Problematic Base Mechanics

[psyblade]

Which base mechanics from Civ4 cause the most issues for DoC as a mod?

This can mean any mechanic that is too rigid to work alongside the new mechanics of DoC, or things Civ4 should’ve had.

I’m not a big modder (so I apologize if I got this wrong), but I can think of two:
1. The civ-slot system is a big limiter on the number of civs on the map,
2. A defeated civilization loses its cultural influence, but maybe cultural influence should remain as a lifeline for a civ to be rebirthed (rather than to have rebirths triggered by script),
3. If Civ4 had barbarians spawn from barbarian cities, it might’ve been a good foundation for early-game civ spawns.

 

[LikeNothing]

Barbarian (and Native) spawn is an important mechanism that benefits from improvements, because:

• It's a major, sometimes the most important, source of combat for many isolated or early civs.
• Barbarians represent many RL factions which cannot be represented by full civs in game.
  • Some of these factions are quite important in history.
• The current semi-random spawning is vastly improved from base CIV/RFC, but still can be frustrating or tedious.

Here are a few ways to improve their spawn:

• More varied barbarian tactics, that the player can identify.
  • For example, let some barbarians spawn with the Mercenary Promotion, and these barbarians will try to loot and avoid combat.
• Have barbarians spawn from barbarian cities. @psyblade's idea.
  • I would not suggest spawning more barbarian cities, however, since their placement can be tricky.
• Have barbarians spawn from and defend tribal villages.
  • This, like spawning from cities, would make barbarian spawns more realistic and less frustrating than spawning out of thin air
  • Adjust the hostility and benefits of triggering tribal villages accordingly
• Have barbarians spawn from and defend forts.
  • These forts and tribal villages can cover important resources, such as oil, which would be realistic and fun.
• Let combat vs barbarians give more (but still less than full perhaps) combat XP and great general points.
• Give all civs more varied ways of dealing with barbarians, such as:
  • Buying them (Byzantium UP)
  • Making peace with/allying with them (Turkic UP)
  • Slowing them down & hurting them passively (Great Wall/Russian UP)
  • Making them join you upon defeating them (Civ5 German UP? iirc)
  • Moving them into/toward your rival's borders (Vanilla CIV Great Wall)
  • Directly making barbarians spawn in your rival's borders (as an Espionage action maybe)
  • Turning defeated civs into barbarians (a possible outcome out of collapsing them, but can use more player agency)

 

[psyblade]

I think city AI and delegating units to AI could’ve been a good base system for DoC. After a certain number of cities, organizing production becomes a terrible chore, but this system can interact in a great way with elective/vassal civics.
Basically, you can micromanage a city but it has less efficiency, or you can delegate it but risk regional autonomy. A little like crusader kings I think.

 

[Dracosolon]

Vassal being an AI only status. Generally speaking vanilla Civ seems to rather focus on the player being a dominant power, and ways of negotiating when you're in the inferior position are limited. This can be a problem with simulation for a more history-minded mod like DoC because it means there are limitations on how to play a culture that was at one point occupied by a stronger power.

Stability is a necessary and very effective tool at what it's designed to do thanks to Rhye and Leoreth's work, but it's still essentially patching something on a basic system that didn't have that consideration in mind. If something similar to stability had been intended from the start in vanilla, I feel like it could have been done in an even better and more organic manner.

stuff

I don't know how satisfied Leoreth and regular players are with current barbarian mechanics. Obviously they can be a big source of frustration during play but, well, that's what they're supposed to be! Anyway, if any hoverhaul is wanted it should probably come after the introduction of nomad civs, since some of them would take the place of barbarian waves and they may have mechanics susceptible to be adapted to regular barbarians.

 

[Leoreth]

When it comes to barbarians, I definitely have some improvements in mind. I had to resist the urge to touch that part of the mod for 1.17 because it would have turned out to be another huge distraction.

 

[psyblade]

A better base vassal system is a good point. The base mechanic only has entry points (diplomacy or conquest), and an automatic exit (being a % of master), but the conditions are rare in DoC.
If you can vassalize (conquest or diplomacy) civs or assimilate them (by conquest), you might also suffer the same. Why stop at civs? Maybe even cities can be vassalized (AI controlled but less maintenance, like historical colonies) or assimilated cities (normal vanilla cities).

 

[Derdan]

It definitely feels unfair to vassalize, say, France as England in the 13th century and keep them for the rest of the game.

 

[psyblade]

Especially since vassalized AI does not even try to escape vassalization. Every vassal AI I ever saw barely expands or grows. I didn’t test it, but I think they even suffer penalties to production or research.

 

[psyblade]

Piggybacking off the previous mechanic, I think the lack of internal diplomacy is a lingering issue. This is the reason I think DoC and Rhye had to include a stability system, which tries to replicate that.
A fully fledged internal diplomacy system could allow for various city loyalties, ethnic groups and religious communities to have direct relationships with one another, adding more inter-civ action than Civ4 has.

 

[Dracosolon]

Piggybacking off the previous mechanic, I think the lack of internal diplomacy is a lingering issue. This is the reason I think DoC and Rhye had to include a stability system, which tries to replicate that.
A fully fledged internal diplomacy system could allow for various city loyalties, ethnic groups and religious communities to have direct relationships with one another, adding more inter-civ action than Civ4 has.

That sounds overly complicated but a stability system that incorporates elements from the Revolution mod could make some cities more likely to secede. As it is many elements factor in instability but a collapse is either a game over or a collapse to core.

I feel like that's another issue with instability from a design standpoint - is it supposed to be a looming threat over your head that doesn't do much until it hits all at once, or should it be more gradual in its effects? The second option might mean that you end up in a slow death spiral though, unless the mechanic is self-correcting and a collapse to core means that you get a fresh start.

 

[Publicola]

• Have barbarians spawn from and defend tribal villages.
  • This, like spawning from cities, would make barbarian spawns more realistic and less frustrating than spawning out of thin air
  • Adjust the hostility and benefits of triggering tribal villages accordingly

I'm not sure when it will be integrated, but there has been a lot of brainstorming about an 'Exploration & Archaeology' system, involving natural wonders, holy mountains, archeological sites, fossil sites, and prehistoric wonders like Stonehenge or Gobekli Tepe. If these early-game exploration locations are integrated, they could take the place of existing 'tribal villages', so that players are still encouraged to explore but with less of the 'goody hut' idea than in the base game. If so, that would free up tribal villages to represent something much more militaristic and barbarian-y, which could be very useful in an overhaul of the barbarian faction.

 

[freethink]

Especially since vassalized AI does not even try to escape vassalization. Every vassal AI I ever saw barely expands or grows. I didn’t test it, but I think they even suffer penalties to production or research.

Japan in the latest version will still advance as a vassal but this could be due to their unique power.

 

[EmperorNorton]

In general, the diplomacy in Civ4 is much more designed around the idea that other civs are players playing a board game than actual civilizations wanting to act in their own interest. Things like civilizations refusing to capitulate if you're "too powerful" (potentially able to hit the Domination limit), or everyone declaring war if you approach cultural/space victory. The latter I actually like because it makes things exciting, but it still breaks immersion for me because I prefer to think of Civ as a simulation with optional victory conditions - part of the reason RFC/DoC is appealing in addition to the historical aspect is just because it makes maintaining an empire fun and enough of a challenge on its own.

I've always really hated how the AI will pester you. In DoC there is potential for a much larger tech disparity so depending on the circumstances "hey can you plz give me a free tech " may be justifiable. But it is more irritating when the AI suddenly demands you change civics, as anarchy turns are more significant and typically civic changes require some planning and coordination. Maybe one could argue that historically there have been some cases of foreign governments suddenly demanding policy change without respect to the repercussions... but I wish it weren't standard behavior and horsehocky anyone could randomly pull.

I also think the Civ4 events aren't really compatible with DoC, especially if you're going for a historical victory, one RNG slave revolt can literally destroy your game whereas in Civilization it was just intended as a nuisance. Good RNG events can be similarly unbalanced - I remember someone got a random Golden Age event during a China UHV which reduces the difficulty massively. We also have stuff like "barbarian uprisings" represented by a few extra barbarian units when the barbarians discussed (Vandals, Huns, etc.) are already represented by much more intimidating hordes. The diplomacy issues are mostly just grumbling to me, but I really think the idea of rewriting all the events to be more generic and appropriate for a world history sim could be beneficial.

 

[freethink]

The RNG events to me provide some needed sense of world-building. Even absolute rulers do not have total control and any rewriting of events would also need to incorporate the sense of a 'potential monkey wrench' but maybe new events could be more reflective of current game circumstances.

Did you have a chance to check out the Paganism events I suggested a few days ago,

 

[TheCleanerDragon]

I've always really hated how the AI will pester you. In DoC there is potential for a much larger tech disparity so depending on the circumstances "hey can you plz give me a free tech " may be justifiable. But it is more irritating when the AI suddenly demands you change civics, as anarchy turns are more significant and typically civic changes require some planning and coordination. Maybe one could argue that historically there have been some cases of foreign governments suddenly demanding policy change without respect to the repercussions... but I wish it weren't standard behavior and horsehocky anyone could randomly pull.

Very much this. Constantly being asked by the AI to change my civics, join a war, cancel my trade with another civ, or give them a free tech gets tiring quickly. The answer is always "No" and if it's ever "Yes" then I'll have already done it without the AI needing to bug me. This problem is especially bad in the late game when there are lots of civs on the map, at that point there will usually be 2-3 civs making stupid demands, almost every single turn.

 

[char81]

AI units suiciding into well defended positions when they have no chance.

 

[freethink]

AI units suiciding into well defended positions when they have no chance.

There are instances of history where this happens. I am not sure if a solution is desirable or if it's achievable. Off the top of my head, I wonder if the Better AI mod helps with this but I am equally confounded as to whether it could be compatible with this mod that has unique python code.

 

[need my speed]

AI units suiciding into well defended positions when they have no chance.

But sometimes this is good. How do you strike the balance between this and 'AI units never taking a city or eliminating a stack'?

 

[psyblade]

I think trade has some issues. Trade routes appear to be chosen at random, and they don’t have direct social or political consequences they should, such as making trade networks or silk roads or allowing units to travel on them.
Total War Atilla has a nice proto-idea, where roads are made not by workers but automatically between settled settlements. Having trade routes appear as a network on the world map and them interacting to affect roads, be pillaged, or cause socioeconomic effects would be interesting, and would allow modders to improve on that.

 

[banzay13]

Especially since vassalized AI does not even try to escape vassalization. Every vassal AI I ever saw barely expands or grows. I didn’t test it, but I think they even suffer penalties to production or research.

only once, then Britain voluntarily bacame my vassal (didnt remenber game, but it was from 3000BC start, maybe Rome or something) they settled a lot of space. Btritain was big as my empire allmost. And, they had no choice to became free (no land, population and etc %%...)