RADICAL CONCEPTS (to change the game)

[Willi_Tell]

It would be really RADICAL change of gameplay.

Well, isn't that exactly the reason (and the title) of this thread...?

By the way, I really like the ongoing brainstorms on Civ:Col - please, keep on!

 

[Sanotra]

This is a good idea and it is something similarly we have done with the M:C mod. We have split Culture into its own Yield and it works quite nicely. In Vanilla it is quite a pain trying to raise your Rebel Sentiment early on to get the bonuses and having to suffer the Kings demands when your Colonies are still fledglings, so a new balance here would be nice.

How different is the split culture idea and the idea I put forward? I'm glad to see someone already implementing something similar. This area of the game definitely needs a radical change.

In regards to the "Pamphleteer", would a better term like Patriot work better, or Revolutionary?

I am not so sure about the mentioned term "Armed Rebel", considering any soldier you recruit would be considered an Armed Rebel by the King when fighting the War of Independence.

The names can be changed to whatever makes the most sense. It's the concept that's important. I like the name Pamphleteer simply because it's a name based on job title. Similar to your comment about Armed Rebel, anyone who supports independence could technically be called a Patriot or Revolutionary, hence to call the "Pamphleteer" unit a Patriot makes the word Patriot sound like only those who passed out rebel tracts or pamphlets were patriots, and we know that many people of different professions were patriots. But it's a moot point.

As for the Armed Rebel. I agree with you. Perhaps it would be better to call them Militiamen or something similar. The only criteria for naming this unit would be: It's a military unit that represents growing military independence from the king. A military unit not welcome by the king's court. Rebel Pamphlets required to produce, hence growing rebel sentiment in the colonies is the practical criteria to produce.

The Standing King's Army ideas sound really cool and I believe I may have mentioned something similar in a thread somewhere. The King could actually take these units from the REF and when war is declared any king units that are in a Colony with no Rebels are allowed to Flee and join the REF, if there are Rebels present there is a chance the Rebels will capture the King units just like the King can capture any ships in transit to Europe.

I like all of this, except for the part where you said that king's units in colonies without rebels would flee and join the REF. If there are no rebels there, why are they fleeing? Wouldn't it make more sense to simply capture the city they're already occupying and turn it over to the king's control?

We added in Limited Resources... deplete over time... This obviously is realistic but the initial implementation of this ended up being more tedious than fun, so we had to rebalance it.

That sounded like a good idea. I understand how it could've become tedious. I wonder how such a change would look like in an economic system that closely mirrors reality like the concept I put forward. If the whole system was changed, it could work in a real economy system, where as it can't work in the current "1->1" economic system.

Over all I like where you are going with this. I'm not sure how much you know about modding/coding and such but you should flex your mind and creativity and start to produce some of these changes yourself

I currently can only modify xml effectively, and I don't know any code, but I've played around a little on code.org and I've got a growing interest in learning. I don't have a current interest in diving deep into modding civ:col. I have so many other interests and obligations that compete for attention. I've got two blogs right now that I run. I taught myself Spanish recently. And most excitedly, my first child was born this past Monday. A beautiful little boy, that's gonna keep daddy from getting his sleep for awhile!

I love the game, and I love contributing to the modding community, but I just don't have the time learn how or to do the heavy lifting code wise right now. But my mind is flexible and I appreciate the input from you Kailric.

 

[Sanotra]

I'm not totally against the concept of getting one unit of cigars out of two units of tobacco or whatever, but the numbers you came up with are gamebreaking.

Depending on what perspective you approach the game from, the game can already be considered broken. I prefer the term "game changing" rather than "game breaking." Because what makes the game broken for one player, makes the game fun for another, and vice versa.

 

[Sanotra]

The change I proposed deals with this in a different manner. It stores an array of all yields, essentially we allocate memory like we load 0 of each yield. Here we can omit storing the YieldType because we know the yields are stored in the same order as they appear in XML, hence type is just a matter of counting. Import/export/threshold relies entirely on this concept.

This proposed change, has it been implemented? If so, can you give us a screenshot to give us a better idea of what you mean? I'm having difficulty understanding how this would work.

 

[Nightinggale]

I love the game, and I love contributing to the modding community, but I just don't have the time learn how or to do the heavy lifting code wise right now. But my mind is flexible and I appreciate the input from you Kailric.

Sounds like you should join up on an existing mod rather than start a new one. Right now only M:C is active (partly because my *stupid* git-svn bridge decided to break when trying to restart RaR ).

Due to a general lack of programmers I came up with the idea that everything should be controlled from XML. That way other mods can "borrow" the DLL and have all the neat new DLL features without actually having any programmers. We ran into some issues in this regard, but learning from mistakes it should be fairly stable starting from the next release of M:C. This is certainly something worth looking into if you consider modding anything.

This proposed change, has it been implemented? If so, can you give us a screenshot to give us a better idea of what you mean? I'm having difficulty understanding how this would work.

No. There is something like this in DoaNE, but they haven't released their source code meaning we simply don't know how they did it.

 

[Sanotra]

4. Changing Leader Heads (Radicalness: )

Without the Change

A player chooses a leader out of a few choices, to represent their colony at the begining of the game, based upon: personal preference, what type of game they want to play, what bonuses they receive, etc. That leader, and his bonuses remain unchanged until the end of the game. An animated "Leader Head" represents the leader graphically.


Reason to Change

Tired of looking at the face of a colonial or tribal leader who obviously found the New World's fountain of youth? I mean seriously, these guys are in their prime from the beginning of the game until the game's end. They're immortal. On top of that, their expertise never changes, despite a few hundred years of colonial development and leadership experience.

The animated immortal leader head which rattles off comical sayings represents one of the most cartoonish elements of Civilization Colonization, and Civilization in general. Maybe we should get rid of it altogether, and replace it with something different? Something more practical and useful, and maybe a little more realistic for a change?

The Change

Introducing, changing leader heads! I know this idea isn't new. Indeed I tried to do some pioneering work on it in Civ 4, and different people have brainstormed about how to most optimally implement changes to this area of the game. Suffice it to say, it's a radical concept that belongs in this thread.

My idea for implementation is short and simple.

• You pick a leader at the beginning of the game (based upon preference and traits).
• That leader ages.
• After awhile, the leader dies (along with the bonus traits he gave your colony).
• When the leader dies. You choose a new leader (based upon preference and traits).
• That leader ages.
• After awhile, the leader dies (along with the bonus traits he gave your colony).
• When the leader dies. You choose a new leader (based upon preference and traits).

Get the idea?

Each new leader has leader traits that benefit your colony in a different way. This can be useful for the player looking to change their game plan as they go along depending on how the game is unfolding for them.

For example: the player choose to have a 50% bonus against natives at the beginning of the game, but he notices that it's more useful to trade with the natives in his neck of the woods and pursue peace. So when his leader dies, he chooses a new leader that has traits that benefit a peace relationship with natives and not a war relationship with natives.

Or vice versa: the player was hoping for peaceful trade with the natives at the begining of the game, but notices that the natives won't stop being aggressive. So when the player gets the option, he chooses an iron handed leader with a 50% bonus against natives to help him establish order amongst "the savages."

This plan for change hinges upon two different questions (that I can think of):

1. Who or what does the Leader Head represent?
2. How often does the Leader Head age, die, and therefore change?

Question 2 depends on question 1. I can think of two answers for question 1. The Leader Head represents either an individual or a community.

The current Leader Head represents an individual. Albeit an immortal individual. An individual as a changing Leader Head would live as long as individuals would be expected to live. If the Governor (or other name for this Leader), would likely be 20 years old to 50 years old before taking office, then a player is choosing a 20-50 year old individual. That would therefore mean that after a Leader Head is chosen (assuming the max age is 70), the LH would be scheduled to die in 20-50 years, randomly. Those years would be translated into equivalent game turns, and implemented.

Another understanding for the Leader Head could be that it represents a community, not an individual. In this case, the Leader Head could represent the American Colony (or some other variation of name). This one would require some thought to get times and names correct. It hinges on the idea that the player starts out with a small group of colonizers with a colonial charter from their king, and the nation itself slowly evolves into a different type of colony/country. At the beginning think to choose between: English Puritans or English Anabaptists or English Catholics (each with different traits), or alternatively, think to choose between: Fur Trading Company or Sugar Plantationers or New England Loggers.

In each example above, the names would have to be carefully chosen to allow for variation between choices every time the Leader Head is set to change. Additionally, unlike individuals, communities would be set to age slower and die slower, thus the option to change would occur every 100 years or so instead of every 20-50 years.

A variation on the Leader Head as community, could be alternatively be fixed instead of multiple choices following multiple streams. In this alteration the player would choose at the begining of the game for example, "Spanish Explorers", they could only choose to play as Spanish Explorers, but they would be able to choose from several different Leadership Trait combinations. And then, in 100 years, "Explorers" would die, and the LH would automatically be renamed to "Spanish Colonists." The player would be prompted to choose different traits for the nation, but not a different name. In 100 years the "Colonists" LH dies, and it would be renamed to "The Spanish Colonies" and prompted with trait choices and so on.

Conclusion

The benefit of doing things this way, is that it allows the player to change or update the direction of their company throughout the game, either every 20-50 years or every 100 years or so. It also adds more realism to the game, getting rid of a cartoonish and immortal Leader Head that never changes Leadership traits and benefits to the player. The player would experience the same kind of interesting decision they experience as they choose national traits (slavery or not, democracy or not) at the time of independence. They would be experiencing these types of trait changes every 20-100 years instead of one time at the end of the game. What do you think? Do you have any additional ideas to improve this radical concept?

 

[Sanotra]

Sounds like you should join up on an existing mod rather than start a new one... This is certainly something worth looking into if you consider modding anything.

I'm fairly content to just throw some radical ideas into the community to spur on progress for now. Maybe later I'll get into modding, but I just don't have the time to do it anytime soon. I've got time to publish my ideas (or the ideas of others), but that's about it for now.

I like your idea about making everything changeable by xml. For the real economy concept, if a programmer would take the time to make 1000->1 possible in the xml, that could go a long way for xml savvy modders looking to implement those changes. Right now, RaR only allows 2->1 for resources. Ex: 1 cloth and 1 dye = 1 fine cloth (I think that's how it works in RaR).

Right now, it's impossible in the xml to require 1000 ore (or tools) to create 1 cannon. You can only require 1 ore in vanilla, or 2 ores in RaR. Any more in xml doesn't work. So it would be nice if a savvy programmer made the numbers unlimited instead of limited to 1 or 2. Then someone could start playing around with those economical changes.

 

[Nightinggale]

If you are proposing making multiple aged versions of the current leaderheads or anything like that, then you have no idea how hard it is to actually make those. Also getting rid of leaderheads is a bad idea because they are far more impressive and diverse than just names. Also their face changes with their attitude, making a visual impression of your relationship. In fact RaR actually introduced native war paint (though I think it was just one tribe).

Changing leader traits could be interesting. It would mean something like moving the leader traits into CvPlayer as currently each time a trait is checked, it looks up the leader XML file (in memory) to check which traits a player has. There might also be issues with invalidating caches. Changing leader traits doesn't seem fatfetched from a coding point of view.

However I'm not sure I like the idea. I have always viewed the leader traits as the culture of the player in question. For instance a native leader can have production bonus on hills. That is not because that particular man is a great mountain climber, but rather the fact that the tribe in question has lived in hills for centuries and have better knowledge of how to find food at such locations. Replacing the leader will not change the knowledge of all the people. Also it would likely be the death of such a player to lose the food bonus as they really like placing settlements in hilly areas while they are getting the bonus.

 

[Sanotra]

Interesting points. You're right. I don't understand the mechanics behind Leader Heads. But from your comments it sounds like the Leader Head's attributes can be changed throughout the game. If traits can be changed for a specific leader mid game, I'd have a hard time understanding that the name, and graphical representation of the leader couldn't be changed mid game as well. If you can cause the Leader Head to be mutable by the player's choice throughout the game, then you have essentially unlocked the mechanical requirements of the change. There is no need for example to create tens of new leaders, if the ones we have can simply be fiddled with and renamed throughout the game.

Civilization traits can be granted another way, or remain static for each leadership variation. The concept is a foundation that needs to be brainstormed.

There is certainly different ways to express a civilization's attitude towards the player other than facial expressions. Music can be used to express mood and favor. Static pictures can be edited depending on mood and favor. A green border around the picture can indicate good relations, and a red border a bad relationship. There's certainly other ways to do what the facial expressions are currently doing. The question is: "Are the facial expressions of cartoonish leader heads worth keeping at the expense of not having this beneficial concept implemented?"

 

[raystuttgart]

"Are the facial expressions of cartoonish leader heads worth keeping at the expense of not having this beneficial concept implemented?"

The question is a totally different one:
"Is your concept worth to invest all the efforts, introduction of risks and potential performance loss to mess with the current system ?"

This question will only be answered by modders.
(Meaning if one day a modder skilled enough might be interested to implement it or not.)

 

[Nightinggale]

I like your idea about making everything changeable by xml. For the real economy concept, if a programmer would take the time to make 1000->1 possible in the xml, that could go a long way for xml savvy modders looking to implement those changes. Right now, RaR only allows 2->1 for resources. Ex: 1 cloth and 1 dye = 1 fine cloth (I think that's how it works in RaR).

I was thinking a little bit about this one and I came up with an idea.

If we add productionMultiplier (an int) to profession, whatever the profession produces will be multiplied by that int. This mean 2 yield A + 2 yield B + 2 yield C -> 6 yield D (if production multiplier is 3).

If productionMultiplier is negative, -productionMultiplier will be multiplied to input. That will allow 3 yield A -> 1 yield B (productionMultiplier = -3).

This could become quite interesting and it really unlocks a lot of options using XML only. I don't even think coding this will be that difficult and I will likely take a closer look in the near future. I still think it's plain silly to have productionMultiplier set to -1000 though.


Also I agree with ray. I don't think messing with leaderheads is worth the time. It's a massive undertaking and there is an endless list of stuff, which can go wrong. It's one of those things I suspect I will never touch myself.

 

[TheIO]

FFH mod has some leaders with the Adaptive trait, allowing them to change one of their traits every now and then. If implementable in Civ4Col it could be a useful compromise solution.

 

[orlanth]

FFH mod has some leaders with the Adaptive trait, allowing them to change one of their traits every now and then.

Yes, IIRC this is handled by triggering an Event, which allows you to choose a new Trait to be applied to the player.

Keep in mind that "Traits" don't have to be used only for the Leaderhead Traits; a Civic can apply a trait-like effect you design using Traits.XML; and M:C this goes for Techs as well which really opens things up. So when adding XML features, Traits.XML is a good place to do this since it can enable new effects to be included in many ways if the modder desired.

 

[Nightinggale]

Keep in mind that "Traits" don't have to be used only for the Leaderhead Traits; a Civic can apply a trait-like effect you design using Traits.XML; and M:C this goes for Techs as well which really opens things up. So when adding XML features, Traits.XML is a good place to do this since it can enable new effects to be included in many ways if the modder desired.

Good point. The civic system in M:C is quite powerful and modder friendly because if a feature is available to civics, XML modders can use it for civ style civics, inventions or both. Also having a massive amount of civics is not really a performance issue because most or all values are cached. This mean they are only fully looped when you gain or lose one.

If I am to spend time coding something for traits, I will likely move all trait features to civics, make a new civic subtype for traits (if needed) and then make leaderheads store which civics they have. That would really increase the XML modding freedom adding a new trait to a civ would be the same as adding a new invention from a goody hut.

Now that I think about it, I kind of like this idea. It will allow traits with mixed trait and civic abilities. We could make a trait, which gives military bonus, reduced XP requirements and at the same time we use current civic abilities to give civilian penalties, such as -10 units on the docks in "Europe". As there can never be less than 1, it mean that leader cares little for civilian units and will never have multiple units on the dock to pick from. Alternatively he could have extra units on the dock.

It makes me wonder if founding fathers should also be placeholders to getting a civic. They would still be unique as it would be the only way to gain the civic in question. However all the effect code would be shared meaning endless setup options.

 

[orlanth]

Good points. Actually Civ4FatherInfos.xml also does reference TraitInfos.xml directly, being another example of where content coded in TraitInfos can be used in multiple contexts. In fact most of the effects of Fathers happen through these Traits rather than tags in FatherInfos.xml itself. It would seem to make most sense to choose one XML file where tags for the majority of available features would be concentrated, then allow an overall "effect" from this central XML file to be granted by a variety of entities such as Civics, Techs, Fathers, Leaderhead Traits, and Civ Traits (and potentially in-game Events). Most of this currently revolves around each of these files referencing TraitInfos.XML; it might be easier to keep and expand this, but instead moving more features to CivicInfos could make sense if feasible.

 

[Sanotra]

I'm glad to see you guys take off with implementing changing traits.

Question: Can an event change the graphical representation (LH)?

 

[Nightinggale]

I'm glad to see you guys take off with implementing changing traits.

It's not particularly changing traits, but it can give the same effect. However I realized that placing civics, techs, traits and FF options into a single class will make the XML file very messy. In fact it's more or less undoable until the XML schema file gets a major improvement to organize the data.

Question: Can an event change the graphical representation (LH)?

No, at least not in any existing mod. However the graphics in a LH is essentially just an XML value pointing to a file. I have no idea what will hapeen if it's overwritten with a different filepath during the game. To my knowledge nobody have ever tried. It might work and it might fail badly due to some unknown caching, possibly in the exe file.

 

[Don Senglar]

Instead of idea of "Changing Leader Heads" I suppose to be more interesting to add some historical background to relations between European colonies.

Starting conditions:

- both European countries 1 and 2 have own colonies.
- year 1XXX
- European country 1 started war with European country 2.

Result:

European Colony 1 must start war with European Colony 2.

This simple idea could be realized by Events.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

I think this is already in RaR?

 

[raystuttgart]

I think this is already in RaR?

It is.

That is one of the features I had already implemented for TAC.
I called it "European Wars".

There is also a similar feature "European Peace". (RaR only)
Your king might order you to end a war with another European Nation.

RaR contains several such DLL Diplomacy Events.