Quo's Combined Tweaks v7.0.19 BETA

[Edward2017]

Thank you for the clarification.
I will give it a go, although it makes a pacifistic play style a bit less attractive.
Have a beautiful week!
Edward.

 

[isau]

Thank you for the clarification.
I will give it a go, although it makes a pacifistic play style a bit less attractive.
Have a beautiful week!
Edward.

There are two Secret Flavors that lean toward Pacifistic: Comrade and Paragon. The other two lean more or less toward chaos: Dotard and Weasel.

For some background, the original idea was intended to be a more complex three-party-relationship kind of system. For example, the idea was that Weasel would trigger based on "Denounced one of my Friends." There are diplomacy modifiers for that sort of situation. But, sadly, no way to trigger an ability off of it. That's how the "my friend who wars with neighbors" came about.

Comrade really needs some work TBH. Right now it's basically an extra free bonus just for being friends. The original intent was actually that they would indeed be friendly with you up until you acted liked a Weasel (denounced or warred on one of their friends) and then would really turn on you.

The main idea is that all these various agendas will generally be opposites of each other. There's no way to ensure that in every game. But the intent was that you'd often be making tradeoffs in deciding who to please.

 

[isau]

isau updated Quo's Combined Tweaks with a new update entry:

Quo's Combined Tweaks v 6.0.11 ALPHA

This release introduces "Biomes", which are broad categorizations for each civilization, loosely based on the real world geography, culture, and history of the civ. These biomes are intended to add even more interest and strategy to the game by adding new variables to combat, strategy, and tactics.

Eventually there will be a MyOption to turn this feature on and off. For now though it is a part of the main mod.

These ability sets are still very much in flux and subject to future changes....

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Guynemer]

....wow. That looks pretty interesting. Will give it a try later this week.

 

[Rambo919]

Don't always read the thread so didn't know about "Mysterium" untill it started popping up making it's tiles un-improvable which in itself was annoying. Is there currently a way to actually DO something with it or at least disable it or is this a stupid question? This was a playthrough as Trajan btw if that matters...

 

[V. Soma]

Isau,of this mod, have you though of using the unit stacking part (kind of 2UPT)?

 

[isau]

Don't always read the thread so didn't know about "Mysterium" untill it started popping up making it's tiles un-improvable which in itself was annoying. Is there currently a way to actually DO something with it or at least disable it or is this a stupid question? This was a playthrough as Trajan btw if that matters...

"Mysterium" is a resource specific to Scythia that is a workaround for the fact that its not possible to trigger antiquity sites early (as far as I've been able to to determine). The resource should normally be hidden for all civs until the Future Civic becomes available... it really only becomes visible then because there's no way to stop it, although I am still looking at less clunky options. I suppose Option 2 would be to give it an end game use. Generally by the time you reach the end of the Culture tree I'd think you're close to ending the game anyway. I suppose I could allow it to give tourism. At a minimum, I may be able to stop it from blocking improvements, districts, etc.

I could also make it harvestable so you can at least remove it.

For Scythia, you can put the unique improvement on the resource and it grants some things. Probably could use a balance look to be honest.

Isau,of this mod, have you though of using the unit stacking part (kind of 2UPT)?

I haven't looked at this mod in a while. I seem to recall Gedemon ran into an issue with one of the game updates that made the mod function differently, tho I am not sure of this or what the issue was. I won't say I will never consider a merge with that mod, although it's not in the plans for now.

 

[Grathocke]

I like the idea of the biomes. they add more depth to the game. That being said, it doesn't apply to downloaded civs. Are there any plans to update the feature? As is, I have to choose playing with only the standard civs or only mod civs.

I was just thinking, I guess the civ authors would probably need to add a tag so their civ would be compatible with the appropriate biome.

 

[DanaLea]

Maybe some code would be added to the scratchpad that would allow you to list the added civs and assign them a biome. That way everyone could customize the mod for their personal collections of civs? I'm not a modder so I have no idea on the feasibility of this...

 

[isau]

Maybe some code would be added to the scratchpad that would allow you to list the added civs and assign them a biome. That way everyone could customize the mod for their personal collections of civs? I'm not a modder so I have no idea on the feasibility of this...

It's pretty feasible actually. The only hard part would be making that info also show on the leader-select screen, because anything that shows there has to be set up in a separate Config file that is loaded separately from "real" game effects.

Each Biome is simply a CivilizationTrait that happens to be shared among multiple civs. Any mod leader that is added to an existing Civ should get one already. For totally new civs, this will add the Biome of your choice:

INSERT INTO CivilizationTraits 
  (CivilizationType,   TraitType)
VALUES ('CIVILIZATION_EGYPT', 'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_ARABESQUE') ;

You just replace 'CIVILIZATION_EGYPT' with the civ you want to use.

The Biome trait names are:
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_ASIAN_STEPPE'
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_NATIVE_AMERICA'
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_NEW_WORLD'
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_BOREAL_EUROPE'
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_ASIAN_PACIFIC'
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_ROMANESQUE'
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_ARABESQUE'
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_AFRICA'
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_ASIAN_EXPANSE'
'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_WEST_EUROPE'

 

[Grathocke]

Thanks for the info.

Each Biome is simply a CivilizationTrait that happens to be shared among multiple civs. Any mod leader that is added to an existing Civ should get one already. For totally new civs, this will add the Biome of your choice:

Sometimes it is working. Sometimes not. Works for Germany, for example, but not for Kongo (at least it doesn't appear to, but I haven't checked it out fully.)

Also, as a side note, I noticed when I played as Shaka that when purchasing a settler I expended a population. Is this intentional?

 

[Grathocke]

I've started applying the biomes to all my downloaded civs and haven't run into any problems. On Kongo, I discovered Anna Nzinga does have the biome trait. It is as you said, it doesn't show up on the selection screen, but it does appear on the loading screen.

 

[isau]

I've started applying the biomes to all my downloaded civs and haven't run into any problems. On Kongo, I discovered Anna Nzinga does have the biome trait. It is as you said, it doesn't show up on the selection screen, but it does appear on the loading screen.

Yes, this happens because the loading screen pulls from the Gameplay database but the player select screen pulls from the Config database. The files are loaded at different times. That's also why you can't just fix this In the MyScratchpad.

The char select screen stuff is handled in the Config folder of the mod in the file Quo_Config.sql. Here's what an entry looks like:

INSERT INTO PlayerItems

  (Domain,CivilizationType,LeaderType,Type,Name,Description,Icon,SortIndex)

VALUES ('Players:Expansion1_Players', 'CIVILIZATION_AMERICA', 'LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT', 'QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_NEW_WORLD', 'LOC_QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_NEW_WORLD_NAME', 'LOC_QUO_TRAIT_BIOME_NEW_WORLD_DESCRIPTION', 'ICON_BUILDING_FILM_STUDIO', 5),

This, by the way, is the reason all the Biomes currently show the Film Studio as an icon. I'd eventually like to find or make better icons.

If you felt strongly about showing the Biomes in the char select you could edit Quo_config directly to add new entries, if you felt confident enough in your modding skills.

 

[isau]

Also, as a side note, I noticed when I played as Shaka that when purchasing a settler I expended a population. Is this intentional?

Hmm no, that would be a bug. Let me look into it.

EDIT: Update. Confirmed and fixed the bug. It was an issue with African cities looking at the same criteria as Boreal Europe due to a copy/paste error. Fixed it in test.

 

[thecraftybee]

Not played with Biomes yet, but looks similar to an Civ V mod, Cultural Diversity by JFD, which I enjoyed so will update after my current game. Have you considered adding a temporal version of Biomes? Depending on whatever Era the leader of the Civ is from they get a particular bonus? So a Renaissance English leader (say Betty the First) would get bonus A and an Industrial one like Victoria would get bonus B instead.

 

[isau]

Not played with Biomes yet, but looks similar to an Civ V mod, Cultural Diversity by JFD, which I enjoyed so will update after my current game. Have you considered adding a temporal version of Biomes? Depending on whatever Era the leader of the Civ is from they get a particular bonus? So a Renaissance English leader (say Betty the First) would get bonus A and an Industrial one like Victoria would get bonus B instead.

The Biomes are kind of connected to this idea, yes, especially the New World biome shared by Brazil, America, and Australia. Others are loosely connected by theme ("Asian Steppe" which is Mongolia and Scythia.) There is some element of a time component in that for many biomes certain units are restricted. In the case of the New World, they basically play like one-city-challenges until the Classical era. The Clasical era is technically wrong but thematically correct in that America suddenly shows up after everyone is established with a bunch of annoying Settlers. Also, IMO it adds a lot of drama when the clock starts ticking down at the end of an era if you know your neighbor is about to start a big expansion.

Basically, a lot of the special abilities the Biomes got are designed to invert "normal" rules I would otherwise follow every game. Normally I'd build a Settler by turn 40, but New World forces a different strategy. Native Americans can't build cavalry. Arabesque civs can build cavalry but not upgrade them to Tanks (because it requires Oil). The Asian Steppe makes flat land more valuable than hills.

I'm going to be looking for a while to see if the Biomes could use some adjustments. The New World one is a fairly drastic set of changes and I need to observe more games... I feel like they might need to get an additional bonus at the start of a certain era, or based on city population, or something similar, to justify the big starting disadvantage.

 

[Grathocke]

Hmm no, that would be a bug. Let me look into it.

EDIT: Update. Confirmed and fixed the bug. It was an issue with African cities looking at the same criteria as Boreal Europe due to a copy/paste error. Fixed it in test.

thanks for the quick fix.

 

[Grathocke]

re: New World, can they still settle if they get a settler from a goody hut? I ask because I play with increased huts.

 

[isau]

I don't think the New World civs can settle if they somehow get ahold of a Settler. The setting uses the same mechanics as the Dark Age policy card. You can however invade rival cities (in fact it is probably a good idea to be aggressive in general, mimicking the real life history of those civs and their arrivals).

 

[Grathocke]

I don't think the New World civs can settle if they somehow get ahold of a Settler. The setting uses the same mechanics as the Dark Age policy card. You can however invade rival cities (in fact it is probably a good idea to be aggressive in general, mimicking the real life history of those civs and their arrivals).

I'll try it out after I finish my current game with Merrick's Anglo-Saxons.