Possible collaborative project: Truly Heroic Mod

[Shqype]

I have heard several people complain that the city defences are rather poor in the default version of the game. Maybe some extra defence bonuses might make capturing cities a little more challenging.

I agree. For this reason I was interested in decreasing the power of bombardment by half. It could also become incrementally harder to destroy a city's defenses depending on its culture level.

For example, the higher level of culture means less defense damage caused by bombardment until a certain technology (or two). Up until the 15th century it is hard to bombard a city, then a technology allows easier city bombardment (modeled after the Ottoman Empire's conquering of the seemingly impregnable fortress of Constantinople using great cannons), and then during the 20th century with more modern military units a new technology becomes available that takes care of the added culture defense against bombardment by making it nonexistant.

 

[Son of Moose]

Shqype

It could also become incrementally harder to destroy a city's defenses depending on its culture level.

Well this could well present an extremely interesting answer to the question as how best to use the increased Culture levels afforded by all these new proposed Ancient and Classical era buildings.

Alternatively (maybe an even better solution) there might yet be room for another parameter (like Prestige outlined earlier) which might convey extra defensive bonuses to the city in which major monuments (and the like) are housed.

Any takers ....

 

[FexFX]

I agree. For this reason I was interested in decreasing the power of bombardment by half. It could also become incrementally harder to destroy a city's defenses depending on its culture level.

For example, the higher level of culture means less defense damage caused by bombardment until a certain technology (or two). Up until the 15th century it is hard to bombard a city, then a technology allows easier city bombardment (modeled after the Ottoman Empire's conquering of the seemingly impregnable fortress of Constantinople using great cannons), and then during the 20th century with more modern military units a new technology becomes available that takes care of the added culture defense against bombardment by making it nonexistant.

Hmmm
Given that our army sizes in this mod will be at least double in size, I can see your resoning on reduction of Bombardment effectiveness. Which is actually a better solution than an increase of defenses. Increasing defenses would have a global effect, not just an effect on bombardment. It Should be POSSIBLE for a stack of archers to take out a city defended by a few archers...If we raise defenses too much this may well become impossible! 6vs6 is an even battle...6vs6+75% becomes a tough battle...6vs6+225% (possible if the city is on a hill in a forrest across a river with walls and a castle) is nearly impossible...and if we raise it even further...then it becomes actually impossible.

A Reduction in the effectiveness or mechanics of bombardment would be a far more elegant solution. It might also be effective to make certain types of defenses available which are bombardment proff as an alternative.

This would work as an increase in defences, but perhaps a minor one (max 25% probably less) and then Bombard could strip everything but that bonus...

Perhaps itwould be possible to create defenses that ignore bombardment from certain unit types...for example Castles might ignore Catapults, but not cannons...

The culture idea is intriguing but right now I have no clue how to implement.

 

[Son of Moose]

FexFX

I have just examined your New Tech Chart.

It is a really impressive document .... but I would hasten to suggest that it is possibly only the beginning of the re-designing process. As the LITTLE mod is approximately SEVEN TIMES the length of the default game, we should (if at all possible) endeavour to add considerably more techs to the list. However, as you have previously highlighted, it will be singularly important to make sure that all the new techs are both relevant to the game and well balanced.

This will be no mean feat!!! But you are currently doing a GREAT JOB!!

 

[FexFX]

(i) Raise the amount of Happiness required to make the people happy and productive. This should well be possible but could be a bit tricky to implement.

This is not possible. Happiness is a direct result of a balance beween happy and unhappy. If Happy is ever less than unhappy, then the city is unhappy.

 

[Son of Moose]

FexFX

6vs6 is an even battle...6vs6+75% becomes a tough battle...6vs6+225% (possible if the city is on a hill in a forrest across a river with walls and a castle) is nearly impossible

Well .... in a well-defended city featuring a massive array of physical defensive structures (such as upgraded walls and towers .... which the player has specifically built for this purpose) it should surely take something like 12vs6 in order to win or (at least) some really massive bombardment to substantially reduce the effectiveness of these defensive structures?

After all (and I know that this is the Medieval era) but the Krak de Cheveliers was a near impregnible defensive structure and a key to the defence of the Holy Land.

 

[Son of Moose]

FexFX

Happiness is a direct result of a balance beween happy and unhappy.

Yes .... I wondered whether this was a feasible option .... hence why I preferred # 3 in the list.

 

[FexFX]

FexFX

I have just examined your New Tech Chart.

It is a really impressive document .... but I would hasten to suggest that it is possibly only the beginning of the re-designing process. As the LITTLE mod is approximately SEVEN TIMES the length of the default game, we should (if at all possible) endeavour to add considerably more techs to the list. However, as you have previously highlighted, it will be singularly important to make sure that all the new techs are both relevant to the game and well balanced.

This will be no mean feat!!! But you are currently doing a GREAT JOB!!

I am more than aware of the length of the game.

And its not approximate. It is exactly 7 times.

currently the tech chart is approximately 1.54 times longer overall. But up to the level of Steel is it more than 2 times longer.

If you are hopiong for a Tech chart that is 7 times longer, you will have to settle for disspointment. IT is not going to happen.

Even 3 times longer is unlikely.

I will count myself lucky if I can manage 2 times longer overall...
Part of me is beginning to think that our initial goal may be a bit high. 7 times may be a tad overwhelming.

Also I would much rather stick to the original timeline than go from 8000bc...which is possible by changing increments around.

Perhaps we could aim for 6 times instead of 7


I am not chickening out I am just being realistic.

Right now with my tech chart as it stands, there are 126 techs. I am goign to add more to the later era, but I am not sure how much I can suqeeze in there before it becomes hokey.

Also the way the turns are distributed, the later era is much shorter than the early era, so stretching it out too much later on may not work as well as we hope.

Think about this fact:
Even at 1 year per turn, the maximum number of turns from 1050 AD to 2050 AD is 1000 turns...you propose a 3080 turn game...this means that more than 2/3 of your game will be taking place BEFORE the year 1050...

Unless I start adding techs whcih do nothing, or techs which allow the discovery of candleight and mirrors and compost piles...I will fast run out of ways to fill 2080 turns worth of pre 1050AD techs...

two choices...
Shorter game or longer time between techs.

 

[Son of Moose]

FexFX

I am not chickening out I am just being realistic.

Indeed .... no problem!!

It is always good to take a deep look and to examine the feasibility of a project throughout its ongoing development. However, maybe we should (as I may have initially suggested) concentrate more on the variety and range of structures appearing in the game (as we have already done ... imho with great success) so that this additional building activity will provide the player with more than enough action throughout the prolonged game.

Otherwise they could always build a mighty army ....

More a bit later ....

 

[FexFX]

FexFX



Well .... in a well-defended city featuring a massive array of physical defensive structures (such as upgraded walls and towers .... which the player has specifically built for this purpose) it should surely take something like 12vs6 in order to win or (at least) some really massive bombardment to substantially reduce the effectiveness of these defensive structures?

After all (and I know that this is the Medieval era) but the Krak de Cheveliers was a near impregnible defensive structure and a key to the defence of the Holy Land.

I think you miss my point here.

Already in game a Swordman (6) vs a Swordman in a maximum defense situation (13.5) is nearly impossible.
you would need a stack of Swordmen to ensure that you have a better than poor chance of taking out that single Swordman. Increasing the defenses by as little as 25% more would bring it up to 6 vs 15.
the numbers become even harsher with more advanced units...
8 vs 18 for Macemen becomes 8 vs 20
If the above example were Longbows, then they get +20% making the contest 6 vs 14.7 or with the proposed +25% 6vs 16.2.

The bigger the numbers the more insane it becomes.
...15 vs 33.75 becomes 15 vs 37.5...

I think we should avoid raising defenses by much if anything.

The reduction in the effectiveness of bombardment may be the balance we need since bombard negates defenses...

We've all seen that a stack of knights with a stack of catapults can take ANY city in the mideval era! Bombard down to 0 in a single move, and then atack with your stack fo knights...poof city in 1 turn.

 

[FexFX]

FexFX

I am not chickening out I am just being realistic.

Indeed .... no problem!!

It is always good to take a deep look and to examine the feasibility of a project throughout its ongoing development. However, maybe we should (as I may have initially suggested) concentrate more on the variety and range of structures appearing in the game (as we have already done ... imho with great success) so that this additional building activity will provide the player with more than enough action throughout the prolonged game.

Otherwise they could always build a mighty army ....

More a bit later ....

We are already working on giving them lots of things to do...but the tech tree must still span from beginning to end...meaning it must either be BIG enough to span 3080 turns, or there must be like an AVERAGE of 25 turns between techs...and we all know that by the end most people get a tech every 3-5 turns easily. This means that some early techs may be 100 turns apart easily.

 

[Son of Moose]

FexFX

This means that some early techs may be 100 turns apart easily.

Yes .... I agree that this could be heavily problematic.

Although I am fairly strongly against too severely reducing the length of the Ancient and Classical eras, I do see the need for some form of re-evaluation of these eras in order to see how we can maintain a fair amount of action right from the start of the game.

Certainly boredom is a terrible thing that must be avoided at ALL costs.

However, from a strictly historical perspective, these eras were fairly bereft of (rapid) technical advances (they were generally fairly far apart .... quite possibly the equivalent of a hundred turns). This era possibly was marked by a fairly slow building process where ancient settlements were founded and eventually developed into fortified cities .... with Babylon possibly representing the ultimate example.

Now, the major questions appear to be:

How close do we wish to mimmick history?

How much fun will this be?

 

[Shqype]

Make the game slightly shorter .... maybe take off 1/9 of the turns or something ....

 

[Shqype]

Perhaps 2700 turns instead ?

 

[Son of Moose]

FexFX

I think you miss my point here.

Yes .... possibly I am being too heavily influenced by classical RTS gameplay strategy here.

To be more specific, I was thinking of applying somewhat of a "Turtling" strategy in order to make it far more difficult for one (or the ai) to capture individual cities. The concept (I am not too sure how successful its transition would be to the Civ milieu) would be that it should be an "expensive" exercise to capture a city.

There should conceivably be MANY fatalities involved .... perhaps it could almost be viewed as a form of "trench warfare" whether a player must make a slow (and admittedly somewhat painstaking) advance into an opponent's territory in order to literally capture it tile-by-tile. No more grand sweeping pincer (and panzer) movements where one can evoke some sort of domino effect and potentially overrun an opponent within a few moves.

My motivation behind this idea is fairly simple:

In the LITTLE mod, the City has become an exceptionally important asset due to the introduction of a whole host of additional (often tech-dependent) structures. Therefore the capture (or loss) of even a single city should represent either a major achievement (or a potentially catastrophic loss) to the player or ai involved. Consequently this event should be preceded by a suitably heroic battle/siege.

Perhaps this viewpoint might be a little extreme and/or difficult to implement?

 

[Shqype]

Perfect, I have reworked it to include 2695 turns. I divided the current turn for each era by 8, then subtracted that from the original:

Ancient:
Divided into 1050 x 6 year turns

Classical:
Divided into 700 x 2 year turns

Medieval:
Divided into 280 x 2 year turns

Renaissance:
Divided into 280 x 1 year turns

Industrial:
Divided into 140 x 1 year turns

Modern:
Divided into 70 x 1 year turns

Future:
Divided into 175 x 1 year turns

The years would need to be slightly reworked, however. But the turns are down. Tell me what you think? This should better solve our problem, so the game is still extremely long, but not as boring.

 

[Son of Moose]

Shqype

Perhaps 2700 turns instead ?

Maybe .... although (as stated above) I feel that it would be better to try to think of a truly innovative solution to this problem.

Nevertheless, I am EXTREMELY open to suggestions.

 

[FexFX]

FexFX
The concept (I am not too sure how successful its transition would be to the Civ milieu) would be that it should be an "expensive" exercise to capture a city.

There should conceivably be MANY fatalities involved .... perhaps it could almost be viewed as a form of "trench warfare" whether a player must make a slow (and admittedly somewhat painstaking) advance into an opponent's territory in order to literally capture it tile-by-tile. No more grand sweeping pincer (and panzer) movements where one can evoke some sort of domino effect and potentially overrun an opponent within a few moves.

My motivation behind this idea is fairly simple:

In the LITTLE mod, the City has become an exceptionally important asset due to the introduction of a whole host of additional (often tech-dependent) structures. Therefore the capture (or loss) of even a single city should represent either a major achievement (or a potentially catastrophic loss) to the player or ai involved. Consequently this event should be preceded by a suitably heroic battle/siege.

Perhaps this viewpoint might be a little extreme and/or difficult to implement?

I totally agree...
Vanilla Civ IV already offers this...the ONLY thing that nerfs it is the way Bombard works...
Go try and take a well entrenched city without ANY siege equipment...
Your loses will be heavy indeed unless you vastly out tech their units.

 

[FexFX]

2695 turns = 6.1 times longer.
a Doubled tech chart still makes techs take 3 times monger at least...which may be acceptable for certain techs...but not for all.

 

[Son of Moose]

Shqype

Mmmm .... we would appear to have a couple of options:

(i) Less turns .... especially in the early game if it is deemed to be too slow (with too little meaningful activity for the player)

(ii) More building (with a clearly defined purpose) .... again especially in the early game in order to possibly give the player something interesting and meaningful to do. I would possibly see this as representing a key period of consolidation leading into the additional techs, etc. appearing in the Classical era.

(iii) Some sort of combination of the two extremes .... in order to optimise gameplay.


However, at the risk of sounding contraversial, this mod has specifically been suggested as an avenue to allow a player to experience all the eras (and especially the Ancient and Classical eras) in their full glory.

Therefore I could actually see the player being forced into making at least one extremely important strategic decision during this somewhat prolonged era:

Do I decide to concentrate on building up my cities (and their defences) or do I attempt to build a mighty army that could just possibly defeat my unready and unwary opponent?