks like random stuff from what I'm guessing, the Final Fantasy mod.
 
Sorry, grabbed the wrong file by mistake.

BTW, the Blisful anarchy government needs gender-specific titles. ;)
 
For those who may have guessed, The Omega and I have been working on the Playground Mod 3.0 in the background.

We are pleased to announce (for all 3 of you) that the Playground Mod 3.0 is finally nearing completion, and we are in the final phase of testing. This has been an ongoing project since July of 2016, and I originally aimed to be finished by Civ 6's release date. However, testing and development dragged out, so the deadline was extended 3 more times.

I now anticipate that we will finish testing in June, so I might as well make make the announcement to properly motivate myself to finish the testing in a reasonable timeframe.

Playground Mod 3.0 Changelist:
Civilizations:
Redesigned each civilization to focus on a specific theme and playstyle. Play as the Senso, masters of Espionage, Boy Union, leaders of diplomacy, or the Rebs, specializing in special forces

Units:
43 new units, including Foreign Legions, Balrogs, and Star Destroyers!
38 new graphics, including many of Sandris' units, and Hikaro's post 2.0 units for The Girls.
Expanded Naval options, allowing for a more complex naval dynamics
Rebalancing of many units, including more ruthless teachers, faster fighter planes, and bigger barbarian hordes
Reworking of the entire unit upgrade tree
Bugfixes for several units

Buildings:
11 new buildings, including Soda Monopolies, The Psychologist's Office, and The Playground Olympics
Rebalancing of most buildings and wonders

Governments:
2 new governments, Senso Fascism and Bureaucratic Committee.
Complete government overhaul and rebalancing

Technologies:
Reworked the Tech Tree to reflect the new Graduation Race victory changes and Government and Building changes
Overhaul of the Barbarians technological progression

Victory conditions:
Rebalanced culture requirements for Cultural victory. Now you can actually attain a One City Cultural Victory!
Revamped the Graduation Race. You will need to take "classes" specifically at Summer School in order to graduate!
Reworked diplomatic relationships, changing the dynamics of Diplomatic Victory.

Resources:
4 new resources, Junk Food, LEGOs, Obsidian, and Ammo, giving additional strategic locations to defend and attack.

Graphical cleanup of many older graphics for a more consistent appearance.

Screenshots:
Spoiler :
3.0.1.png

3.0.2.png

3.0.3.png

3.0.4.png

3.0.5.png

3.0.6.png
 
Spent the last few days getting the old pcx making bones flexible again. Needed something to work on. If you guys can use any of these ... Making some era splashes would not be too difficult if you are interested ...
Spoiler Preview & Download Link :

the names are to help identify the various individual files in the zip. Download here.

K80kmD.jpg
 
Alrighty, here's a Civ spotlight on the new United Forces:

UF.png


The United Forces (also known as the UF) are a Militaristic and Commercial Civilization led by Mateo. They were founded in 5th Grade, after Adam was elected president of the Boy Union. The incompetence of Adam was what led to the rebellion of Freak Attack and the United Forces, and they established their independence by defeating a vastly larger army that Adam sent against them, before Adam was beheaded by the teachers for attacking civilians. Afterwards, they decided to get some land to go with their independence, so they declared war on the Girls and the Barbarians for control of Girl Island. Because of their vastly inferior numbers, they began to recruit mercenaries, until most of their army was comprised of mercenaries.

The UF, having many historic ties with the Boy Union, share their unit lines until 5th grade, and also briefly converge again in Middle School with the formation of the Boy Alliance. However, they are unique in that they have a very linear upgrade path compared to the other nations.

Spoiler :
UF Lineup.png


Shown here:

Boy Warrior -> Mercenary -> Mercenary Soldier ->Condottiero/Mercenary Officer -> Foreign Legion/Mercenary Captain -> Steampunk Commando
Boy Agent -> Mercenary

Boy Militia Fighter -> Boy Mercenary -> Mercenary Guard -> Fortress Guard -> Boy Alliance Infantry -> Mercenary Swordsmaster

Mercenary Archer -> Mercenary Highwayman -> Siege Mercenary

While most nations don't have a rapid power spike after unlocking their first unique unit lines due to needing to build them first, the UF can simply upgrade their old troops to the newer troops. In addition, while every other nation's starting army eventually becomes obsolete when they upgrade to the expensive, relatively weak, but resource-free Condottiero or Foreign Legion, the UF doesn't suffer from this problem. Their initial Mercenaries upgrade to their primary offensive force, the Mercenary Soldier, upon researching their unique technology, "We've got mercs...", which then will upgrade to the Mercenary Officer. If they do not have the mercenaries resource however, they will be limited to Condottieros like everyone else, with the option to upgrade them to Mercenary Officers later when it becomes available. The same is also true with their Mercenary Captain and the Foreign Legion.

Their special forces, their archer lines, are not as strong as their sword wielding counterparts, but they are able to execute amphibious assaults, and have a very high bombard strength compared to other civilizations, but are unable to lethally bombard. Releasing a volley of Siege Mercenary crossbow bolt fire before moping up the survivors with Mercenary Captains is a very deadly tactic.

In addition, while they do not have a unique government like Freak Attack, the Boy Union, Senso, and the Rebs do upon reaching 5th Grade, they are in a position to best exploit the Oligarchy government. Oligarchy is designed as a government to make huge amounts of money very quickly, with its many improvements that increase revenue. In addition, it has the benefit of having free maintenance to all buildings and improvements, and minimal corruption. This allows those builders who try to build every improvement in every city a way to indulge in their vices without any consequence aside from the shield investment, and gain their bonuses without breaking the bank.

Spoiler :
Oligarchy.png


The downsides however, is that it requires 3 gold to support each soldier after your first 10 free units, making a large army prohibitively expensive very quickly. In addition, they have a tile penalty that is typically associated with Despotism in the main Civ 3 game, but it is partially balanced out by a trade bonus, so it only affects the food and shield production of cities, due to the Oligarch overlord's focus on making money at the expense of everything else.

The UF has a unique building, Mercenary Quarters, which provides a 50% production boost*, and a defensive bonus to the city, at the risk of a Mercenary Rebellion and ravaging the city. Normally, this would be VERY expensive (at 5 gold per turn), because of all of the demands that Mercenaries like to give you, but because of Oligarchy's free maintenance, you can spam them without a second thought.

The main changes between the 2.0 version of the UF and the 3.0 version of the UF, was the Oligarchy rework, and unit lines rework, and fleshing out their unit lines a bit more in 5th Grade and Middle School.

* This was intended to make mercenaries more readily recruitable without making them cheaper, but we did not want an auto-producing building because of balance problems, so instead it makes everything produce faster.
 
Today's spotlight is on the Boy Union:

BU.png


The Boy Union (also known as the BU) is a Seafaring and Commercial civilization led by Alexi. After the Group Wars, the Galaxy Wars Cub was the only one left standing. In the spirit of the 2000 American presidential election, they too held an election between S and Alexi. Alexi won, and reorganized the Galaxy Wars Cub into the Boy Union. Alexi began a policy of expansionism, and came into conflict with the Barbarians who lived on Girl Island. Both sides began a policy of military stupidity, where they fought to a standstill despite the Boy Union's much, much, larger army. The collapsing of morale and discipline led to S rebelling, and forming Freak Attack. After 5th grade began, the Boy Union held an election between Alexi and Adam. Adam somehow managed to win, but he was incompetent, and hated by Freak Attack, who immediately declared war to depose Adam. Despite the Boy Union outnumbering Freak Attack 25 to 1, they did not take the declaration of war seriously until Mateo rebelled, forming the United Forces, and allied with Freak Attack. President Adam still did not take them seriously, and did nothing to lead the Boy Union armies against the two break-away states, so the Boy army was led to fend for themselves. They were leaderless and untrained, so they attacked anyone they came across, which led to the teachers noticing, and executed Adam for throwing rocks at people.

Alexi then returned as President, but to prevent another idiot like Adam from ever rising to power, he reformed the Boy Union into a Democratic-Dictatorship. Another war was fought to take control of Girl Island, but was met with mixed results. After a long peace, Freak Attack suddenly declared war, and annihilated the Boy Army, and captured Alexi, all in one day, forcing a humiliating peace treaty. However, instead of rolling over and becoming a Freak Attack puppet state, Alexi reorganized and trained the army, turning it into an actual fighting force for once. With 3 weeks left of Elementary School, the Boy Union then declared war on Freak Attack and the United Forces, beginning the Last War.

The Boy Union, having a vast sprawling empire who had an unfortunate history of not winning very many offensive campaigns, is a defensive focused army. Their unit lines are unique in that they are almost all amphibious units, with the exception of their more specialist units, the Freak Auxiliary and Resistor. Freak Auxiliaries are produced automatically from their unique wonder, "Vassal State", when the Boy Union was tricked into becoming a Freak Attack Vassal during the Death Strike crisis in Middle School, and it is a typical Freak Attack unit, with high movement and high attack, but abysmal defensive abilities. The Resistor is an invisible hidden nationality unit produced by their unique wonder, "Resistance", which signaled that the Boy Union decided to quietly ignore all orders given by Freak Attack and instead act as Taiwan if they were independent without acknowledging that they are independent, that the Boy Union can use to covertly attack their enemies without declaring war.

Spoiler :
BU Lineup.png


Shown here:
Boy Warrior -> Mercenary -> Condottiero -> Foreign Legion
Boy Agent -> Mercenary

Boy Destroyer, Freak Auxiliary, Resistor, Boy Legion

Boy Militia Fighter -> Boy Mercenary -> Boy Soldier -> Boy Knight -> Plateau Guard -> Boy Alliance Infantry -> Elite Boy Infantry

Boy Archer -> Boy Sniper -> Boy Crossbow

Unintentionally, the Boy Union has many parallels to England, most notable being their focus on Naval superiority, and maintaining good relations with The Commonwealth the Rebs and the UF, and not so good relations with early 1800s America Freak Attack, until the threat of Germany Senso brought them all closer together, (to a point).

The story as to where the Boy Union navy came from, was from its original sovereignty of a great deal of hills on the playground. Hills, were obviously islands, and in order to assert dominance of the islands, clearly you need a strong navy. Nevermind the logistical nightmares where large armies of children ran through water with no regard to transport ships and drowning (most of the Boy Union's units are amphibious), and nevermind that they did not understand why each ship class served a distinct purpose. Naval combat has been reworked from the 2.0 with the addition of Destroyers, and making naval units overall cheaper. The old Battleship has been modified to be more of an anti-aircraft AEGIS Cruiser role, while the Destroyer is used to scout, and hunt down transports. In the Playground Mod, the Boy Union has a powerful naval presence, being able to build Boy Battleships, Boy Dreadnoughts, and Boy Carriers. Boy Battleships act as the king of the seas, able to fight enemy ships and win.Boy Dreadnoughts serve as the Boy Union's heavy land bombardment force, able to lethally bombard land units (but not naval) at up to 3 tiles away, at the cost of slow speed, low direct combat stats, and high cost, necessitating a heavy escort. Boy Carriers serve the usual aircraft carrier role of projecting force. In addition, the Boy Union can build Boy Docks, which act like an additional Offshore Platform and Commercial Dock, making coastal cities more valuable than land cities, more often than not.

On the Diplomatic side of things, the Boy Union maintained good diplomatic relations with the Rebs, the UF, and the Barbarians during the formation of the Boy Alliance, partly due to Alexi's popularity and reputation as a competent ruler, and partly due to historical roots, much like the Commonwealth and the US views Britain. As Civ3 does not have a whole lot of diplomatic options to play with, we couldn't find many ways to increase their ability to win via a Diplomatic Victory. What we decided upon, was the Boy Union, upon researching their unique tech "Boy Hegemony", is able to establish many of the Diplomatic treaty agreements normally available in Middle School (Right of Passage, Mutual Protection Pacts, Trade Embargos, etc.) during early 5th Grade, giving them a head start in building alliances. These were moved later in the tech tree for everyone else, primarily because the various Playground Nations did not really have much more nuanced foreign policy than "state of war" and "completely ignore" until Middle School.

Their unique government, Democratic-Dictatorship, was developed to counteract the failings of Playground Democracy, as the much more popular Adam taking control lead to unmitigated disaster. The government was reorganized such that the president had near absolute control over affairs, and total control over the military. Elections still happened, but were kept for minor situations, and laws were subject to the president's Veto. However, the economy was still free from the president's control.
Spoiler :

DD.png



Mechanically, Democratic Dictatorships are one of the more balanced governments, as they have low corruption and a trade bonus similar to Playground Democracy, but with only 100% worker efficiency compared to the 150% that Playground Democracy has. However, it has low war weariness (rather than high), and some free unit support (albeit relatively low) to represent the militarization that the Boy Union underwent in preparation for its showdown with Freak Attack.

The main changes for the Boy Union between 2.0 and 3.0 is the changes in the diplomacy, a rework of their late game land units, and expansion of the naval aspect.
 
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Apologies for the long time between updates, but work has been busy, and most of my spare time is dedicated to either balance testing, or writing the Diplomacy.txt file. In addition, this is going to be a bit more text heavy update, as it's more in the mechanics, rather than covering a civ in great detail.

Governments
In addition to adding a new government for the LEGO Republic (Bureaucratic Committees) and Senso (Senso Fascism), all of the existing governments underwent a major rework. The most notable examples are a complete rework of the Propaganda and Resistance modifiers, and re-balancing the governments to make certain governments less pointless, and a lot more tradeoffs when deciding governments.



Propaganda modifiers:
The Propaganda modifiers was primarily reworked to adapt the lore where the faction Senso, which achieved great notoriety by being led by an incredibly charismatic leader named Chris. Senso was first encountered in Middle School, where the other factions met Senso, who came from another school. All of the factions mostly ignored Senso, initially believing that they are another tiny city-state Luxembourg equivalent... until they found out that much older kids, like 7th and 8th graders, were part of Senso, and even some teachers. Soon after, Senso initiated a massive coup d'etat of all of the major factions at the same time, as they had spent the whole time infiltrating the other factions and convincing their members to secretly join, and to overthrow them from the inside.

Senso was then given the Great Pyramid, which originally was used as a fortress great wonder in 2.0, but was decided it served no real purpose. It was retooled as a Senso Unique small wonder, replacing the Intelligence Agency for them, to allow for them to start spying right from the get go, as well as contribute a slight defense boost, and produces spies slightly faster.

As for the governments, the first order of approximation of their propaganda modifier strength is determined by tiers. Later governments, being more efficient at convincing kids to join, have an easier time recruiting younger kids, than a 3rd grader recruiting 5th graders. So for example, at the base value, Playground Democracy, Fascism, and Tribal Council are rated at about the same as each other. Governments like Democratic-Dictatorship and Oligarchy are naturally more attractive, as they are reformed to be more efficient at the Playground. Kids involved in Playground Wars do not consider silly things like "civil rights" to be a factor in which empire they want to join. Weirder governments like School Boards and Crackdown, and the various Barbarian governments, lie outside the tier system, though for different reasons. Teachers don't really care about the Playground Wars, so overall they receive no propaganda bonus or penalty to them. The Barbarians are treated as if they were in Anarchy, which they were. The Barbarian nations never really united, and since the appeal of the other factions was so much greater, they were a source of recruitment by the other nations, according to lore.

The second factor was to determine whether a government is particularly resistant or not at propaganda as part of its inherent nature, and then its propaganda modifier is increased or decreased. Governments like Fascism, Senso Fascism, Reb-olutionary government, or Masterism, with their focus on the loyalty to the state above all else, or uses of commissar squads, are all very resistant against propaganda, as the kids are brainwashed to shun the outsiders, and everything they say is a lie. On the contrary, governments like Oligarchy, Bureaucratic Committee, and Conquest (a Death Strike Unique government which focuses on warfare at the expense of everything else), have horrible living conditions where the government views the people as a source of funding, or a source for conscription, encouraging people to escape those conditions. (Seriously. Death Strike policy is "Tony is on top. Everyone else is on the bottom. Go to the front to die for Tony, or you will die here.")

The third factor was whether the government is particularly good at propaganda or not as part of its inherent nature. Governments like Fascism, or Masterism are particularly bad at propaganda, because they can't come up with a good reason for kids to join them, if they are busy telling everyone in their own nation that everyone else sucks. Senso Fascism on the other hand, has a bonus at propaganda, because they're Senso, and Chris can convince the Devil to sell him his soul.

Finally, there are minor factors, that are primarily lore based, and are rather specific, than overarching. For example, Matriarchy is heavily anti-boy, and likewise, they are resistant against boy propaganda. Masterism, normally a propaganda resistant government, does not receive its usual bonus against Senso Fascism, while Senso Fascism retains its propaganda bonus, making Freak Attack unusually weak against Senso Fascism propaganda, compared to the other governments. And finally, Democratic-Dictatorships, while referred to as a Democratic Dictatorship, is the government of choice of a bunch of flag-waving AMERICA!! Texan nationalists. Naturally, they see anything as Democracy as inherently better, and while the names of the governments make it clear on what they functionally are, they were still referred to internally as "Democracies". True Democracy, (more accurately, Social Democracy) one of the governments that was present in Hikaro's Playground Wars, would have appealed to the Boy Union greatly, hence an unusual weakness to True Democracy's propaganda.

These factors also stack, so a Fascist government trying to initiate propaganda against another Fascist government has double penalty from being bad at Propaganda, and also the target Fascist government being good at resisting propaganda, making it worse than trying to initiate propaganda on a 5th grade level government, despite Fascism being a 3rd/4th grade level government.

Resistance Modifiers:
Resistance modifiers act similarly to the propaganda modifiers, each government has a tier, and they resist more when a lower tier government conquers a higher tier government, and less when a higher tier government conquers a lower tier government. Then whether the government is particularly good at crushing resistance (Crackdown, Senso Fascism), and particularly bad at crushing resistance or promoting resistance (Barbarian governments, Masterism, Fascism, Conquest), etc.

However, rather than paying attention to the tier level, it simply looks at whether it is higher or lower, meaning that the individual factors play a larger role.

Wartime and Peacetime governments
This was a bit harder to balance, as the number of unique governments required careful balancing not to be overpowered, and not to be useless. The base governments were designed with tiers in mind, although the 3rd/4th grade governments tend to be the last shared governments, allowing for higher tier governments to be more powerful without making the game too imbalanced. This also had the added benefits of civs with more late game power focus to have a stronger late game, as normally a game is won or lost in the early stages, and a stronger late game will allow those civs to help catch up.

After the "base" governments were designed, each unique government was then designed with a particular goal in mind, to represent the different playstyle. For example, Senso Fascism was built off of Fascism, but with a few bonuses, like a higher assimilation rate, and increased propaganda aspects, but otherwise the same. Democratic Dictatorship was designed as a cross between Tribal Council and Playground Democracy (The base game's Monarchy and Democracy equivalents), but a bit stronger in terms of economy, to represent the increased militancy of the Boy Union, compared to it's original Democratic form.



As an update, I do continue to aim to have the Playground Mod 3.0 to be released in June, and I've got 15 more days to do so. Definitely before July, as there is only a few more things left to do. 5 more sections in the diplo.txt file, a 4 more small scale test games. There are a few things that I'd like to get around to, but I have to say the mod is "finished" sometime, and 1 year of active development for 3.0 is a good stopping point. Maybe a few more graphical tweaks would be done afterwards, but not much for game play, as I'm looking to startup a new project after 3.0 is released.
 
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One week left before the deadline. Another more text heavy update, though a bit lighter this time:

Resources:

Units
In the original 2.0 setting, everything after 5th grade needed Iron, Magical Stuff, Epic Trees. Except for the Girls, they needed flowers. The Group Wars era, things either needed Pokemon, Horses, or Crashed UFOs. The resources were rather arbitrary, in that only Galaxy Wars Cub can see Crashed Space Ships, so they can't trade for it, the 5th grade units who used bows and arrows functionally had no resource restriction while Senso who were heavily magic based didn't have any there, everyone used iron, etc.

So we revamped it, and made things more consistent.

The main changes were that, many of the 5th grade melee units required a resource that became available at Sword Fighting (Iron, Legos, or Obsidian), and the 5th grade ranged units required a resource that became available at Archery (Ammo, or Magical Stuff). The Epic Trees became Bonus resources, because it was a bit hard to justify suddenly finding a real tree in a place you always thought didn't have any, and it provided a bit of flavor for actual trees, rather than pretend trees. We added Ammo to compliment the Magical Stuff for ranged units, and split LEGO and Chase's units to require Legos or Obsidian. This avoided the problem of the annoying hypertext exceeded limitation, and it kept the human player on an even footing regardless of civ when expanding, not knowing where the late game resources will spawn, forcing them to either engage in wars to acquire them, or trade with others who have them if they are unfortunate enough not to find them.

The Group Wars resources, Crashed UFOs, Pokemon, and Horses, are all visible from the start, with the exception of Pokemon. Pokemon however, has a much higher spawn rate to compensate, as it is one of those ubiquitous things that Elementary school children didn't go without, and serves almost as a bonus resource.

For those civs without the luck, money, or sheer size to acquire resources, they now have the Condottiero and Foreign Legion, sort of like the base game's Guerrilla and TOW Infantry. Expensive, relatively weak, and much of your early game army upgrades to them, forcing you to build a whole new army when you first get to 5th grade for nations with small and large armies to start fresh, or invest a lot of money getting your obsolete army to be marginally less obsolete. However, they do not cost resources, so you don't just end up with a game over screen if you are unfortunate enough to not be able to acquire said resources.

For example, in one of my Reb test games, all of the Ammo on the map was on the opposite continent, leaving me with mostly defensive units that utilized Iron, while my offensive force was primarily made up of said expensive resourceless units.

Buildings
In an effort to make locations more strategic, we made more buildings require resources in the city limit before being built. Many of the auto-spawning buildings were either made into small wonders, or regular improvements but only buildable with the resource in question in its city limit. For example, the Freedom Fighter Training Camp and Mercenary Liason Offices are only buildable in cities with ammo or mercenaries in its border, limiting their numbers.

In addition, for Oligarchy, they have unique Luxury Monopoly improvements (Soda Monopolies, Nintendo Monopolies, etc. Don't be silly, there are no Money Monopolies. That just makes no sense.), increasing tax yield, but only buildable with the luxury in the city limits.

Luxuries
There was a conscious effort to reduce the number of Luxuries the teachers have, forcing them to use the Luxury slider more, but not eliminating them altogether. Even then, they are unable to reach maximum happiness, and a full staff city will always have some unhappiness unless if you have war happiness, or have some people converted to entertainers. In addition, we overall tried to reduce the dependence on Luxuries for some of their more critical buildings, by removing Money from the requirement to build Office Max, but instead gave it a huge upkeep cost of 10 gold per turn instead.
 
Alright, June 29th is almost over, so I'm working on some last minute touches to The Playground Mod 3.0 before uploading it in the next day or so.

While I haven't been documenting all of the bugs, this one was hilarious:

Spoiler :

3.0.11.png



Needless to say, actual play testing, both in debug mode and regular mode is essential for catching bugs.
 
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