Realism Invictus

[amrod]

Send me a PM about your suggestions, and we can discuss what would be the most fitting hungarian name for those units.

Obviously wasn't intended for the modders residing in Hungary (Btw nice to see long-time people still being active. After all, it's been, what, twelve years civ4 came out, and there are two sequels out, but we still play with IV)

But, apart from that, I still think that it would be better to say "Hungarian War Elephant" instead of "Harci elefánt" (which is currently "Háború elefánt") etc etc.
Exceptions could be some more well-known units, but even then I can accept anglicized names.
Eg. I don't mind "Hussar" instead of "Huszár". Think about the Immortals unit - noone would recognize it in ancient mesopotamian languages.
We can keep well known names like Phalanx and Legion. Of course, I am being highly Europe-centric in that, I can image that in West Asia they don't know what's a phalanx but they better know some Mongolian cavalry names or whatever.
Obviously this would need some more thought from some ppl with more worldwide linguistic-cultural-historic knowledge.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, it's even more confusing when some unit names are specific vehicle types from 20th century (armored vehicles, artillery, planes etc. with those strange alphanumerical codes). That just doesn't fit into the overall unit naming style (esp when the vehicle is actually from another country). (Also a real unit can contain mixed vehicle types.)

 

[ChaosSlayer]

re: modern units, I think a convention could used where a unit would be named:

Early Fighter (Z456) - where Z456 is a early fighter for specific country, and then
Early Fighter (H22) - where H22 is an early fighter for a different country etc

But players will known that its the Early Fighter they looking at, rather than trying to guess what exactly is H22 - is it early fighter? bomber? something else??

Same applies for tanks, ships etc.

 

[amrod]

re: modern units, I think a convention could used where a unit would be named:

Early Fighter (Z456) - where Z456 is a early fighter for specific country, and then
Early Fighter (H22) - where H22 is an early fighter for a different country etc

But players will known that its the Early Fighter they looking at, rather than trying to guess what exactly is H22 - is it early fighter? bomber? something else??

Same applies for tanks, ships etc.

Yeah, something like that could work.

 

[zantan]

I just got back into this mod after about 6 months and wanted to say thank you, it seems like the AI is a little better. I'm not sure what the cause is, but I think it is because the AI is a little more restrained in expansion/military, which allows for a stronger economy and better research. The wonder penalty for pastoral nomadism also makes civic choice less straightforward which I love. I still think the bonuses are too large and would love to also see a 10% penalty on building improvements (or -10% production and +10% military production), but I know you have other plans for changing that civic.

I had two concerns I wanted to raise:

First I like the system of tech transfer through open borders, but it gets a little ridiculous in the huge world scenario where you can easily get a dozen open border treaties with a little exploration. Could the transfer rate be capped, given diminishing returns, or be influenced by the total technologies you are missing?

Also I just played a game where I got the chariot quest while I was researching peasant servitude and could not build any chariots. I tried building the unit that chariots upgraded to, but that did not fulfill the quest. Is there a way to prevent this from happening?

 

[plasmacannon]

With Agrarian Economy covering farm based civilizations and Pastoral Nomadism covering livestock ones, has a Seafaring Economy been considered for the fishing based civilizations?
I could see Austronesia, Japan and the Vikings going that way on a World map and really anyone could on an Archipelago map.
I have had some seafood starts that could use a bump up considering we lose the workboat on each use, where the other two starts do not lose their workers.

 

[zantan]

With Agrarian Economy covering farm based civilizations and Pastoral Nomadism covering livestock ones, has a Seafaring Economy been considered for the fishing based civilizations?

I like that idea a lot because it could really impact how you expand. I would want it to encourage, lots of small coastal cities rather than supporting massive fishing cities. Maybe a bunch of bonuses for coastal cities like +2 food, -50% city maintenance from number of cities, and faster fishing boat construction and +1 to fishing boats. The one problem, as always, would be getting the AI to properly use the civic.

Also, could we change the dominion requirement on the world map? It's really unrealistic to control two thirds of the world, and a competent AI or human can get a cultural victory before the space race, so I expect winning a world map game would require either a cultural victory or razing the capitols of every major civilization. Maybe if you control a little over the equivalent of a continent?

 

[Darkphoenix]

I'm coming back to this mod after many months away, its great to see the constant changes and updates are still going strong!

One question I have about the recent changes (r5077): I am used to the Chinese civs getting some early gunpowder units. However, playing as South China I note that while their special units still have early tech unlocks (ie Alchemy for one), they are both impossible to build until Arquebus is researched due to the Black Powder resource requirement.

If the idea was to no longer have them come early, the techs to unlock them should be pushed back as well as that is really confusing.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Is it possible to make actual text info in the pedia about road improvements? Then it could be included.

I am no expert on this stuff unfortunately, but I forwarded this request to our coder guy. Hopefully we should get a clearer pedia on roads.

Heh, was wondering why noone else noticed it

Should be fixed with the latest update.

Is the AI supposed to know about the stack penalties? I've never ventured further into modding than editing the xml

It kinda does. It often chooses to disregard them if it has lots of units, and I guess it is right in doing so - if you have 30+ units, you stop caring about the penalty.

- what's happened to companies?

Since by BtS time our mod was already pretty mature, they didn't fit in with the mechanics we already had in place, so we decided we wouldn't be using those.

- tech tree: Animal Husbandry needing The Wheel ? Nomadic people didn't necessarily used wheels, or tribes in mountainous areas. Just read about an area in Caucasus (Svanetia) where they didn't use the wheel until 1935, when the first concrete roads were built.

It is not an exclusive requirement. One can research Animal Husbandry without Wheels. The Wheel actually was likely the invention that enabled the nomadic lifestyle for steppe peoples historically. I've been to Georgia last year, and can confirm that one is often better off not using wheels there in some regions, though.

Generally speaking, the early tech tree is a bit too early for the starting date of the game, if we treat techs at face value - by 4000 BC, most peoples in Eurasia had pottery, for instance. It is better to abstract the early techs a bit, so for instance "Pottery" tech would indicate advanced forms of pottery, like the ones made with potter wheel, rather than the very concept of making pots out of clay. We removed some of the more ridiculous stuff that came with vanilla Civ 4 (researching Hunting in 4000 BC? Really, guys? What were these people doing before?), but as a big fan of early human history, I am well aware that the tech tree is not 100% accurate.

- the Craftsman is also a good idea, giving production to cities in flat lands, also more realistic. Takes some time though to build up. Maybe introducing some help from other cities, eg. in the form of a Trader unit as in some other mods (r.o.m.)

AI is a serious consideration here. The whole craftsman system is currently "natural" for AI, as it doesn't require any adjustments to current decision-making patterns. Options to transfer production (or food) from one city to another is definitely a kind of decision process that AI is currently incapable of.

re: modern units, I think a convention could used where a unit would be named:

Early Fighter (Z456) - where Z456 is a early fighter for specific country, and then
Early Fighter (H22) - where H22 is an early fighter for a different country etc

But players will known that its the Early Fighter they looking at, rather than trying to guess what exactly is H22 - is it early fighter? bomber? something else??

Same applies for tanks, ships etc.

Yeah, this is the convention I will probably use. One note though - since I'd like to make it optional, it is unlikely I'll do it before actual 3.4 release, as then I'd have to maintain two versions of the naming file for the rest of the time.

First I like the system of tech transfer through open borders, but it gets a little ridiculous in the huge world scenario where you can easily get a dozen open border treaties with a little exploration. Could the transfer rate be capped, given diminishing returns, or be influenced by the total technologies you are missing?

Unfortunately since it is no longer exposed to Python, it is harder to tweak now. But generally speaking I agree that it currently works in a suboptimal way in many situations. We'll likely tweak it before the release.

Also I just played a game where I got the chariot quest while I was researching peasant servitude and could not build any chariots. I tried building the unit that chariots upgraded to, but that did not fulfill the quest. Is there a way to prevent this from happening?

Fixed the obsolete prerequisites for this quest in the latest update, so it can no longer trigger when you can't build chariots.

With Agrarian Economy covering farm based civilizations and Pastoral Nomadism covering livestock ones, has a Seafaring Economy been considered for the fishing based civilizations?
I could see Austronesia, Japan and the Vikings going that way on a World map and really anyone could on an Archipelago map.
I have had some seafood starts that could use a bump up considering we lose the workboat on each use, where the other two starts do not lose their workers.

In many ways, I feel that sea-driven economy is already somewhat overpowered compared to landlocked. If I were to do so, I'd first have to nerf maritime stuff quite a bit. Currently it's a safe option that works regardless of other civics and resources you have, and while I can see some historical examples of civs that would fit in with a maritime-based economy, I am hesitant to add it.

Also, could we change the dominion requirement on the world map? It's really unrealistic to control two thirds of the world, and a competent AI or human can get a cultural victory before the space race, so I expect winning a world map game would require either a cultural victory or razing the capitols of every major civilization. Maybe if you control a little over the equivalent of a continent?

Now that you can have vassals and release colonies (that don't immediately revolt) again, it will be easier to dominate stuff. But the general answer is no - the mod is not about the world map, so any deep mechanical changes with the sole benefit of this scenario are not likely to happen.

One question I have about the recent changes (r5077): I am used to the Chinese civs getting some early gunpowder units. However, playing as South China I note that while their special units still have early tech unlocks (ie Alchemy for one), they are both impossible to build until Arquebus is researched due to the Black Powder resource requirement.

Nah, that is definitely a mistake cause by a hasty search-and-replace. Will be fixed.

 

[plasmacannon]

I like that idea a lot because it could really impact how you expand. I would want it to encourage, lots of small coastal cities rather than supporting massive fishing cities. Maybe a bunch of bonuses for coastal cities like +2 food, -50% city maintenance from number of cities, and faster fishing boat construction and +1 to fishing boats. The one problem, as always, would be getting the AI to properly use the civic.

Also, could we change the dominion requirement on the world map? It's really unrealistic to control two thirds of the world, and a competent AI or human can get a cultural victory before the space race, so I expect winning a world map game would require either a cultural victory or razing the capitols of every major civilization. Maybe if you control a little over the equivalent of a continent?

Possibly, but that seems a bit powerful.
+1 Food to seafood tiles or even a building, a Fisherman's Hut, to operate like the Hunter's cabin that only works in that civic providing +1 Food either stand alone or on a seafood tile, Walter's choice
I like the idea of reduce maintenance cost. Civilizations like Carthaginians would have ports all over their region and not deep into their continent. Possibly something tied to the coast. I am trying to see how they would start out early on in RI, there really isn't an equivalent.
Perhaps a Sea Craftman's Hut providing +1 production bonus to fishing boats to show this early Civ's inclination towards things in the sea.

In many ways, I feel that sea-driven economy is already somewhat overpowered compared to landlocked. If I were to do so, I'd first have to nerf maritime stuff quite a bit. Currently it's a safe option that works regardless of other civics and resources you have, and while I can see some historical examples of civs that would fit in with a maritime-based economy, I am hesitant to add it.

I just wouldn't make it so powerful so as to requiring Nerfing of other aspects of the game.

Also, I keep getting starts where my starting food resources require something much later, like Plantations for Coffee or Citrus. There is no building, civic or anything that I can think of to really improve these near 4000BC. I hope there is some change to this. A new civilization settling near rice or pigs to survive makes much more sense that some coffee bean they can't eat. Sure later it would become sought after, but I can't imagine a settler starting off there for that purpose.
My friend and I have restarted maps many times because of this imbalance.

 

[Darkphoenix]

Nah, that is definitely a mistake cause by a hasty search-and-replace. Will be fixed.

I am going to go into my file and fix this for myself, I think I will edit them to require just Sulfur. Or was the mistake it looks for the resource Black Powder instead of the tech?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Also, I keep getting starts where my starting food resources require something much later, like Plantations for Coffee or Citrus. There is no building, civic or anything that I can think of to really improve these near 4000BC. I hope there is some change to this. A new civilization settling near rice or pigs to survive makes much more sense that some coffee bean they can't eat. Sure later it would become sought after, but I can't imagine a settler starting off there for that purpose.
My friend and I have restarted maps many times because of this imbalance.

Start spot assigning logic is unfortunately very obscure and can't be edited easily. I try to think of some ways to make it better, but so far we have what we have.

I am going to go into my file and fix this for myself, I think I will edit them to require just Sulfur. Or was the mistake it looks for the resource Black Powder instead of the tech?

No need, I uploaded the fix just now.

 

[Darkphoenix]

No need, I uploaded the fix just now.

Well, that's alright I've already tweaked it and started a game with 3 wheat near my city, so I don't feel like restar-

- Tweaked Slavery/Serfdom rebellions to be less annoying. Rebellions now happen less frequently, but usually produce a big stack of rebels (the bigger the city, the more rebels can spawn). Rebels now usually have city attack AI and rarely pillage.

DOWNLOADING NOW.

 

[sazhdapec]

Hi! I want to talk about the world map (huge) again. But now I got some statistics! I ran 10 AI autoplay games (1000 turns) on SVN 5076. Here are the details. Unfortunately games take a lot of time to calculate but even with 10 games one can see the regularities.
1) The research speed is too high. At least mid renaissance by 1380 AD feels wrong.
2) These (non-minor) civs get destroyed at least half of the time: Arabia, Germany, Poland, Turkey, China, Mongolia.
3) These civs make it into the top 5 at least half of the time: Austronesia, India, Rome, South China.
4) Some civs fall in both categories with the notable example: India (5 times in top-5, 4 times destroyed).
5) These minor civs get destroyed often: Nubia (8 times), Khmer (7 times).
I hope these findings will help balance the world map scenario though the mod is not about it.

 

[pioswa]

Ever considered adding rebellions to Anarchy, when you are changing civics there should be a chance that rebel forces will spawn just like in slavery or serfdom. Of course anarchy last shorter then you run slavery/serfdom so chance should be higher, and the amount of spawned units should be larger. Also, maybe spawn rebel units after spy action "initiate city revolt", it would also by cool. regarding tech transfer, did you discarded "has trade route" requirement to tech transfer? I remember discussion about that a while back, and i thought it was great idea, did it died?

 

[ManinBlack]

Lovely mod, really put a lot of effort into this so well done. A good range of leaders, good use of bonuses and resources (though you may have neutered cottage a bit to much) and a selection of buildings to choose from.

Would benefit from Influence Driven War I think, make fronts more mobile.

Some tweaks I'll be making to my version are to lower the number of world wonders per city, last game it seems like the English managed to build everything in London and basically eclipse anyone but me as a result of this. Also lowered upgrade costs slightly.

 

[plasmacannon]

...
Some tweaks I'll be making to my version are to lower the number of world wonders per city, last game it seems like the English managed to build everything in London and basically eclipse anyone but me as a result of this. Also lowered upgrade costs slightly.

When we build many of one type of unit, say archers, the next archer requires more production to build. Couldn't something similar be done with Great wonders?

 

[Shuikkanen]

Resumed playing after a few months hiatus, so this might already have been pointed out:

Pastoral Nomadism's 50% extra cost to Wonder building feels a pretty good way to balance it... However, since it doesn't effect hammers used towards building the wonder (ie. -33% penalty towards production) but rather increases the cost of the wonder itself, this can be exploited somewhat. If you're already over the required normal hammer limit, switching civics will cause you to finish the wonder after anarchy is over. Even if you still had several turns to go on nomadism. Switching back and forth like this does carry a penalty, but if you have the Spiritual leader trait you only suffer a sub-optimal resource yield those few turns it takes to switch governments again, but no anarchy.

 

[AttilaTheHun]

Is it intended that stacking aid is calculated on the tile where the unit starts its attack (moving 3 tiles) and not the last tile where it actually attacks from?

Ex: Unit can move 3 tiles on paved roads. Unit is in a city with support from other units - needs to move S, S, SW to attack and the last move is across a river. With unit in city, the combat odds are 91%. Moving the unit manually S, S the odds drop to 68%, presumably because the unit is alone.

This does not seem right to me. I should have to move all support units S, S to benefit from support for the SW attack.

 

[Shuikkanen]

Is it intended that stacking aid is calculated on the tile where the unit starts its attack (moving 3 tiles) and not the last tile where it actually attacks from?

When a unit attacks, it does get the aid bonuses from only the square it's attacking from. It's just that the helpful odds calculator doesn't understand it when you use the route planner. That is, just because it shows 91% odds in your example, it doesn't mean those are the actual odds.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Is it intended that stacking aid is calculated on the tile where the unit starts its attack (moving 3 tiles) and not the last tile where it actually attacks from?

Ex: Unit can move 3 tiles on paved roads. Unit is in a city with support from other units - needs to move S, S, SW to attack and the last move is across a river. With unit in city, the combat odds are 91%. Moving the unit manually S, S the odds drop to 68%, presumably because the unit is alone.

This does not seem right to me. I should have to move all support units S, S to benefit from support for the SW attack.

Actually this is only a display error, also present in vanilla Civ IV (with rivers for example).
The real odds are always the same, calculated correctly from the adjacent tile where the actual attack is.
So in your example it's 68% even when it shows 91% when you check it in the far away city.

EDIT: ohh, didn't see that Shuikkanen already answered this!