Procylon's Call to Power Project

[roman_architect]

Ya in mid industrial era with 23 cities i had 273 happiness, but i will say in the beginning, it is a very serious challenge.. maybe move some earlier and eliminate some +1 in every city type.

 

[chrome-rome]

I think there is a way to both make all of the resources useful, diverse, and interesting. What we could do is have each resource be "processed" by a corresponding building, and then trade the product. So, clay might be a resource, a pottery barn might be the building (heh), and pottery would be the new resource. Each product might produce +1 happiness or something minor, but that would create both demand for raw resources (a reason to have them) and a demand for the products, another thing to trade. It might be that each resource on the map produces 1 raw material, and either 2 or 3 product. One that your civ consumes, and 1 or 2 for trading. Might even be able to scale the quality with national wonders. Similar to the monopoly concept that we have now, but it would create two tiers of product, low quality pottery, and if you have the national wonder, high quality pottery; perhaps the high quality gives an extra happiness. If happiness is constrained enough, especially if we reduce the bonuses we are currently getting from policies, the demand will be there. There might even be a third tier available from a world wonder that only one civ can produce, like legendary quality weapons or whatever.

Hmm.... thinking further, could we integrate policies with product in some way also? Consider this, what raw materials would it take to produce a mongolian horse archer? I'll tell you right now its not just horses and people..... its the combination of society (policies), culture, technology, and raw materials. And if you compared other societies producing horse archers, their quality just wasn't anywhere close. So specialization has to happen in all three directions to get higher tier "things" be it units, products, whatever. So to produce a legendary horse archer, you might have a policy branch that caters to the "plains", technology that unlocks the unit, the raw materials (horses), and a world wonder. All of this is just an example of course.

Does this have any merit?

I think I get what you are saying, but if so, it is way beyond what I am able to do. And to be honest, I'm not too sure that mechanic would fit in this game. The AI already have trouble using the monopoly system; adding tiers of resources is going to confuse the AI even more. Also, somewhere waayy down the line, Decimatus (or FiresForever, whoever gets there first) is planning to create Civ specific tech trees and units. I must say that I love the creativity thought. And welcome to the forums!

excellent work in the modern era, lots of new units, i look forward to seeing the new animations for them when you have time. Submersible aircraft carrier? How does that work? don't the planes get wet?

The markets and monopolies are great but by late game the effects are too strong, I had 1000 happiness by the end with over 40 cities. I didnt even bother building every happiness building i could. This meant with the cultural multipliers i adopted a new policy every 3 turns on a standard speed game.

Yeah the happiness is a doosy. There always seems to be a point where the player gets over the early game constraints. Once clear, happiness never becomes an issue again. I found that this usually occurs in Renaissance. I think one problem is that there are so many Renaissance wonders/policies that provide happiness that the player can just "stock up" and be good for the rest of the game. I'll do what I can.

Ya in mid industrial era with 23 cities i had 273 happiness, but i will say in the beginning, it is a very serious challenge.. maybe move some earlier and eliminate some +1 in every city type.

This is where I plan to start. I also want to rework (if not eliminate) some of the happiness monopolies so that they give +10 happiness rather than 2 per city. For the small, medium, large, huge buildings, they will add 1, 2, 3, 4 happinesss each. Obviously, this will only be reasonable if most of them are taken out, because the entire monopoly structure will give 40 happiness (((1+2+3+4)*3)+10).

For the update, I got kinda sidetracked, although I think it was for the better. I have been busy making flavors for the buildings, as I noticed some were missing (like the Mill in medieval, which I think is an awesome building). As I was doing this, I adjusted the buildings to have their ingame cost and maintenance so we can slowly get rid of Gradual Research. When all is finished, there will be flavors for both the techs and the buildings up to Industrial Era. We will tackle the later eras once we can confirm the balance of the first four.

I ran into a problem though that you all may be able to help with: somewhere in the CTP file D has added a modifier of sorts that increases building cost by era, similar to how Gradual Research worked. I know this because I saw it. The problem is that I don't remember where I saw it, and now that I've changed the buildings to how they are suppose to be, the extra modifiers throw things off by about 15% of their cost. If anyone knows what I'm talking about and where to find it, please post. I want to say I saw it in Gamedefines, but after combing it I couldn't find it. Lol, I think I have been looking at code too long .

 

[chrome-rome]

I have been working on balancing two major game aspects: Buildings/Wonders and Policies (again). The buildings/wonders are fairly straight forward; I just go in, adjust the cost of the buildings, remove any ridiculous bonuses, and then add flavors to represent the changes put in. Unfortunately, I serverly underestimated how many wonders there are (and how sidetracked I can get), so it is taking way longer than I thought. I have also grudgingly added specialist back to the early game, but they are only available through Wonders pre-Renaissance. There are a few iconic buildings in Renaissance that get specialist (uni, bank, foundry, etc). I did this for two reasons: 1) using the HaveFun mod to check on my opponents, I saw that by mid-late Renaissance the ai have several cities with a lot of citizens not working the land and unable to turn into specialist, and 2) The early game is lacking Great People. To adjust for this, in addition to adding specialist to many early game wonders, I set many buildings to give 2 Great People Points towards the great person the building supports (library 2 g-scientist, temple 2 g-artist, etc).

As there will more great people, I adjusted their improvement yields to make them viable for more than bulbing a tech or finishing a wonder. I haven't settled on a number yet, but I can tell you that it will be a significant bonus, designed to make you weigh whether a big boost now is worth the long-term benifits lost. I thing I am also going to add more bonuses to the GP improvements throughout the tech tree so they remain relevant.

On the policy front, while I believe that most are viable options, I am sure there are branches that are seldom used, as well as some used every game. There are also a few that worry me balance wise. For example, Pacifism's Peace policy gives an automatic Friends bonus to every CS. I changed it to 20 influence and moved it further up the tree. In its place is the effect of CS giving GP (synergizing with what's above). Communism is also getting a pretty major overhaul, as I found myself building so fast that I ran out of buildings to produce. I dropped the production bonus to 30 from 40 and I am going to rework a lot of the "+X Production to XYZ" policies.

So yeah, that's what I have been doing. I would've released earlier but every change I make seems to illuminate another part that can be further optimized. I promise though that this is all I will do before release, as it has been a while.

Here's what you can look forward to:
-faster tech pace
-techs with accurate flavors
-balanced buildings/ wonders and their flavors
-more stable policies
-CS overhual (yes I finally got around to that. BTW, I do not recommend using CSD mod
-probably more but I forgot

As always, feedback is welcome/wanted/needed !

 

[Karantaner]

That's great news! I agree with your approach on specialist, the AI seems not be able to use them properly. Just to clarify: CTP always had early specialist but you removed them with the gradual research mod. do your remarks relate to CTP with that mod or without it?

When will your update be available for download - or is it already available??

Looking forward to your other changes, especially the CS overhaul!!!

 

[chrome-rome]

That's great news! I agree with your approach on specialist, the AI seems not be able to use them properly. Just to clarify: CTP always had early specialist but you removed them with the gradual research mod. do your remarks relate to CTP with that mod or without it?

When will your update be available for download - or is it already available??

Looking forward to your other changes, especially the CS overhaul!!!

So when I re-did the buildings I mean I completely went over them. I gave each of them their respective cost, specialist, and GP. This allowed me to remove the entries for buildings from the Gradual Research mod. The main problem is that I didn't really think out what I was doing too much, so when I removed the Gradual Research parts, I had to adjust everything. That's what has been taking so long. Even now, I am only up to adding the flavors for the buildings, but I can finish it this weekend if I really work on it. And this is only up to Industrial; the later ages will have to wait until I have more structure (read: patience) to adjust for balance.

So, to answer the question, the specialist are in, and Gradual Research doesn't affect any building up to Industrial Era. I *think* eliminating these entries has sped up load time, but it may just be wishful thinking. I will release in a new thread after I finish these wonder flavors and the policies.

 

[cheme]

Sorry if this wasn't addressed earlier. I havent bought civilization 5, but read that a patch came out to give hotseat. Will this mod work with hotseat?

 

[chrome-rome]

Welcome to the forums

That is a good question. I don't know for sure as I have never tried it, but I would say yes. As far as I can tell, there is nothing that should interfer.

**I stand corrected

 

[pyccos]

mods do not work in hot seat. u can not even add civs to maps.

 

[votum]

Haven't started playing yet as I am trying to weed out mod incompatabilities. It seems like no other mod can be used with yours, do you know of any? I really enjoy the DonMartyMod which starts you off at 10,000BC and adds a mess of cool units and buildings. When I use it with yours though the tech tree gets messed up pretty badly.

Was wondering how hard it would be for you to add something like that? Your is by far the most wide spanning mod, would love to see you add pre-historic type stuff. End game is not so much fun anyway lol, turns are too long

 

[chrome-rome]

Welcome to the forums!

Not too many other mods can be used with this mod because nearly every aspect of the game has been tweaked in some way or form. As I am not the creator, I am not able to say anything about where CTP is heading, but while Decimatus was active he had mentioned adding prehistoric eras, but not until nearly everything else was straightened out. That being said, adding early eras is not a high priority at the moment.

To add the content from DonMarty to CTP would require sorting the techs into one of the five tech branches, and then scaling up the cost to match CTP values. As I am already severly behind schedule, I don't see this added anytime soon.

 

[jkapp4heels]

I can't figure out how to send a private message for the life of me. Anyways chrome, while I know it isn't much, I would really enjoy helping with the academia side of things. Mainly religions and ideologies, but also government (anything to do with policies I'll be happy to help out on). Chances are you probably have already implemented those things, but if not, I'd love to help out (I can't actually try the mod out because the mod system is not working properly for Civ 5 atm).

 

[chrome-rome]

I can't figure out how to send a private message for the life of me. Anyways chrome, while I know it isn't much, I would really enjoy helping with the academia side of things. Mainly religions and ideologies, but also government (anything to do with policies I'll be happy to help out on). Chances are you probably have already implemented those things, but if not, I'd love to help out (I can't actually try the mod out because the mod system is not working properly for Civ 5 atm).

I think there is a post minimum that must be reached before PM is available. So until then our work will be public .

The policies are definitely frustrating. My main issue is trying to get them to be unique while maintaining balance. Unfortunately, given the modding tools available there is not much that can be done where creativity is involved.

It will be great to get a historical context to work with. However, I think that gameplay should have priority over realism. The optimal solution would be a mixture of both.

That being said, the religions and their ideologies have not been seriously looked at yet. The D.U.C.K.S. mod that I have been advocating has been cancelled, so unless another modder picks up where lemmy and Captain Blinky left off, religion will have to be created from scratch. This presents a grand opportunity for this community to shape this aspect in the way that adds the most to gameplay experience.

So, to conclude the lengthy response, I am honored that you are going to be working on the policies. The religion implimentation will have to wait until other, more basic, pieces are complete, but that is no reason why we cannot brainstorm now. Welcome aboard

BTW, is your problem with the mod system in-game or getting the mod itself?

 

[jkapp4heels]

I think there is a post minimum that must be reached before PM is available. So until then our work will be public .

The policies are definitely frustrating. My main issue is trying to get them to be unique while maintaining balance. Unfortunately, given the modding tools available there is not much that can be done where creativity is involved.

It will be great to get a historical context to work with. However, I think that gameplay should have priority over realism. The optimal solution would be a mixture of both.

That being said, the religions and their ideologies have not been seriously looked at yet. The D.U.C.K.S. mod that I have been advocating has been cancelled, so unless another modder picks up where lemmy and Captain Blinky left off, religion will have to be created from scratch. This presents a grand opportunity for this community to shape this aspect in the way that adds the most to gameplay experience.

So, to conclude the lengthy response, I am honored that you are going to be working on the policies. The religion implimentation will have to wait until other, more basic, pieces are complete, but that is no reason why we cannot brainstorm now. Welcome aboard

BTW, is your problem with the mod system in-game or getting the mod itself?

It's in the game, and I believe is touched upon here. Essentially it doesn't allow me to play custom games with any mods other than the Mongol's campaign. The Firaxian person provided a fix that doesn't work for me. I'm not sure what's wrong, but it is frustrating. Since I'm not a modder, I'm stumped.

As for the religions, I can definitely give historical context, but I can also provide a layout of the entire system--as in, the influences (and consequences) a particular branch/religion/ideology/etc has. While independently the religions may not seem so much different, the uniqueness would be in the connections it'd have to other policies (e.g. Buddhism, tolerance and Pacifism; Communism, totalitarianism, anti-religion, atheism), and for that reason, balanced. This endeavor would be purely objective (I don't have a religion, I just love religion). I would also break it down into three branches: polytheism, monotheism and irreligion (pantheism/deism/agnosticism/atheism/apatheism). I wouldn't adopt Procylon's system though, at least not how he broke things down into religions and religious ideologies (I may do something similar though).

 

[chrome-rome]

I think a layout would be great. It seems like you know your way around religion so by all means go for it. I'm looking forward to what you design

 

[jkapp4heels]

I think a layout would be great. It seems like you know your way around religion so by all means go for it. I'm looking forward to what you design

There wouldn't be a tree per say, but instead a set of + or +/- for the religion of your choice to choose from. However, there is no order to go by, but there are some choices that require more piety than another (for this reason, there'd have to be an option not to be forced to spend piety points). For example, a + choice for Hinduism would be Oldest Religion, which would grant happiness and increased culture growth--this would cost, say, 4 piety points. Yet instead of waiting to gain that much piety, a +/- choice would be available, like the caste system for 1 point, granting +10% culture but -10% happiness. The greatest uniqueness of the religions will come from the big piety choice. For Hinduism it'd be Oldest Religion, Judaism-Oldest Monotheism, Christianity-Westernization, Buddhism-Peace and Equality, Islam-Word of God, etc.

 

[chrome-rome]

Oh ok. So you want to introduce a new yield that can be saved up for greater benefits later or that can be used now for lesser bonuses. Will the religions be mutually exclusive or can you have more than one?

I believe adding in piety points will require the DLL and someone with way more modding experience than me. This could be advantagious, as by then we can really create some great bonuses. As such, how about we hold off on actually setting bonuses for the religions and instead work on getting the layout set up.

Tangent

Spoiler :

Now here's an idea that may or may not have merit: time-dependent bonuses. To illustrate, lets say that a civ that adopts Christianity in the Medieval Era gains access to Knight's Templar, while an Islamic civ gains access to whatever special unit/building (or a special promotion) they had during the Crusades. These bonuses will be in addition to whatever the normal bonuses for the religion are, so if you adopt one of these religions before or after the Medieval Era you are not punished by it.

/Tangent

For lay-out, since you mentioned it won't be on a tree system, what kind of structure do you have in mind? I can see a sort of circular system working out where any policy (for lack of a better word) can be elected at anytime, although they would have varrying piety cost. This way, players can see exactly how much of the religion they have "completed." After electing all of the possible policies, a finisher of sorts can be put in effect.

Does this work for you, or am I completely off-base?

 

[jkapp4heels]

Oh ok. So you want to introduce a new yield that can be saved up for greater benefits later or that can be used now for lesser bonuses. Will the religions be mutually exclusive or can you have more than one?

I believe adding in piety points will require the DLL and someone with way more modding experience than me. This could be advantagious, as by then we can really create some great bonuses. As such, how about we hold off on actually setting bonuses for the religions and instead work on getting the layout set up.

Tangent

Spoiler :

Now here's an idea that may or may not have merit: time-dependent bonuses. To illustrate, lets say that a civ that adopts Christianity in the Medieval Era gains access to Knight's Templar, while an Islamic civ gains access to whatever special unit/building (or a special promotion) they had during the Crusades. These bonuses will be in addition to whatever the normal bonuses for the religion are, so if you adopt one of these religions before or after the Medieval Era you are not punished by it.

/Tangent

For lay-out, since you mentioned it won't be on a tree system, what kind of structure do you have in mind? I can see a sort of circular system working out where any policy (for lack of a better word) can be elected at anytime, although they would have varrying piety cost. This way, players can see exactly how much of the religion they have "completed." After electing all of the possible policies, a finisher of sorts can be put in effect.

Does this work for you, or am I completely off-base?

You're not off-base at all. The only thing is that I had a big rectangle divided into smaller rectangles. The greater the piety cost, the larger the rectangle. I would do circles, but I was planning on allowing some religions (like Buddhism) to be chosen along with another religion (like state divinity or even atheism). Given that fact though, some options would be closed off depending on choices; e.g. if you choose atheism and Buddhism, you couldn't choose any tradition (or branch) other than Theravada; likewise, some religions are unable to be melded at all, like Christianity and Islam, where sole worship of a specific god is absolutely necessary (unless you want to invent a new term like Reform Christian). And, of course, you couldn't choose a religion and also choose no state religion. It's complicated and complex, but I think I can work it out. It's like a big equation except it involves no math (thankfully). Not sure if I make much sense haha.

 

[rulner]

Thought I might put in my 2 pennies worth in and start with a nice contentious topic as my first ever post.

The problem with this solution as I see it, is that you could swap religions (providing you have enough Piety points) whenever you want. In reality, it’s the population which almost dictate the religion. With no followers of a religion there isn’t any point in selecting a state religion. I liked the idea of CIV4’s % of a population way of doing things. If there was a way of adopting both the % approach in CIV4 and Jkapp4heels’ ideas and then introduce a way of influencing\pushing the populace towards a certain religion (which could take time), we could have the makings of something really good here. Piety points for example could be used to influence your country towards a certain religious path and would unlock certain religions (and close others as you move around that circle\rectangle as Jkapp4heels suggested) but Piety points could be applied in opposite directions by certain wonders for example which would mean you’d have to think more carefully about the direction you are going in religiously versus your Wonder choices. In other words you’d have flavours of Piety points. Units who kill another unit could add Christian Piety points to the opposition (Crusades).

Additional idea - If there was a strong mixed culture where you have influences based on percentage of a religion. A country which has a 51% majority in one religion and 49% minority in another could potentially earn some of the benefits from the minority religion (nothing like the advantages you would get from your ‘state’ religion. I know this sounds like CIV 4 but what I didn’t like about CIV4 was the ability to build any religious building and obtain it’s benefits as long as that religion was present. The influence a religion could have over a community could dilute the other religion’s benefits too, so you could get a nice blend or a completely useless one where one could almost cancel the other one out or worse. (eg Christianity gaining more influence in an Islamic state could cause unhappiness – even anarchy and would force you to change even if you didn’t want to)
This all needs a lot more thought but I thought I might throw these ideas out there.

PS Chrome-rome – thanks for picking up from D – this Mod is outstanding.

 

[chrome-rome]

Thought I might put in my 2 pennies worth in and start with a nice contentious topic as my first ever post.

The problem with this solution as I see it, is that you could swap religions (providing you have enough Piety points) whenever you want. In reality, it’s the population which almost dictate the religion. With no followers of a religion there isn’t any point in selecting a state religion. I liked the idea of CIV4’s % of a population way of doing things. If there was a way of adopting both the % approach in CIV4 and Jkapp4heels’ ideas and then introduce a way of influencing\pushing the populace towards a certain religion (which could take time), we could have the makings of something really good here. Piety points for example could be used to influence your country towards a certain religious path and would unlock certain religions (and close others as you move around that circle\rectangle as Jkapp4heels suggested) but Piety points could be applied in opposite directions by certain wonders for example which would mean you’d have to think more carefully about the direction you are going in religiously versus your Wonder choices. In other words you’d have flavours of Piety points. Units who kill another unit could add Christian Piety points to the opposition (Crusades).

Additional idea - If there was a strong mixed culture where you have influences based on percentage of a religion. A country which has a 51% majority in one religion and 49% minority in another could potentially earn some of the benefits from the minority religion (nothing like the advantages you would get from your ‘state’ religion. I know this sounds like CIV 4 but what I didn’t like about CIV4 was the ability to build any religious building and obtain it’s benefits as long as that religion was present. The influence a religion could have over a community could dilute the other religion’s benefits too, so you could get a nice blend or a completely useless one where one could almost cancel the other one out or worse. (eg Christianity gaining more influence in an Islamic state could cause unhappiness – even anarchy and would force you to change even if you didn’t want to)
This all needs a lot more thought but I thought I might throw these ideas out there.

PS Chrome-rome – thanks for picking up from D – this Mod is outstanding.

rulner, that was a brilliant first post; welcome to the forums !! BTW, it appears that a lot of first time posters come to this thread. We are happy to have you.

I agree with everything you have said, especially the issue of being able to switch religions willy-nilly. Historically, the populace was swayed into a religion based on the environment. In the D.U.C.K.S. mod, one of my favorite aspects was having Natural Wonders hold sway over what type of religion you can adopt. The inclusion of World Wonders that influence religion is also a great idea; it will require the re-working of some wonders to fit in more with the religion it represents, but that can be handled when we get there.

I think it would be great if you and jkappheels look into religion together. I don't know how much you know about religion, but you have a firm grasp on game practicality. And, as I have learned after working with Fires, having someone to bounce ideas with usually leads to better designs.

If you can both take charge on this system that would be great. I'll be interested in what you come up with but don't feel as though you need my approval to go forward with a unique idea/concept; as I am learning through the social policies, I am great at editing, but not so much the creation.

 

[chrome-rome]

For any who do not know, the DLL is going to be released soon. So jkapp4heels and rulner, you guys may be able to impliment the religions sooner than I thought. That being said, does anyone know C++? If so, please post here or shoot me a PM. I have a feeling that we will be needing your help soon. Also *fingers crossed* this may mean that Decimatus will be coming back to the forums soon. He did mention that he is likely to return after the DLL is released. I just hope he hears about it.