Realism Invictus

[[Y]]

Luck is a huge part of it, and there is definitely a need to evolve your tactics as you progress. Map size can also play a part in the difficulty. That said, don't expect the difficulty scaling to be practical.

 

[Sathar]

A few comments on my SVN 5058 game that just broke (I think is was sjodster's changes to CvGameCoreDLL, which wouldn't be a surprise):

Armenia, Emperor, PerfectMongooseRI (or whatever it's currently called), huge with default settings, I just got arquebus and haven't quite reached Critical Thought

{ 0) Somewhere during the TortoiseSVN update from 5058->5062 I got an Access Denied/update failed message in my SVN log, possibly on those game core files. I tried reapplying 5060, 5061 and 5062 again individually but the error did not repeat. Think I'm okay or did I likely get corrupted somewhere? }

1) You beat me to it, but yeah I noticed I could build mercenary Arquebusier's with my own black powder, thank you for fixing it!

2) The AI seems a tad more aggressive than my last game. I got picked for the dogpile victim somewhere around the late classical/early medieval stage as just about everyone, including my best "friends", co-religionists, and trade partners began a non-stop parade of stack-of-doom fueled invasions. Fortunately I had a string of hills (later forts) on my northern border and a tight isthmus bottleneck on the south. This is within the realm of "normal AI behavior", but I haven't seen the AI go after me that badly in a long time (I was middle of the scoreboard, with decent/respectable power ratios all around and reasonably defended borders). I also haven't run Feudal Aristocracy in a long while, it was both refreshing and absolutely necessary (I've never been so happy to see my foot/horse knights).

3) The tech penalty per city amount may need a little more tweaking. Pretty much all of us (other than the small fry overrun early) were pretty well clustered technologically over a good range of civ sizes (I think I ended at 14 cities, with my rivals in the 12-20 range), except the crafty Celts -- with their island nation of 7 cities they are already about to go industrial (plus had Privateers when everybody else was using War Galleys, and I saw them research flintlocks just as we all were getting crossbows).

4) I'm mixed about the current cost malus per unit type. It felt a little more relaxed than earlier, as build/upgrade costs didn't feel as onerous. I can't help but feel like the reason the AI was so aggressive was because they could afford to build and throw away Stacks of Doom again. I realize that it's probably an engine limitation, but I wish that you could make the first x units a flat cost (like x=# of cities for defensive units) and then go up even more sharply after a threshold is reached.

5) Masonry Materials. I like this in theory. In practice, I know you claimed to increase the resource spawn rates but it didn't affect my game much. I had one stone near my capital, and later one coal not far off. Very, very late (maybe one or two techs before revealing Coal), I dropped a city on the far side of my large and previously friendly neighbor Persia to get a second Stone (and some delicious Tobacco), which gave me a chance to pave about 1/2 of my main roads and to build some walls and castles, before Persia joined the dogpile and ate the city.
Looking around the map, on my pretty sizable continent housing most of the AI civs, I saw very little stone and not much more coal at all. Even by end of my game, most roads were still unpaved. Again, I suspect that the game engine does not permit trading resources (other than from vassals) that you already have, but it would be nice if we could get around this somehow (right now, me and my neighbor each have half of a rock, and neither of us can make a brick). Maybe a workaround like letting a Brick Factory be powered by either 2 Coal or 1 Coal + 1 Limestone?

That's all for now, though since there are pretty much no games in the world worth playing more than CivIV (!), I'm sure that I'll start another game soon. Thanks again for all of the hard work to Walter and the rest of the RI team -- I'm still anxiously waiting for 3.4 (I usually wait for the major releases to play the Huge World Map)!

 

[Sathar]

Oh, I forgot to mention Espionage. I'm still love/hate (mostly love) on the Spy number and movement restrictions:

Number wise, 3 is so-so. I like it being a tight limit, but that feels like it won't scale well. Can it be 1 spy in the Ancient era, and increase the limit by 1 in each subsequent era (if the engine let's you do such a thing)?

At first, I thought spies were only unable to enter spaces with enemy spies, but I see now that all enemy units block spy movements. While that makes espionage defense a lot easier, it may be a bit too severe -- you pretty much need to embed one of your precious few spies during peacetime to be able to use them offensively during war. That might be okay, if you have a few more spies.

In practice, I was generally content to use my spies to follow troop movements that would have been behind fog-of-war. They were well worth it in that role (oh, it must be ten turns already, the Arabs have another Stack of Doom headed my way....).

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

A few comments on my SVN 5058 game that just broke (I think is was sjodster's changes to CvGameCoreDLL, which wouldn't be a surprise):

Never, ever update SVN in an ongoing game. Only update it between games, before starting a new one.

{ 0) Somewhere during the TortoiseSVN update from 5058->5062 I got an Access Denied/update failed message in my SVN log, possibly on those game core files. I tried reapplying 5060, 5061 and 5062 again individually but the error did not repeat. Think I'm okay or did I likely get corrupted somewhere? }

It sounds like a minor SVN hiccup with no serious consequences. Do an SVN cleanup (from right-click menu) just in case.

3) The tech penalty per city amount may need a little more tweaking. Pretty much all of us (other than the small fry overrun early) were pretty well clustered technologically over a good range of civ sizes (I think I ended at 14 cities, with my rivals in the 12-20 range), except the crafty Celts -- with their island nation of 7 cities they are already about to go industrial (plus had Privateers when everybody else was using War Galleys, and I saw them research flintlocks just as we all were getting crossbows).

I've seen this myself, and I don't feel that this comes from number of cities. I recently saw a World Map game, where England with around 7 cities performed just as you described - but many other civs also had around 7 cities. I think it has more to do with being on an island. I think AI civs on islands spend much less time and effort building troops and, as a consequence, get ahead in economy and techs. Smart of them.

4) I'm mixed about the current cost malus per unit type. It felt a little more relaxed than earlier, as build/upgrade costs didn't feel as onerous. I can't help but feel like the reason the AI was so aggressive was because they could afford to build and throw away Stacks of Doom again. I realize that it's probably an engine limitation, but I wish that you could make the first x units a flat cost (like x=# of cities for defensive units) and then go up even more sharply after a threshold is reached.

So... You're complaining that unit cost increase is both too low (doomstacks!) AND too high (so you'd rather not have it for first x units) now? That's... cool.

5) Masonry Materials. I like this in theory. In practice, I know you claimed to increase the resource spawn rates but it didn't affect my game much. I had one stone near my capital, and later one coal not far off. Very, very late (maybe one or two techs before revealing Coal), I dropped a city on the far side of my large and previously friendly neighbor Persia to get a second Stone (and some delicious Tobacco), which gave me a chance to pave about 1/2 of my main roads and to build some walls and castles, before Persia joined the dogpile and ate the city.
Looking around the map, on my pretty sizable continent housing most of the AI civs, I saw very little stone and not much more coal at all. Even by end of my game, most roads were still unpaved. Again, I suspect that the game engine does not permit trading resources (other than from vassals) that you already have, but it would be nice if we could get around this somehow (right now, me and my neighbor each have half of a rock, and neither of us can make a brick). Maybe a workaround like letting a Brick Factory be powered by either 2 Coal or 1 Coal + 1 Limestone?

I never claimed it was supposed to make life easier. I tried to balance it to be roughly the same level of rarity. The chance of having two stone now should be roughly equal to having one stone before. Basically, good roads aren't designed to be a guaranteed thing in RI, but rather a powerful bonus.

 

[Sathar]

Thanks for the quick response. Without re-quoting you:

I know that I shouldn't update the SVN mid-game and take full responsibility (basically I'm prepared to lose the game save).

Regarding tech, I agree that I've seen this behavior as you described, your theory is interesting and may in fact be the case.

I wasn't "complaining" about unit costs, just reporting my mixed feelings. I like the mechanic, I'm just making suggestions to fine-tune it.

On Masonry Materials, the ability to pave roads is a powerful bonus indeed! Again, I like the idea, but need a few more playthroughs to decide if increases "fun" or just makes things harder for no good reason. It's a little aggravated as I'm having trouble getting PerfectMongoose to generate "fun" maps to begin with (I often end up with long, stringy continents smashed into the poles)*, and since I don't usually check them with Worldbuilder (spoilers!), I often have to abandon a map once I realize that there is no copper or iron in sight. I've gotten used to accepting no stone and waiting around for coal, now I have to worry about needing two stone or two coal or it being worthless. Again, not a complaint, I just have to try it a few times and see how it plays out.


* - PM and it's predecessors PW/PW2 are still my favorite generators by a long shot. PlanetGenerator (if I have the name right) feels a little too "sterile" (exactly or nearly matched continents to guarantee equal starting positions, I prefer a potentially more asymmetrical map). I've never been able to make the Earth Evolution script(s) work: I always generate a solid grid of grasslands with no oceans nor other features except resources and rivers.

 

[[Y]]

I've seen this myself, and I don't feel that this comes from number of cities. I recently saw a World Map game, where England with around 7 cities performed just as you described - but many other civs also had around 7 cities. I think it has more to do with being on an island. I think AI civs on islands spend much less time and effort building troops and, as a consequence, get ahead in economy and techs. Smart of them.

This mirrors my own experiences... and strategies.

So... You're complaining that unit cost increase is both too low (doomstacks!) AND too high (so you'd rather not have it for first x units) now? That's... cool.

I think what he's saying is that, instead of a consistent increase, he would rather see a consistent price while building an army of appropriate size to defend an average civ, but see the costs rise sharply for defending a large civ and/or raising a strike force on top of the defenders. I concur.

I never claimed it was supposed to make life easier. I tried to balance it to be roughly the same level of rarity. The chance of having two stone now should be roughly equal to having one stone before. Basically, good roads aren't designed to be a guaranteed thing in RI, but rather a powerful bonus.

It's not just about the roads, though. I've done a few games already, and have yet to get two limestone, which meant no bonuses to early game wonders (which is most of the limestone aided wonders). There might be a solo limestone near me, but grabbing a second typically means having to intentionally settle another resource, which is always convenient, and rarely worth the hassle/costs. Better to give up on the limestone and have a manageable empire.

 

[Sathar]

I concur with Y.

Meanwhile, in SVN 5064.....

"- Resources on small islands without a city (but in your territory) are now also connected to the trade network if both their improvement and a road are built on the plot"

Thank you, that's been bothering me for a while! I assume that this includes Forts.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I concur with Y.

Meanwhile, in SVN 5064.....

"- Resources on small islands without a city (but in your territory) are now also connected to the trade network if both their improvement and a road are built on the plot"

Thank you, that's been bothering me for a while! I assume that this includes Forts.

Sure, it should work the same way as everywhere else, with forts also connecting resources.
To be honest I forgot to test it with forts too, but I don't see any reasons why the code shouldn't work for them.
If there is a mistake with it though, please report back.
EDIT: Seems to be working!

 

[Sathar]

Thanks Absinthe! I wasn't sure if forts needed to be coded separately and I wanted to make sure that they weren't missed -- one of my favorite tactics is to put a fort on these islands to base scouts, artillery and eventually air units, but I'd always end up cursing the game out when it wouldn't give me my damn copper

 

[AbsintheRed]

Thanks Absinthe! I wasn't sure if forts needed to be coded separately and I wanted to make sure that they weren't missed -- one of my favorite tactics is to put a fort on these islands to base scouts, artillery and eventually air units, but I'd always end up cursing the game out when it wouldn't give me my damn copper

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is unintended in vanilla BtS too, an oversight by the Firaxis developers.
Note that this is only set for small islands right now. Only with 3 tiles or less.
The intention is to encourage settling bigger islands, but it can be changed very easily if the general consensus is that it would be better differently.

 

[[Y]]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is unintended in vanilla BtS too, an oversight by the Firaxis developers.
Note that this is only set for small islands right now. Only with 3 tiles or less.
The intention is to encourage settling bigger islands, but it can be changed very easily if the general consensus is that it would be better differently.

Eh. The game currently has a weird balance about settling cities. It's simultaneously saying "settle new places to get exciting things!" and punishing the player for settling in excessive amounts. If I already have 7 cities, I'm no settling that 5 tile island for one resource (which I may already have from elsewhere, anyway). I still want to be able to trade it, though. If it's connected with a road, I don't see any reason why it should behave any differently then using a river to connect resources.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Eh. The game currently has a weird balance about settling cities. It's simultaneously saying "settle new places to get exciting things!" and punishing the player for settling in excessive amounts. If I already have 7 cities, I'm no settling that 5 tile island for one resource (which I may already have from elsewhere, anyway). I still want to be able to trade it, though. If it's connected with a road, I don't see any reason why it should behave any differently then using a river to connect resources.

Well, you usually can't cover too big islands with your culture anyway.
Isn't the rule active in RI that culture can spread only in 2 distance on water (from the closest tile of the given continent/area)?
So in order to have the resources in your cultural borders, you already have to settle the bigger islands.

Having said that, I'm not against increasing the tile number a bit.

 

[[Y]]

I got picked for the dogpile victim somewhere around the late classical/early medieval stage as just about everyone, including my best "friends", co-religionists, and trade partners began a non-stop parade of stack-of-doom fueled invasions.

This is also because the AI is incapable of demanding tribute/war aid/embargos from each other, so they never accumulate the resulting maluses. The end result is that player stockpiles these maluses over the course of the game, and the AI inevitably develops a strong antagonism towards the player since they have more reasons to hate them, but few to hate the other AI teams (only "you declared war on us", "our borders spark tension", "you declared war on our friends", and events, as far as I can tell).

And the more civs in a game, the more often they will make demands (and become disappointed).

Well, you usually can't cover too big islands with your culture anyway.
Isn't the rule active in RI that culture can spread only in 2 distance on water (from the closest tile of the given continent/area)?
So in order to have the resources in your cultural borders, you already have to settle the bigger islands.

Having said that, I'm not against increasing the tile number a bit.

Yeah, that rule is in place. And further cements the case that any resource within your borders connected by a road should be available--do we really need two rules preventing players from accessing resources on islands? Are those resources really that game breaking? I don't understand what is being achieved here.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Yeah, that rule is in place. And further cements the case that any resource within your borders connected by a road should be available--do we really need two rules preventing players from accessing resources on islands? Are those resources really that game breaking? I don't understand what is being achieved here.

It's a little more difficult than that, since the whole part-of-trade-network mechanics is primarily based on cities.
In a nutshell:
The game sets the map into areas (with islands always being in separate land areas).
A tile is only part of a given city's trade network, if it has a road/river, and it is connected to the city with either of those.
Cities on the other hand can connect to each other through coastal and later ocean trade routes (with the given techs), but that's the only solution for connecting your trade network through water tiles.
So in the vanilla game, each island can only be the proper part of a trade network if it has a city on it.
This is definitely an oversight... but not so clear how could be solved perfectly.

My solution is a hack which overrides the trade route connection between areas, so tiles in small enough areas will be automatically part of your trade network with an improvement and a road.
But it is only meant for very small islands which are fairly close to another area you own, where you wouldn't really want to settle under any circumstances.
If the size restriction wasn't there, it would directly affect the way base trade networks work on all areas. So an improvement would automatically be connected to all your cities if it had a road on it, even if it was very far away from all existing road systems. Obviously this isn't a valid option.

Maybe I can add some further restrictions though.
Ideally the best thing would be to be able to check only coastal tiles of those areas where you do not have a city, or something along these lines.
It's not trivial though, especially since performance is also an important factor in trade network calculations.

 

[[Y]]

Ahh,gotcha. Thank you for breaking it down. I always appreciate understanding the underlying causes/logic behind features.

With that in mind, I completely agree with you. It's definitely not worth working through the complications or the performance costs.

 

[Sathar]

I have no idea if it's possible within the code, but I always thought that forts should be treated as cities for connecting trade routes (so you could "trace supply" through a fort square). I'd swear that this used to be the case once upon a time, but I don't recall if I'm thinking of R:I, another mod like Rev, or even a different game like Civ III or another franchise.

 

[sungchiahao]

If you build a fort on a resource, your civ will get the resource.

 

[Shuikkanen]

Re: latest revisions
" Each cultivation type has a random chance each turn to produce the corresponding resource if it's in a civ's cultural borders, no matter if it's worked or not "
*does the dance of joy*
No more having to place cities so you'll always hit those chernozen and andosol tiles within the city cross, even if the place is otherwise suboptimal.

Played a full game (all techs invented) a couple of revisions back to test all the new converter buildings. So far I'm liking this change. Increased chances of limestone mean a higher possibility of getting that early pyramids. Second limestone was a war away, but that's acceptable. This game everything worked out, and I got masonry materials without a lot of pain. Not sure if you simply doubled the chance of getting (lime)stone, but I'm slightly worried still because doubling the chance of a resource appearing =/= the chance of getting two being the same as getting one before. Still love the new converter buildings and the ratios 2 limestone for stonecutter, 2 coal for brick kiln and 1 limestone + 1 coal for cement factory sound just right.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Re: latest revisions
" Each cultivation type has a random chance each turn to produce the corresponding resource if it's in a civ's cultural borders, no matter if it's worked or not "
*does the dance of joy*
No more having to place cities so you'll always hit those chernozen and andosol tiles within the city cross, even if the place is otherwise suboptimal.

Glad you like it!
There is a good chance that some more cultivation updates will come, but mostly connected to improving the AI in cultivation-related stuff.

 

[Joij21]

About cultivation. I don't really like how one has to wait all they way till the industrial era before you can cultivate crops on fertile soil types. After all historically wheat was native to the near east and throughout the ancient era it was brought to be cultivated throughout most of Europe, Africa, and eventually East Asia. Also you can only spread food crops, not cash crops or edible plantation crops. Coffee was originally native only to Ethiopia. Bananas, citrus, and sugar were native to Southeast Asia. Tobacco, chocolate, and the coca plant were native to the Americas. These addictive substances were cultivated in other regions with similar climates around the world as people brought them to new places. As for balance issues you could also change the map script so less of these crop resources spawn originally and only within local "native zones". Then you can settle or trade for these resources in these "zones" so you can cultivate these crops in other locations on fertile soil tiles. Also the fertile soil tiles would be more abundant in this map script since the number of crops on the map would be so low at the start of the game. Food crops would be able to be cultivated right from the ancient era, while edible plantation crops would be able to be cultivated in the classical era, and cash crops would be cultivated in the medieval era. The industrial era would allow you to actually fertilize a tile with fertilizer to produce a fertilized soil tile that would be able to cultivate most crop types while at the same time producing a lot of unhealthiness in the nearest city due to industrialized chemicals being used. The tile would also pollute rivers and fresh water sources if it is adjacent to them. Similar things could be done with animals, where animal resources can be spread. Animal resources would be cultivated differently from plants. They would be native to "localized zones" as well with less of them being present. However they would not require a certain soil type in order to be cultivated. Instead depending on the species they would need to be on a certain terrain type with access to fresh water from which they can drink. Horses, and cattle would need to be on floodplains, grassland, or plains tiles that are flat and have fresh water. Sheep can be cultivated on flat or hill tiles on floodplains, grassland, plains, as well as tundra that also have fresh water. Pigs would be like sheep except they cannot be cultivated in the tundra. All animals can be cultivated on oasis tiles. The Spanish brought longhorn cattle to the New World, breeds known for their drought tolerance so I believe by the renaissance cattle should also be able to be cultivated on scrubland without water. Each animal resource that is within the radius of a city will contribute to an increased chance of epidemics due to most diseases throughout history coming from animal/human communicable diseases. So you won't want to cultivate too many animals for fear of a rise in disease. Veterinary medicine as a tech for the industrial era will reduce but not eliminate the threat of animal/human communicable diseases. Feedlots can be built in the modern era to double the food output of pastures around the city they are built in but requires corn in order to work. Feedlots would produce a lot of unhealthiness in those cities. If food spreading over trade routes is ever added then feedlots could be used by rural cities with low population to spread a lot of food to more urban commerce/production cities.