Probably Improved Gameplay Mod

[AveiMil]

Some quick comments since I started a game:

I don't like the Sentry on Scouts. Already on high levels starting with a Scout is a huge boon, because of the 30-40% chance of popping barbs from a hut without it so I don't feel it needs such a huge boost. But my biggest gripe: you can meet Civs and have no idea where they came from because they saw you with a scout from fog. A major dealbreaker for me, knowing from what direction they came is essential. Of course often you see them on the next turn, but still.

I also didn't see the Regenerate Map option on turn0 in a normal game. 'Sup with that?

Huts? Lucky huts are bad 'mkay?

I love Sentry Scouts, they actually make building scouts as opposed to warriors early very viable. I think they're positive for multiplayer gameplay as well.

If you know what direction the AI comes from the turn after, then why does it matter?

I notice the Regenerate Map option is gone as well, never noticed it as I've never, ever used it. I roll with what I get.

 

[Silu]

Huts? Lucky huts are bad 'mkay?

What's your point? Because they are partly based on luck, they shouldn't be taken into consideration? I assure you, the effect is big...

I love Sentry Scouts, they actually make building scouts as opposed to warriors early very viable. I think they're positive for multiplayer gameplay as well.

If you know what direction the AI comes from the turn after, then why does it matter

Of course it's easy to love them. They're great. I argue, too great... Sentry doesn't fix their problem, it's pure overkill for what it does. Scouting around isn't their problem, it's either hammer cost (same as warrior? who the hell is going to build them in 99% of the situations) or staying alive. Sentry doesn't directly do anything from either. Also I'm not very inclined to build more Scouts after the initial one if the hammer cost is the same as warrior. They're crap for busting since any barb eats them alive, and can't be used as military police. Sth like -33% hammer cost and the +150% against animals would be better IMO.

And I said "often" on the next turn. It's very possible to meet a Civ and never see their unit or culture until much, much later. That's just silly.

I notice the Regenerate Map option is gone as well, never noticed it as I've never, ever used it. I roll with what I get.

I roll with what I get as well. Unless I get something like three gems or two gold + two corn. Then it's just no point playing it out, and I regenerate.

Also sometimes I regenerate for test purposes, like in my game in question - I wanted a viable-ish specialist start to check out how the Edu tech path changes affects bulbing. In that case I don't want to play a 2 Silk + 1 Plains Cow start. Tedious to make multiple rolls without the regenerate option.

 

[AveiMil]

What's your point? Because they are partly based on luck, they shouldn't be taken into consideration? I assure you, the effect is big...

Yah. I did not have a point, other than that I prefer to play with them off. I was just being not-so-funny, of course they should be considered.

Of course it's easy to love them. They're great. I argue, too great... Sentry doesn't fix their problem, it's pure overkill for what it does. Scouting around isn't their problem, it's either hammer cost (same as warrior? who the hell is going to build them in 99% of the situations) or staying alive. Sentry doesn't directly do anything from either. Also I'm not very inclined to build more Scouts after the initial one if the hammer cost is the same as warrior. They're crap for busting since any barb eats them alive, and can't be used as military police. Sth like -33% hammer cost and the +150% against animals would be better IMO.

Sounds sort of like you think they're too good and crap in the same paragraph.

I disagree, Sentry makes it much easier to keep the scout alive considering that you're now able to, at an increased frequency, place the Scout on a safe tile. If you see a barb you can just dance around him with ease until you actually want to fight.

They're not crap for busting either, their increased visibility means they're absolutely great for busting large areas. Take a look at the save game I posted, with 1-2 Scouts I managed to keep the south-western area almost 100% free of Barbs (1 archer and 1 Warrior spawned) and I used the scouts to lure them onto a well defended Warrior. This was enabled by smart use of the Scout and their Sentry promotion helpled a lot.

And I said "often" on the next turn. It's very possible to meet a Civ and never see their unit or culture until much, much later. That's just silly.

Mkay, can't say I care much one way or the other. I have yet to experience any problems related to that at least.

I roll with what I get as well. Unless I get something like three gems or two gold + two corn. Then it's just no point playing it out, and I regenerate.

Also sometimes I regenerate for test purposes, like in my game in question - I wanted a viable-ish specialist start to check out how the Edu tech path changes affects bulbing. In that case I don't want to play a 2 Silk + 1 Plains Cow start. Tedious to make multiple rolls without the regenerate option.

Yah, that (option) needs to be fixed, no doubt.

 

[Silu]

Sounds sort of like you think they're too good and crap in the same paragraph.

Yah, I do. Compare it to an unit that would kill anything 100% on the offense, and die 100% on the defense. If the other params were tweaked enough (cost, etc) it would be "balanced", but not good design. As I said - buffing the aspect of the unit that's already good enough doesn't fix the problems of other aspects. That's like sweeping them under the rug. In some situations it makes them overpowered, and in others underpowered. You might be able to dodge the Panthers better, but if they still corner you you'd wish the bugger of a Scout could actually survive a battle at decent odds

 

[PieceOfMind]

Re: scouts getting free sentry.

I'm playing through a game at the moment, v0.92, which as a few more changes than you guys get at the moment , and I'm enjoying that scouts get the unique early ability. I have also noticed the "issue" with meeting civs and not being able to see them, I would note that this can happen in other situations as well even without sentry scouts. This happened once when I captured a barb city and IIRC before the city's borders shrunk to zero (during the revolt) a scout on a nearby hill saw me but I didn't see it.
It can also happen with any other unit that legitimately gets sentry does a similar thing (only reason this is rare is that early sentry is difficult). Also, regular AI scouts can move by you, meeting you during their turn but going out of your visible range during the turn. You'd see them if you had show moves on, but probably not if you didn't.

I'm surprised you're calling that a dealbreaker, Silu.

I think even if you made scouts 10 they'd still be pretty bad without Sentry. Yes they get better hut popping results but in my experience huts are all popped in the first several turns during the game, and no one playing seriously builds a scout first up (except perhaps in very rare cases). I don't want the scout just a hut-popping unit and not useful for anything else.
If the issue is with how much better the hut results are for scouts, maybe we should change how good the huts are for warriors, or for scouts. I've sometimes considered removing the possibility of getting techs from huts or something similar but I am not suggesting this at this point so don't panic!

Remember, the guys who start with scouts (human player I'm talking about) start with Hunting, a tech usually considered one of the worse starting techs. IMO that scout is a nice little bonus for them. Those who don't start with hunting now have a greater incentive to go for hunting fairly early to get the valuable scouts. At the moment, with sentry, I'm finding it worth having at least 2 or 3 scouts around. They can explore new land and rival territory much more efficiently now, making them better than using just a mounted unit or worker (which people, including myself, have been known to do).

Anyway, regarding forest preserves, I am indeed thinking of moving them to some later tech again. I will have to have a think about what tech to put them on, but ideally I'd go for something before SciMeth but well after Monarchy. Maybe something like Constitution. If I can't think of anything, it'll go back to SciMeth and it will be hoped that because you kept some forests around with LMs, using preserves late in the game might be an option for civs short on happy resources and no longer running HR.



Re: Missing regenerate option

I am not 100% sure of this but I think it's because of the MapFinder part of BULL (I think I remember seeing it while I merged code some time ago). Maybe EF can confirm, because I don't know anything about MapFinder including how to use it. I'm guessing there is a hotkey for regenerate? I haven't been able to find it in any documentation but I haven't looked hard yet.

Re: in general


In v0.92, which I've been playing, I have LMs come with guilds which I think has been much better. I've also added a +25% cost for distance maintenance to the HR civic, similar to the State Property bonus (which is -100% instead of +25%). I didn't want to increase the upkeep cost of HR because then there would be no civics in the government category that are low upkeep. I tried 50% initially but found it too prohibitive to expansion. I think 25% only costs on the order of 2 or 3 for a typical early game 7 city empire, which I think is appropriate for the civic. Running HR when you possess a massive sprawling empire should come with greater cost IMO, something I believe the current change does reasonably well.

One slight worrying consequence of adding that property to HR is that it means that the bonus associated with State Property is now technically false. Just like all the things in the civilopedia that claim "double production speed" when they should instead say "+100% of base hammers", State Property should really say "-100% distance costs" instead of "no distance costs". Still, operating at -75% distance costs, most people would probably barely notice the difference as it's still a huge reduction. So running HR with SP is not going to be as bad as it may sound on paper.

Yah, I do. Compare it to an unit that would kill anything 100% on the offense, and die 100% on the defense. If the other params were tweaked enough (cost, etc) it would be "balanced", but not good design. As I said - buffing the aspect of the unit that's already good enough doesn't fix the problems of other aspects. That's like sweeping them under the rug. In some situations it makes them overpowered, and in others underpowered. You might be able to dodge the Panthers better, but if they still corner you you'd wish the bugger of a Scout could actually survive a battle at decent odds

With sentry scouts, I'm finding it useful to pair them with warriors when scouting, especially for bushy areas of the map where the scout is more vulnerable because of its more limited visibility.

This is something that the AI might have some more trouble with but tbh it already gets pretty good ability to scout given its starting units, often exploring enough before barbs and animals even become a problem. The extra thinking the human player can do with scouting now is an overall positive IMOATM.

 

[EmperorFool]

BUG broke map regeneration with 2.3. I have fixed it and it will be available in the next release which will be 2.3.1 very soon.

 

[AveiMil]

Re: scouts getting free sentry.

I agree with your Scout comments.

Anyway, regarding forest preserves, I am indeed thinking of moving them to some later tech again. I will have to have a think about what tech to put them on, but ideally I'd go for something before SciMeth but well after Monarchy. Maybe something like Constitution. If I can't think of anything, it'll go back to SciMeth and it will be hoped that because you kept some forests around with LMs, using preserves late in the game might be an option for civs short on happy resources and no longer running HR.

I don't really care that much, because it won't affect gameplay a lot, but move the Forest Preserves back and they'll become even more useless. I'm actually using them a bit now (3-4 of them every game) but if you move then further back then I'm probably not going to build/plan for them them anymore. By SciMeth I will already have either:

1. Chopped all my forest.
2. Built Lumbermills on forests that I want to save for health reasons.

I'll get my happy cap resources from somewhere else, i.e. Warrior MP.

In v0.92, which I've been playing, I have LMs come with guilds which I think has been much better. I've also added a +25% cost for distance maintenance to the HR civic, similar to the State Property bonus (which is -100% instead of +25%). I didn't want to increase the upkeep cost of HR because then there would be no civics in the government category that are low upkeep. I tried 50% initially but found it too prohibitive to expansion. I think 25% only costs on the order of 2 or 3 for a typical early game 7 city empire, which I think is appropriate for the civic. Running HR when you possess a massive sprawling empire should come with greater cost IMO, something I believe the current change does reasonably well.

What difficulty are you playing on when testing this (new HR)?

Also, why do you think LM at guilds is much better?

 

[Silu]

Okay, let me explain my gripe with the Scouts one more time. I realize this very probably won't be of any use since you guys are pretty adamant about it, but I want to explain myself, starting from an actual scenario from a game.

I start as India, without Hunting. First hut I pop is a Scout. I start to scout around with it, and notice it has Sentry. Cool! I can scout my whole starting area with just a couple of moves, crazy! Then I was cornered by some 3 animals/barbs, and was promptly killed. I didn't feel like it was a "fair exchange" for the better scouting, I felt like I got hit by 3 Slave Revolts in a row. The change adds variance to the usefulness of the unit, that is not a good thing (see my example from my last post). And I never wanted for them to see farther in the first place! I wanted them to 1) have a bigger chance to survive when they get cornered 2) be easier to replace, so the loss hurts less.

Re: scouts getting free sentry.

I'm playing through a game at the moment, v0.92, which as a few more changes than you guys get at the moment , and I'm enjoying that scouts get the unique early ability. I have also noticed the "issue" with meeting civs and not being able to see them, I would note that this can happen in other situations as well even without sentry scouts. This happened once when I captured a barb city and IIRC before the city's borders shrunk to zero (during the revolt) a scout on a nearby hill saw me but I didn't see it.
It can also happen with any other unit that legitimately gets sentry does a similar thing (only reason this is rare is that early sentry is difficult). Also, regular AI scouts can move by you, meeting you during their turn but going out of your visible range during the turn. You'd see them if you had show moves on, but probably not if you didn't.

I'm surprised you're calling that a dealbreaker, Silu.

Yes, there's a million obscure scenarios where this can happen. All of them are a bad thing. It doesn't make sense for one to "meet" someone you don't meet, and it has discernable gameplay consequences as I explained. Sentry scouts ups the frequency of this happening at least a thousand times. That, is a worse thing. I like what the mod does for fixing things that don't make sense in a sensible way, this isn't one.

I think even if you made scouts 10 they'd still be pretty bad without Sentry. Yes they get better hut popping results but in my experience huts are all popped in the first several turns during the game, and no one playing seriously builds a scout first up (except perhaps in very rare cases). I don't want the scout just a hut-popping unit and not useful for anything else.
If the issue is with how much better the hut results are for scouts, maybe we should change how good the huts are for warriors, or for scouts. I've sometimes considered removing the possibility of getting techs from huts or something similar but I am not suggesting this at this point so don't panic!

I wouldn't build cheap Scouts for popping huts. I'd build them for scouting, for a big part in safe environments, enemy lands after OB. As it is, it's usually useless to build Scouts for that since Military units are as cheap and eventually get the job done as well - and can serve as MP afterwards.

As for huts, I'm all for reducing hut luck. Note that removing techs from huts would actually make the game easier, since with their bazillion start units the AI is much more likely to pop techs than you (and as we know they pop Noble huts). I wouldn't shed a tear if tech huts were changed to cash/warrior/scout on Noble and above. It's really stupid IMO that on Imm/Deity it's easier to pop techs than on Chieftain (with Scouts), because of the high barb frequency is removed from the hut pool.

Note that Sentry Scouts increase the hut luck factor. You can pop scouts with a Civ starting without Hunting, being a major boon. Almost as good as popping a cheap tech.

Remember, the guys who start with scouts (human player I'm talking about) start with Hunting, a tech usually considered one of the worse starting techs. IMO that scout is a nice little bonus for them. Those who don't start with hunting now have a greater incentive to go for hunting fairly early to get the valuable scouts. At the moment, with sentry, I'm finding it worth having at least 2 or 3 scouts around. They can explore new land and rival territory much more efficiently now, making them better than using just a mounted unit or worker (which people, including myself, have been known to do).

As I said, currently Hunting is great on high levels because tech pops are ~15-16% of huts with Scouts, and popping huts with Warriors is ~30-40% certain doom. The reason it's considered worse is mainly that it's cheaper (40b instead of 50/60). I rate it much, much higher than Fishing or Mysticism.

With sentry scouts, I'm finding it useful to pair them with warriors when scouting, especially for bushy areas of the map where the scout is more vulnerable because of its more limited visibility.

This is something that the AI might have some more trouble with but tbh it already gets pretty good ability to scout given its starting units, often exploring enough before barbs and animals even become a problem. The extra thinking the human player can do with scouting now is an overall positive IMOATM.

Where's the extra thinking? I felt it reduces thinking because you see flippin' everywhere. What would promote thinking is making stuff like WM2 easier to get. One elegant way to do this is to give them WM1 from the get-go (instead of Sentry), 2XP from WM2 and easier to survive the first battles. That would be pretty nice actually and at least make sense

 

[TheWilltoAct]

I still play PIG mod!

I think you should keep forest preserves available early, if you are going to have them in the game at all. Their benefit is pathetic unless you are truly starved for happiness, and who has that many worker turns to waste? Most forests will be chopped for or just to make way for farms/cottages/workshops.

 

[klaidonis]

Scouts with Sentry? I think it's a brilliant idea. May be I will try out the PIG mod. If only it would be compatible with BAT...

Also I think that huts are great. They change routine in a game and increase the stakes of a "scout gambit" for civs started without Hunting, which perfectly corresponds with the "Probably Improved Gameplay" slogan. For competitions, educational games, and other exercises the huts can be easily switched off.

And, no, there is no need to harden scouts more even against animals. They should be either relatively weak but never get something bad from the huts or be tough but then the huts have to spawn wild animals for them.

Just 2 cents from an absolute noob.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Not to belabor the point, I would like to say a bit more on Forest Preserves. Imo they just aren't very good, they have a benefit which seems very cool on paper, but isn't really very useful in game.
The only thing I could see to make them better would be to make them produce , but I spose that is probably outrageous.
Still, I just don't think they can compete with other improvements, especially when you can just hoard resources or raise the slider to solve happiness issues.

At any rate, I think your early lumbermills idea is cool so I will build those instead.

 

[Silu]

Not to belabor the point, I would like to say a bit more on Forest Preserves. Imo they just aren't very good, they have a benefit which seems very cool on paper, but isn't really very useful in game.
The only thing I could see to make them better would be to make them produce , but I spose that is probably outrageous.
Still, I just don't think they can compete with other improvements, especially when you can just hoard resources or raise the slider to solve happiness issues.

At any rate, I think your early lumbermills idea is cool so I will build those instead.

Any improvement that gives a benefit without working the tile is potentially good, it's just about the opportunity cost at that point. The worker turn cost is a big issue since SciMethod comes around the time when 1) your workers don't have that much else to do 2) Steam Power comes around. Maybe it could be shortened. Something that pops in mind is to increase both the worker turn cost AND the benefit they give later on (~ at SciMet), if that's possible. It kinda makes sense, easier to preserve historically "preserved" forests

And usually you certainly can't "just hoard resources or raise the slider". The former is 100% situation dependant and often not possible, and the other costs huge chunks of research. With any significant number of cottages, permanently using the culture slider for happiness is very, very bad. More efficient to just buy luxury resources with gpt, which is bad enough.


Oh, and a suggestion that came up with discussing Scouts outside this thread - Give WM1 from the get-go and make WM2 open up Sentry. That would give Sentry (or WM3, that was enabled in PIG, right?) at 5XP and make 5XP easier to get, while being somewhat sensible. Would make Scouts a lot more appealing than the vanilla ones, at least.

 

[phungus420]

What's WM1?

 

[Silu]

WM = the Woodsman promotion line.

 

[AveiMil]

Silu, have you played any full games with PIG?

If so, would you say it's harder to easier than vanilla?

 

[Silu]

Not many, so far just a single full game plus some unfinished mucking around. I'd say that because of BetterAI, it's obviously harder. BetterAI also dwarfs any other changes with regards to how they affect the difficulty, except maybe the fixing of some semi-exploit one-trick-pony things like Quechua rushing. Anyway, I certainly didn't feel a significant change in difficulty, biggest effects on gameplay were the ironing out of mega-annoying details like AI WE hate maphack and the more significant changes (for the better) like the Lib tech path. So far it feels like I expected, tons of cool little fixes that positively affect gameplay and no big changes that could potentially be for the worse (a good thing).

Oh, and I take back some of my comments about Theo priests exploitable for production in scenarios like WE/SSE. They're really not, since the alternate (OR) or the other alternative (Paci) is still probably miles better usually. I'm still somewhat concerned about the easiness of getting shrines while warmongering to get those Holy Cities... Though I guess it makes sense in a way and is kinda cool Spreading the faiths is a pain anyway while warring and in Theo (so no OR missionaries).

 

[AveiMil]

Silu, mind taking a look at this Immortal game? Do you have any suggestions on how to win it? I'm a bit clueless after the first 250 turns.

 

[Silu]

Don't really know if this is the forum for that (at least it's a PIG game! ), but... Why the hell did you vassalize a 1-city AI It blows your diplo to hell, and gives you a crapton of motherland unhappiness in his former lands.

You're in a big tech ditch, and KK is just a couple of turns from culture. Your best bet is to go nukes or something and take over Mongolia, and Fred + Nap after that. Bribe HC (and your useless vassal) to switch to HR to get him to Pleased (with you AND your useless vassal ) and keep him there at all costs. Nukes don't do that much against him since he has Laser. Focus EP on him (could use the EP buildings fitted in at some point) and when he's nearing launch start serial sabotaging his SS parts. Taking Fred+Nap+KK might give Domination or Diplomation, dunno really what else you could try if that fails... I guess you could try a lategame military showdown with HC provided he doesn't launch first.

All in all, I wouldn't have very high hopes on winning that game Keeping HC from being mad at you will be very hard (but possible I guess) if you go nukes and conquest will be very hard without. Anyhoo, HC is the main problem obviously.

Alternatively, you could try to shoot for the Internet, as no1 has Computers yet... It will be a total crapshoot with Radio+Plastics+Computers, but theoretically possible, maybe 10-30% With that you could try to shoot space provided you go raze Beshbalik and conjure up tons and tons of EP to sabotage HC.

EDIT: Forgot that HC declares at Pleased. Well at least he's 5 times less likely to at Pleased than at Cautious.

 

[AveiMil]

Don't really know if this is the forum for that (at least it's a PIG game! ), but... Why the hell did you vassalize a 1-city AI It blows your diplo to hell, and gives you a crapton of motherland unhappiness in his former lands.

Yeah, one of the disadvantages of playing PIG is you can't really share the game with others that ain't playing PIG

Anyway, LOL . I have not Vassaled anyone before, I figured I could just let him capitulate, get some free techs and then declare on him a bit later... then I asked my self, "how do I goto War against my Vassal again? oh, oh, I can't? Nice". Pretty funny how that single city is causing all kinds of problems though

You're in a big tech ditch, and KK is just a couple of turns from culture. Your best bet is to go nukes or something and take over Mongolia, and Fred + Nap after that. Bribe HC (and your useless vassal) to switch to HR to get him to Pleased (with you AND your useless vassal ) and keep him there at all costs. Nukes don't do that much against him since he has Laser. Focus EP on him (could use the EP buildings fitted in at some point) and when he's nearing launch start serial sabotaging his SS parts. Taking Fred+Nap+KK might give Domination or Diplomation, dunno really what else you could try if that fails... I guess you could try a lategame military showdown with HC provided he doesn't launch first.

Good tips Few questions.

How do I "bribe HC"?

Can I undo the Nuclear Profilation Treaty? I did not really want to use Nuke's so I suggested the treaty.

Update: I just noticed a few turns after posting the last post that Khan was going for culture win, so I threw everything I got at him and about 10-15 turns later I have razed one of his (L) cities. Now, Frederick will win culture in about 41 turns What to do? Continue kicking Khan's ass or get peace and get ready to punish Fred?

 

[Silu]

If you had read my post you would have already known KK was very near getting 3 Legendary cities...

If you banned nukes, then I guess it's easier to just take on the world without them... It can be undone though by picking the same vote again and getting it to fail. And you bribe civic changes from the trade screen, obviously the option won't be there if they cannot change civics due to having an ongoing 5 turn cooldown on them. But none of this belongs to this thread, really.