Realism Invictus

[arizzi]

I think it would be a super cool idea to be able to build stuff outside your borders. for example to have watchtowers placed to clear the fog of war and prevent barbarians

 

[Lord Brooks]

I only said the same thing this week to a couple of friends I play MP with. The way I thought it might work was to have a fort create a tile of your border, you could use it as a colony almost. If you join to your trade network it could work the same as a city. Historically they could work like the early European forts in North America.

 

[Jayman1000]

While scouring the internet I found this old mod here Super Forts: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/super-forts.444512/

It seems to provide exactly what I was thinking concerning taking territory with forts. However how difficult would it be to merge/use it with RI and perhaps this is not even something the RI devs would want, but I'd personally love to able to do it in RI

 

[sazhdapec]

Insane SVN update. I've been waiting for it for so long! Boy the nerfs are severe!
However there are some issues with World Map Huge.
1) No Neth world map "crashes" at the start of the game. The regular world map huge doesn't have the same problem.

Spoiler :

2) MOAR marble and stone for Rome?
3) Why is the new starting place of China X:91 Y:58? May I humbly suggest X:90 Y:59?
4) Austronesian Sunda Warriors' behaviour is still UNITAI_SETTLE. Is this intentional?
5) Silures barb city... Walter, what is your opinion on optimization of city placement? Should they occupy just some cool spots or should their estimated placement be "perfect" so that as many as possible (resource) tiles are worked by cities?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Suggestion: That the epidemic risk % in the city screen shows "overflow" negative risk, such that you can easily see how much can raise the risk without going over 0. For example if you want to build forge you have to make the entire calculation yourself to see if the risk will go over a current display of 0% risk (this 0% risk might actually be for example -2.5% and then there is ample room to build forge, but if it instead actually is 0% then a forge would give you a 1% risk, and dismantling buildings are unfortunately not an option). Why not have the computer do that calculation for you? There's no reason to not show the actual negative risk value.

Very nice UI suggestion. Noted for the future.

Suggestion 2: In my Aztec playthrough that is now at the end of the middle age I noticed that I can't build any distilleries because I have no access to wheat, sugar or wine (which made me try and research it a bit on ze internetz). As far as I understand maya and especially aztec had and came to have extensive experience with alcoholic beverage production, and aztec knew how to do some distilling, using native plants for this purpose. Although it was not for social or leisure use but strictly religious and ritualistic. Are there any plans for implementing meso american alcohol resources in the future, has this prospect been considered or am I bringing a whole new suggestion to the table?
Take a read of the following research document (that I found on the internet, I know one should not just readily believe everything that you randomly look up on google.... but it seems credible doesn't it?): http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/PublicHealth/research/centers/CAIANH/journal/Documents/Volume 7/7(2)_Abbott_Use_of_Alcohol_1-13.pdf

I don't believe it was distilled alcohol, but rather just fermented stuff. There is a rather important distinction here; before distillation was invented by Arabs and independently Chinese in around 1000 AD, and put to use in Europe and elsewhere for alcohol production several centuries later, alcoholic beverages were much weaker, with the strongest being around 20% (~fortified wine). Distilled alcohol was much stronger, around 40% commonly found in whiskey/vodka etc. nowadays, and even stronger in some cases. That basically led to a revolution in human alcohol consumption around mid-second millennium AD. Many less advanced cultures actually came close to collapse (or collapsed) because of alcoholism related to an influx of new much stronger beverages that were not accounted for by their cultural code. If we came to Europe around 1700, we would likely be horrified how literally everyone (including most babies and almost any iconic historical figure of the time you care to imagine) was unacceptably drunk by modern standards all the time. It was rather common for people to die of alcohol overdose - not poisoning mind you, but reaching a lethal concentration of alcohol in the blood, something thankfully much rarer these days.

Long story short, while eventually everyone would distill alcohol from anything remotely sugary (even potatoes; brannvin from potatoes was actually the major factor for potato spread in Scandinavia, for example), it first needed a distillation process to be discovered and spread, so not before late Medieval era in Civ 4 terms. And in theory it would mean that you should distill from any crop available in RI, but for gameplay balance reasons, that doesn't work, as it would create a very definite overabundance of alcohol resource. What I was contemplating is giving many (all?) civs their national alcohol variants as flavor distillates, so for example Slavic civs (Poland and Russia) would keep their vodka from Wheat, while Amiericans would have bourbon from Corn, and Scandinavians would get brannvin from Potatoes. This basically means that every civ gets one source of crop alcohol, plus two high-sugar substrates (grapes and cane sugar) that are common to everyone. I will probably do it some day. It doesn't add much to gameplay, but has some flavor potential.

One thing that really, really winds me up though is the AI's constant, tiresome and ultimately futile wars. I've had several games recently that have just got bogged down early medieval era because several AI's, both weak and powerful take it upon themselves to trek half way across the planet to declare war on me when they have weaker or comparable strength AI empires on their doorstep that they would be better attacking. It ruins the realism for me.

I understand the AI will declare war from time to time, but as an example they are trekking 30+ turns to declare war on me. My strength is comparable. My cities well garrisoned. There are weaker civs with other religions on their own borders. They have nothing to gain from this war, save the slight chance that they raze a city, which is highly unlikely give the size of my defensive army.

Is there something I'm missing? I'm going out of my way to be friendly with some of them, gifting them money, resources, trading and agreeing to requests to close borders, declare war etc... yet there seems to be no method to stop them attacking seemingly randomly.

It's got to the point where I would happily mod some files to lessen the chance of the AI declaring war on the player, is this something that can be done? I'm happy with everything else on monarch difficulty. I can keep pace at this level, any less and I run away with it, any more and I think I would break something in frustration.

I can't affect AI behavior directly, unfortunately, and our coders so far have found no indication of what exactly is wrong with it. I've seen such behavior myself; not every game definitely, but now and then absolutely. That also happens with AI on AI too, by the way, but players are less likely to notice pointless wars when they are not happening to them. I'd hate for this to keep happening in the final RI release, but so far I saw no way to stop this from happening.

Actually Republic does not give +2 happiness from the get go without senate as you claim. Literally the only thing it gives you is +1 in the 8 largest cities and increased maintainence costs. Then another +1 comes with senate much later, along with the great person boost. Actually the maintenance cost is generally very hard felt. Usually will greatly reduce the percentage that you can allocate to research. Perhaps a -25 distance penalty or so would help alleviate that while still encouraging players to stay small.

Despotism gives you -1 but with +2 bonus from barracks and walls. Also gives you a fantastic building that gives +1 happiness and culture early on (imperial cult/bixi). Later on also has plenty of other buildings that give you another +1 in combination with other civics. Overall even when I play small, I am better served by despotism. It furthermore gives military production bonus. (And an additional happiness bonus to barracks on top of the initial happiness bonus that barracks get anyway if you have a leader with imperialist trait.)

Never claimed it gives +2 happiness from the get go; said it was +2 over Despotism, with its inherent -1 taken into account, with said 2 happiness indeed available for Despotism to compensate for with buildings - which are investment in time/production. And on higher difficulties in early game you have to be very conscious of opportunity costs for time investments.

I'll also add that I agree with above that maintaining troops outside your border should be more expensive. Failed military campaigns should be devastating. If I wipe out an entire invading force, there should be serious consequences back home. A larger aggressive civ will generally be able to replace armies extremely quickly. One potential measure could be a boost to war weariness. Perhaps war weariness could accumulate faster the larger your civ is. That should deter relentless war mongering that snowballs.

That would mostly harm AI civs who wage war in less time-efficinent manner than players. I am generally reluctant to implement stuff that hurts AI more than players.

Actually I had an idea that I really love. Why not tie military units to food production or population size. All those soldiers have to be fed after all. They could also be tied to population. Since the population levels are exponential (meaning that a size 8 city is orders of magnitude larger than a size 5 city), this could work well with the tall vs wide balance. Quite a few ways to implement this actually.

In practice, wide empires still on average have more population: the way resources work in Civ 4, a wide empire will generally have more luxury and health resources, and thus be able to grow their cities to larger population limits. So tying it to population would actually likely benefit wide playstyle more, at least if no measures are taken at the same time to ensure tall playstyle somehow results in larger cities.

While scouring the internet I found this old mod here Super Forts: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/super-forts.444512/

It seems to provide exactly what I was thinking concerning taking territory with forts. However how difficult would it be to merge/use it with RI and perhaps this is not even something the RI devs would want, but I'd personally love to able to do it in RI

Had a look at it, and it seems quite promising, especially the part where AI seems to be aware of how to use it (at least that's what the author claims). As for how hard, it is not for me to answer.

Insane SVN update. I've been waiting for it for so long! Boy the nerfs are severe!
However there are some issues with World Map Huge.
1) No Neth world map "crashes" at the start of the game. The regular world map huge doesn't have the same problem.

Spoiler :

That's strange. I'd obviously not have uploaded the map if it did what you are showing. It works fine on my side. Could anyone please chime in and see if it works or doesn't for them? Then we can determine if there is a problem on your side that prevents it from working, or my side that somehow makes it work.

2) MOAR marble and stone for Rome?

Rome is kind of out of tiles to cram additional resources to. There is only so much land in Italy

3) Why is the new starting place of China X:91 Y:58? May I humbly suggest X:90 Y:59?

Because that's where Chang'an really stands/stood, to my knowledge.

4) Austronesian Sunda Warriors' behaviour is still UNITAI_SETTLE. Is this intentional?

No, could have missed one.

5) Silures barb city... Walter, what is your opinion on optimization of city placement? Should they occupy just some cool spots or should their estimated placement be "perfect" so that as many as possible (resource) tiles are worked by cities?

It definitely shouldn't be "perfect" IMO. I also believe that placing two "perfect" cities is often a worse strategy in Civ than placing three with some overlap, despite OCD issues. Lost opportunity to work more tiles kicks in quite late, compared to the added benefit of having another city. True in vanilla, but even more true in RI, where later in game there are more ways to produce food from less tiles while having most of the population occupied as specialists. Not only will a city grow to work all the tiles comparatively late, but by that time you might already not want to work some of the tiles in favor of making these pops specialists.

 

[sazhdapec]

Rome is kind of out of tiles to cram additional resources to. There is only so much land in Italy

I'm sorry. It seems that you misunderstood me. I meant that in the latest SVN version you placed one additional marble and one additional limestone resource on the Apennine Peninsula. But Rome has already had easy access to one limestone and two marble resources. So I couldn't get why put more of the same resources.

It definitely shouldn't be "perfect" IMO. I also believe that placing two "perfect" cities is often a worse strategy in Civ than placing three with some overlap, despite OCD issues. Lost opportunity to work more tiles kicks in quite late, compared to the added benefit of having another city. True in vanilla, but even more true in RI, where later in game there are more ways to produce food from less tiles while having most of the population occupied as specialists. Not only will a city grow to work all the tiles comparatively late, but by that time you might already not want to work some of the tiles in favor of making these pops specialists.

I was meaning quite the opposite. The problem is not the overlaps but the tiles that are not worked by cities. And Silures is an example of this. Its current position denies the usage of south-west water tiles (most notably a fish resource and a reef feature). It also denies the usage of a X:13 Y:71 tile by any city. My idea of a "perfect" city placement is this:

Spoiler :

It's the same problem with the Iberian Peninsula where there are three resource tiles (clam, cattle, sulfur) and a bunch of water tiles that are never worked by cities (if AI decides where to settle). Putting a barb city on X:7 Y:58 will help AI use these resource tiles by taking this city.

 

[[Y]]

How hard is it to remove K-Mod? The vanilla experience is preferable to this.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I'm sorry. It seems that you misunderstood me. I meant that in the latest SVN version you placed one additional marble and one additional limestone resource on the Apennine Peninsula. But Rome has already had easy access to one limestone and two marble resources. So I couldn't get why put more of the same resources.

Up until 20-ish years ago, over 80% of world's marble exports came from Italy. And seeing how you now need 2 limestone to build paved roads, I wanted to make sure Rome had those handy.

I was meaning quite the opposite. The problem is not the overlaps but the tiles that are not worked by cities. And Silures is an example of this. Its current position denies the usage of south-west water tiles (most notably a fish resource and a reef feature). It also denies the usage of a X:13 Y:71 tile by any city. My idea of a "perfect" city placement is this:

Spoiler :

It's the same problem with the Iberian Peninsula where there are three resource tiles (clam, cattle, sulfur) and a bunch of water tiles that are never worked by cities (if AI decides where to settle). Putting a barb city on X:7 Y:58 will help AI use these resource tiles by taking this city.

I guess I don't really care much if some resources remain unusable, especially in such a resource-packed map as RI World. Also, I wouldn't really want to actually help English AI perform better, I'd rather nerf them more in some way. I actually have half a mind to add Celts as a civ to Ireland or Scotland, just to mess England hoarding all the wonders.

How hard is it to remove K-Mod? The vanilla experience is preferable to this.

As easy as uninstalling RI, if it's vanilla experience you're after. And almost impossible if you want to keep RI experience, as it's extremely tangled up in all the code, not even just the AI routines (though there the changes are also massive). Keep in mind that K-Mod is actually an almost all-encompassing improvement of all game aspects. It is probably most important for RI in terms of performance improvements, without which such a massive mod as ours would be unbearably slow.

 

[rkade8583]

I actually have half a mind to add Celts as a civ to Ireland or Scotland

This addition would make me very happy indeed.

 

[arizzi]

I had played with K-mod for several years before I switched to RI and did not notice anywhere near this level of aggressiveness. I would say that ai aggressiveness early on is far more problematic gameplay-wise as well as frustration-wise than later on during the rennaissance. I would just blanket reduce the aggression, rather than targeting later eras specifically. Honestly I think this is the only real problem with RI, most of the other things we've been talking about (snowballing, warmonger vs builder, tall vs wide) really just stem from overly aggressive AI.

BTW that fort mod looks really interesting, can think of a lot of cool game-play that it enables.

As for the discussion on republic I would have to disagree and reiterate that republic is inferior basically 100% of the time. Without taking any buildings into consideration, the upkeep is reason enough generally not to use it. Barracks which get +1 under despotism (+2 with imperialism) and are are realistically pretty essential (given how aggressive everyone is) and not particularly expensive. Basically one of the first things you build . Walls I would agree are generally pretty expensive (withought masonry materials). However I would argue that opportunity cost isn't really an argument in this case when you consider that production in civ 4 is fast enough that you'll be building pretty much everything not too long after it's available, the fact that happiness is almost always the limiting factor as you said, and that republic strait up lacks even the opportunity to match the happiness compared to despotism.

Potential solution/s would be to have diminishing happiness returns for republic happiness the more cities you have depending on map size (for example +3 with 2 cities, +2 for 3, +1 for 4, etc. 0 for over x amount)
Another solution is just to add more republic specific happiness buildings to at least match the amount that despotism has, or just reduce the happiness from despotism buildings.

 

[Jayman1000]

And/or perhaps Republic needs a buff to the production of its great people such that for example Great People under a republic will generate more gold, food, science, etc? And/or it could be the other way around that despotism gets a penalty to this.

 

[Shuikkanen]

As for the discussion on republic I would have to disagree and reiterate that republic is inferior basically 100% of the time. Without taking any buildings into consideration, the upkeep is reason enough generally not to use it. Barracks which get +1 under despotism (+2 with imperialism) and are are realistically pretty essential (given how aggressive everyone is) and not particularly expensive. Basically one of the first things you build . Walls I would agree are generally pretty expensive (withought masonry materials). However I would argue that opportunity cost isn't really an argument in this case when you consider that production in civ 4 is fast enough that you'll be building pretty much everything not too long after it's available, the fact that happiness is almost always the limiting factor as you said, and that republic strait up lacks even the opportunity to match the happiness compared to despotism.

No. Your math is wrong.

Despotism grants +1 unhappiness in all cities. Once you've built imperial cult, barracks and a wall in all your cities, you're at +2 happiness.

Republic grants +1 happiness in your largest cities. Once you've built Senate in your capital, you're at +2 happiness. Even.

Republic can definitely be superior in isolated, or well-defended starts with few city locations. It requires a lot less effort for that happiness than despotism does, and its best suited for running with pacifism that makes imperial cults moot anyway. That upkeep is steep, but in my experience, after a few settled great merchants and or a prophet, I'm running 100% science anyway.

Furthermore, building a barracks in all of your cities is a sizeable opportunity cost. Military-wise, you don't need to do that. Have your barracks cities build the melee units, and the rest build mounted units, archers, siege units, naval units... Obviously its worth it if you're imperialist, and probably as a militaristic too, but beyond a couple of cities there's no other point under despotism except the happiness.

And as for a wall, as you already said, it's expensive. (Although I personally tend to build them in nearly every city anyway, unlike barracks.)

I've run very succesful games with Republic. Surely it depends on the kind of maps one prefers, but it's definitely more useful than despotism from mid-classical to mid-medieval in at least 20% of my games. Also, I do tend to squeeze every drop out of great people that I can in my play-style, so there's that...

I've also noticed a trend in which AIs that get isolated obtain a tech lead, and once they can travel oceans, they have no trouble conquering with their superior tech. Whenever I've checked, they've been running Republic.

In my opinion Republic does not need a buff. It's very good for the niche its meant to strive in already. If any civic in its civic branch needs a buff, it's Theocracy... Its war weariness bonus is moved / meant to be moved to Militancy where it makes more sense, as far as I understood? So... what's left? What exactly makes it different than Monarchy except all the things Monarchy gets but it doesn't? The Sacerdotal Palace doesn't compensate enough IMO. The espionage and commercial bonuses from the priests seem marginal to me. Literally the only time I've ever run it was when I was desperate to get a Great Prophet and I abused it's unlimited priest option for one great person cycle.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

All right everyone, I tried to adjust AI behavior without touching the game core, through XML alone, by studying the exact formulas AI uses to decide war declarations and such. The result is in the latest update, and hopefully it makes AI less suicidal. Not less aggressive, mind you, just better at picking targets. In general, all leaders should have roughly the same probabilities for declaring wars as before, but they (or at least those of them who aren't psychos like Monty) will not attack vastly more powerful opponents, nor march the whole map to do that. They should also generally be less inclined to spiral into pointless arms races with each other, concentrating more on economy and less on military. I would appreciate observations of new vs old behavior very much.

 

[arizzi]

Excellent! Thanks for this update. I will definitely be testing this out!

Republic can definitely be superior in isolated, or well-defended starts with few city locations. It requires a lot less effort for that happiness than despotism does, and its best suited for running with pacifism that makes imperial cults moot anyway. That upkeep is steep, but in my experience, after a few settled great merchants and or a prophet, I'm running 100% science anyway.

As for republic you are right that the total happiness is even. However imperial cult is super cheap and useful (also gives +1 culture) and barracks is very important and not that expensive early on. Basically all the happiness producing buildings for despotism come early. For republic you have to wait until politics which comes far later. So actually in the situation you describe you would be better off running despotism since in isolated or well defended starts you would be in a much better position to focus on building stuff, and since senate doesn't come for a while despotism is really your only choice. Thats before considering you have the 50% greater maintenance costs for number of cities with republic.

 

[Shuikkanen]

As for republic you are right that the total happiness is even. However imperial cult is super cheap and useful (also gives +1 culture) and barracks is very important and not that expensive early on. Basically all the happiness producing buildings for despotism come early. For republic you have to wait until politics which comes far later. So actually in the situation you describe you would be better off running despotism since in isolated or well defended starts you would be in a much better position to focus on building stuff, and since senate doesn't come for a while despotism is really your only choice. Thats before considering you have the 50% greater maintenance costs for number of cities with republic.

I should go over these point By point but instead I'll just direct you to read my original post again.

I'll address this though. I did mention that Republic is good from mid-classical onwards. Yes, obviously I run despotism once it becomes available, and usually won't switch to republic until Senate is available. The point of Republic is for those situations you don't need to build up military strength and when you can't expand beyond 3-5 cities. The upkeep doesn't matter when you can't expand. Extra great people give you enough commerce. Like I said, 100% science happens often for me.

 

[siggi4ever]

is it possible to play RI in muliplayer with more than 2 players? i tried to create a server in lan and internet via tunngle and evolved and zulus gamespy substitute servers, but there can only join one player. i tried it also with direct ip adress. i have the steam version and i have tried it with and without beta patch. as soon as the second player leaves the third player can join, but then the second player cant anymore. how can i start a game with several players? i am at home with 2 computers in my lan me and my girlfriend would like to play online with a third or several players

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

is it possible to play RI in muliplayer with more than 2 players? i tried to create a server in lan and internet via tunngle and evolved and zulus gamespy substitute servers, but there can only join one player. i tried it also with direct ip adress. i have the steam version and i have tried it with and without beta patch. as soon as the second player leaves the third player can join, but then the second player cant anymore. how can i start a game with several players? i am at home with 2 computers in my lan me and my girlfriend would like to play online with a third or several players

Unfortunately I have not played 3+ player games in RI for a long while, so I can't offer any advice from my own experience with current version (perhaps someone else here can?). But in the past, we used Direct IP with original release (accessible through betas in steam) for all players, with one player (me usually) hosting. Also be sure to check firewall settings for all players.

 

[Sathar]

Started a 5069 World Map game (Armenia), and I'm somewhere mid-late Renaissance right now. AI behavior in line with what's been described in the past. France wiped out early, Germany a bit later. Netherlands a dominant force early but seems to have faded. Portugal still the tech leader (though I'm getting close or maybe just passed him) and was doing some kind of One City Challenge thing until about 700AD, and just built its third city a few turns ago (on the N American east coast). Berbers seemed to have had no problem steamrolling Carthage.

I'm a little mixed on Alliances. It sounds like a good idea up front, though you get a snowballing effect on the dogpile behavior. Early game, it was all of the full nations wiping out the African minors. Recently, they genocided Spain which had been underperforming. I don't know what recourse you have when 10+ nations simultaneously war declare because one was in a bad mood and picked a random fight.

It looks like 5070 has good potential, I'll probably start a new game and see how it changes the above. I'm not sure about the alliance-dogpile effect, though changes in how the AI picks fights may temper it a bit.

Just out of curiosity, how does it work if an Alliance would force you to declare war on one of your own allies? A allied to B & C, B declares war on C, what does A do? Or A allied to B & C, B allied to C&D, A declares war on D, C would go to war with A but what does B do? There's a lot more permutations, especially on the World map.

Related Alliance question: Does the AI have any clue on how to exploit Alliances (I'm struggling as the human to figure it out)? I still get typical AI behavior when a "friendly" leader will dial me up before starting a war to try to suck me in (I almost always refuse, as it's generally not worth the trickle-down relationship hit with all of the target's "friends"). Then, the next turn, I'll be drawn into the war regardless because of our alliance, effectively mooting my refusal.

 

[Sathar]

A quick answer to my own question: I suppose that the (Realistic?) best defense from being dog-piled by allied nations is to be in many alliances yourself. Of course, this is of no help to the minor civs who won't open borders or ally with anyone, and thus invite a world war every time the massed civs attack one.

 

[[Y]]

I'm seeing similar behavior in my game. One nation will get attacked by 7-8 other civs simultaneously.