I'll probably respond to this with a longer post later, but right now I just want to mention the one thing that makes me want to punch my fist through the monitor most when it happens:
I 100% never fail to enable cheat mode and just add the circle back into the city if this ever happens. So much do I hate it. I guess the roots of this problems lie from when Schools were moved from requiring Alphabet into a Medieval era building. It does make sense that Alphabet discontinues storytelling from a flavor standpoint, but one now has to wait for a long time for the replacement building. Maybe something in-between, like a Scribe?
When I was half way thru constructing the Colossus, I got the random event that destroyed my Forge, it's prerequisite, causing me to lose all progress and restart building the Forge all over again.
I reloaded a previous save.
I was on a race to beat others who had the same tech. I wasn't going to go thru all of that again. No way.
Oh! Recently, I did get a random event that asked me to choose between a Great Military Instructor, a Great Prophet or a Great Merchant. I had over 2000 gold saved up, some from a previous GM, and I happened to need a Great Prophet for the religious building, so I chose it. I appeared settled in a city. I was hoping it was movable to another city, but I was wrong.
I was wondering if that random event was still queued to give the old version of the Military Instructor for the +2xp in that city.
If so, it would be the only way one could get it, which would be an interesting event in itself.
Oh! Recently, I did get a random event that asked me to choose between a Great Military Instructor, a Great Prophet or a Great Merchant. I had over 2000 gold saved up, some from a previous GM, and I happened to need a Great Prophet for the religious building, so I chose it. I appeared settled in a city. I was hoping it was movable to another city, but I was wrong.
I was wondering if that random event was still queued to give the old version of the Military Instructor for the +2xp in that city.
If so, it would be the only way one could get it, which would be an interesting event in itself.
Yes! I kind of left it in on purpose, and it is the only current way of getting it that I know of. I think it is balanced by the benefits offered by other choices.
Yes! I kind of left it in on purpose, and it is the only current way of getting it that I know of. I think it is balanced by the benefits offered by other choices.
Hello Walter and thanks for an amazing mod that really takes CIV IV to the next level. The history nerd in me however cannot help getting a little annoyed at settling Thebes as Gamal Abdul Nasser or Bibracte as James IV, for instance. In the mod History Rewritten the city lists are different depending on which leader leads your civilization. Would it be possible to implement a similar system in Invictus? I would gladly help with city lists for the leaders i am familiar with.
Hello Walter and thanks for an amazing mod that really takes CIV IV to the next level. The history nerd in me however cannot help getting a little annoyed at settling Thebes as Gamal Abdul Nasser or Bibracte as James IV, for instance. In the mod History Rewritten the city lists are different depending on which leader leads your civilization. Would it be possible to implement a similar system in Invictus? I would gladly help with city lists for the leaders i am familiar with.
Ooooh boy, you'll love it if you check out SVN version or wait till next major release then... This annoyed myself mightily as well, so we already fixed that. Such a system is already in place, but it does more than that - it also keeps track of those names and renames the cities when appropriate civs capture them. So as any Egyptian pharaoh, you won't even found Thebes, you'll found Waset - but if it gets captured by Greeks, it will be Thebes indeed. Also works for barbarian cities, so you won't see those tribe names once they get captured by a civ. It is currently about 2/3 finished, so most leaders already have it in place. A lot of work and love went into this system, and I am very satisfied with how it turns out.
As for your offer of help - I'll gladly take you up for all the leaders that aren't finished yet, as it is very labor-intensive. Contact me via PM please if you really want to help out and I will hand you out a civ to process.
Well, this is my list of things I'd like to be changed.
1) Infinite workers
This is an "old" problem that one builds several workers in the ancient times and that's it. The rest of workers come from conquests and direct worker capture. This is bad flavour wise because a unit built in the ancient times can do modern stuff till the end of the game. And this is bad gameplay wise because it is possible to improve all tiles and make roads everywhere very fast. My proposal is this:
- Improvements now consume workers - Units\CIV4BuildInfos.xml
- To compensate the cost of workers is reduced by half - Units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml
- Chopping, clearing swamp don't consume workers
- Building roads doesn't consume workers
- Slash and burn farms don't consume workers
- Breaking ice doesn't consume whatever does that
- Cultivation doesn't consume workers
I have tested this for some time now and this change works really well: workers are always in short supply, often built only to make certain things, no more stupid roads everywhere - on the contrary - a lot of uninteresting tiles remain untouched. The world development is reduced, much less hammers left to produce early buildings, improvement rebuilding (e.g. slave farm -> farm) is quite a challenge and most importantly AI is handling this change quite well.
In my local version of RI I also increased the growth rate of features (forests, jungles, savannas) to slow down improvement expanding even more.
2) Totally random battles
I understand that this game is not about military tactics but about strategy. The more units you build the better chances you have in battle. But there are times when you don't want to lose that carefully "crafted" unit with half a dozen promotions in a 95% battle. Gameplay wise this is kinda OK but so frustrating!
I found this mod - Pyrrhic Victories. Since it requires more to include to the mod than to change numbers in XML files I can't do it myself. If someone merges Pyrrhic Victories with Realism Invictus it would be magnificent!
3) Imho resource trading is almost dead
There are two points to this:
- AI refuses to trade resources
- AI values resources differently than players I do (e.g. cattle, wheat and especially incense are super valuable for AI)
In the times without per-city research cost increase I'd just capture the resource directly but even then it would be hard to acquire a distant resource. But now it is either pay double digit gold per turn (in the classical era) to get one resource or never get one because AI is just not trading with you. Is it possible to assign fixed costs to every resource so that AI "logic" doesn't mess with trading?
As an additional point: with the introduction and development of converter buildings I think it's time to implement the ability to buy/sell more than one resource.
4) Health and epidemics system
I like the system as a concept but don't like the way it's implemented. For example, I don't understand increased epidemics from forges or flood plains, increased health from forests, weak impact of sanitary buildings and projects in combating epidemics on the one side and trading in spreading on the other side. I would like to hear from other players about this topic.
5) Mongolians
There is no point to play pastoral nomadism powered mass grazing grounds. In the beginning the stats are amazing but this combo becomes obsolete in the late classical era and the more you invested the harder it will be to rebuild to become like everyone else. My idea to buff the "nomadic" style of play for Mongols is to buff grazing grounds by giving them +1 with calendar and/or +25% production of mounted units to pastoral nomadism. Discussion is welcome.
6) Taking cities give very little tech points. Most times it is a double digit number of flasks which is quite disappointing.
7) Onslaught of barbarian archers on random maps on higher difficulties especially if there are no other civs nearby or there are little geographic obstacles.
8) stupid AI
My post is already too big and this topic is extensive so I'll just mention it here.
There are at lest two major weaknesses of AI (plus a lot of peculiar behaviour):
- Inadequate idea of distances
This translates into distant attacks, poor city placement, vulnerability to counter-attacks etc.
- Poor military tactics
We all noticed and abused it but it's still there.
The thing is such stupid behaviour hits mostly civs that are already weak which only speeds up their collapse.
The research speed is balanced for regular games, not for that particular scenario. It is predictably higher there as there are more civs and consequently more tech transfer going on. I could try lowering the research rate for the scenario-only map size, but it is shared with smaller maps too, so I don't want setting it too low.
You don't have to do that. First you can create a new World Size in a \XML\GameInfo\CIV4WorldInfo.xml file. And thanks to the updated World Builder it's possible to set a World Size for a scenario. After declaring all the players the World Builder adds a section: https://pastebin.com/Ej8yYpVm
As an example in the attached file I made a new World Size: WORLDSIZE_WORLD_MAP_HUGE with modified maintenance and research percent. Unfortunately this way creates an additional "(Don't select)" option when choosing a world size in a custom game window.
Walter: Could you make each of the different canned good factories a limited building set at 1 maximum? You'd still be able to make 4 of them total, and it gets kind of annoying when the AI suggests you build the umpteenth one even when there's no real benefit.
Well, this is my list of things I'd like to be changed.
1) Infinite workers
Spoiler:
This is an "old" problem that one builds several workers in the ancient times and that's it. The rest of workers come from conquests and direct worker capture. This is bad flavour wise because a unit built in the ancient times can do modern stuff till the end of the game. And this is bad gameplay wise because it is possible to improve all tiles and make roads everywhere very fast. My proposal is this:
- Improvements now consume workers - Units\CIV4BuildInfos.xml
- To compensate the cost of workers is reduced by half - Units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml
- Chopping, clearing swamp don't consume workers
- Building roads doesn't consume workers
- Slash and burn farms don't consume workers
- Breaking ice doesn't consume whatever does that
- Cultivation doesn't consume workers
I have tested this for some time now and this change works really well: workers are always in short supply, often built only to make certain things, no more stupid roads everywhere - on the contrary - a lot of uninteresting tiles remain untouched. The world development is reduced, much less hammers left to produce early buildings, improvement rebuilding (e.g. slave farm -> farm) is quite a challenge and most importantly AI is handling this change quite well.
In my local version of RI I also increased the growth rate of features (forests, jungles, savannas) to slow down improvement expanding even more.
My gut reaction was initially negative but what you're saying does make sense.
(Some reservations, which are far too wordy considering I'm overall intrigued by this idea.)
Spoiler:
I'm still concerned about the AI, even though you tested it. For one, human players tend to be about 10 times better at protecting improvements from pillaging (Might not be so on super-difficult levels, where the human can be overwhelmed and forced to retreat into cities, and AI can handle early barbs better) Then there's the improvement rebuilding. This nerfs Slavery HARD, any benefit you'd gain from it would likely be offset by the 10-20 extra workers you'd need to build. The farms to mech farms conversion you'll do anyway, so it doesn't seem so bad... until I'm imagining myself facing the task of modernizing 60 squares of farms. It's a bit of a chore already, but at least it's relatively easy to do it systematically, because the stack can just methodically move into the next one.
In fact, and this is crucial for game-play in my opinion, apart from prioritizing my most important cities, I usually just neglect strategy in modernizing simply because I don't want to go hunting individual farm squares scattered randomly here and there amidst a sea of mech farms. They're a pain to differentiate. I don't know about the rest of you -- maybe you have 40" monitors and eyes like a hawk -- but I get a headache unless I simply do it systematically. So with this change, the strategy might still go out the window and I'd just end up converting pretty much every farm anyway only this time I have the added chore of building another worker, and unless I'm using a "marker" unit, having to remember where the previous one was consumed.
Also, as a general rule in a game that forces you to click a thousand times already, the less you have to fiddle to do something, the better. Previously you made a worker (click), moved it onto the square to be improved (click), ordered it to improve it (click), then repeated this process except for step one. (3 + 2 + 2 + ... clicks ) Now you make a worker (click), move it (click), consume it (click), then repeat. (3 + 3 + 3 + ... clicks). And while you're fiddling a lot less in the short term, won't you eventually still improve every worthwhile square anyway? The fiddling is just stretched over a longer period of time. I like the point in the game where I realize there are no more relevant squares to improve, so I can retire my workers to automation and I no longer have to devote effort to something that while interesting in the early game, eventually, inevitably, becomes a chore as your empire has grown. Does the "retirement" point ever come with this proposed change?
Anyway, this latest point seems like a rant, especially since I actually do find this entire concept intriguing to test out. The improvement rebuilding is by far the biggest hurdle to enjoyable gameplay, and there might be solutions to that. Slave farms could simply be buffed, for example, with a technology-induced nerf at some point to ensure you'll change out of it eventually.
2) Totally random battles
Spoiler:
I understand that this game is not about military tactics but about strategy. The more units you build the better chances you have in battle. But there are times when you don't want to lose that carefully "crafted" unit with half a dozen promotions in a 95% battle. Gameplay wise this is kinda OK but so frustrating!
I found this mod - Pyrrhic Victories. Since it requires more to include to the mod than to change numbers in XML files I can't do it myself. If someone merges Pyrrhic Victories with Realism Invictus it would be magnificent!
Ahh... yes. The beloved great general enhanced superunit of 100+ experience... that dies attacking a catapult. Or in fact, the much more common annoyance, that precious war galley with painfully gained 5 promotions that keeps the pirates at bay... dying to a galley. The salt of the Civilization game play experience . "Oh... well, look at the time. I guess I'd better retire to bed anyway. Oh no! I "forgot" to save! Well, good thing I have an existing save from the turn before. *cough*totallynotcheating*cough*"
So yeah, I'm all for some sort of change here. But I wouldn't bet on any more mod mergers at this stage.
4) Health and epidemics system
I like the system as a concept but don't like the way it's implemented. For example, I don't understand increased epidemics from forges or flood plains, increased health from forests, weak impact of sanitary buildings and projects in combating epidemics on the one side and trading in spreading on the other side. I would like to hear from other players about this topic.
Sorry, could you clarify: Do you mean you don't understand why the numbers are such and such for forges and flood plains and forests or why they affect the numbers at all? I think flavorwise it's justified that they do. Personally, I'm... lukewarm... about the current system. It's better than the old one, where you just waited to build vaccination and then you never worried about epidemics again. With the decreased number of cities, it is a MAJOR commitment to build all the health care limited buildings sometimes, though.
6) Taking cities give very little tech points. Most times it is a double digit number of flasks which is quite disappointing.
1) Would be fine by me.
2) Sounds interesting.
3) I haven't had too much of a problem when trading resources. Though I haven't checked cattle & wheat lately. Insence I expect to be high as it is a rare resource.
I would like to have an automatic decline option so I don't have to deal with every Napoleon who denmands something every couple of turns.
I'd like to be able to set an amount or percentage as a minimum to trade a tech. It is carzy the tiny amount they offer for my techs sometimes.
4) I think the epidemics from buildings could be reduced and the bonuses increased. In most games I rarely build them unless I am an Administrator leader and have a shot at the Collossus. The production gained just isn't enough to bother with the loss of time. I'd rather have something else sooner. The rest of the Health system is fine by me.
5) I've noticed this too. Mongolians are powerful in the early half of the game when in Pastoral Nomadism. I think the purpose of having it decline is that Civilizations really did stop relying on a nomadic lifestyle and became sedentary farmers. Maybe Supermarket could add a +1 commerce to Grazing Grounds, Highland Pastures, Horse Breeders and Ranch while in Pastoral Nomadism. It could add the same bonus to Anden, Fortified Monasteries, Chinampa, Kemet, Pet Kot and Timars while in Agrarian Economy.
I'd like to see a Fishing Economy Civic added, permitting a Fisherman's Hut providing +1 Production, can only be built on a coast.
6) Sure, this should increase slightly (10%) as we change eras.
7) This has crippled some of my games. Especially when AI's get killed off by barbarians near me. On other continents it's the fun challange of The New World.
8) Yes, but I'm sure there is only so much he can do here.
I would like to see Gazelles added to the Savanna terrain and Nguni have a unique improvement that has a random chance to spawn one. That would seem to be more realistic than cows. If anyone should create more cows, it's America with all of it's hamburger & steak restaurants, and cattle herding ranches.
I think the "Deer" resource is supposed to represent more than just reindeer and regular deer on the World map at least. And that would cover antelopes and gazelles. I think in Australia it covers for kangaroo. One thing I'm pretty sure of: Walter et al. won't make any new map-based resources. The map scripts struggle with their number as it is.
EDIT: Maybe the Deer resource could be renamed "Game" in honor of the very first Civilization game where it was called just that, and allowed to spawn on savannah as well.
That would work too. I just thought the point of the mod was Realism, not the old ways. Just a suggestion.
The other odd thing I came across was the Gulyay-gorod.
The one I googled brought up this picture in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulyay-gorod
and a Russian military history site. http://russianbattlefield.blogspot.com/2012/04/ivan-iv-and-streltsy.html
This looks very different from the Gulyay-gorod in the mod.
It's basically a portable wall on wheels used for temporary defense.
It mentions nothing about being a covered battering ram siege unit.
Now, the Hussite War Wagon would be an interesting unit for Bohemia/Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic if such a Civ were added. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_wagon
Well, like I said. The chance of new map resources is probably very low indeed because of technical limitations. And I'm fairly sure you're the first person to think of gazelles. I mean, there's no tea, rubber, rare earth metals, tin, berries, truffels, caviar, opium, alligators (like in the non-canon Civilization: Call to Power ), dates, olives (although those actually are put in, with an art file and all, just not used), soybeans, cassava, yams, chocolate, mangos, shrimp, apples, pineapples, coconuts, duck, shrubberies, the holy gr-- wait this is getting too silly. Sorry.
But I was kind of serious about expanding an existing resource to cover similar huntable wildlife by renaming it game, so it can spawn on savannah which are short on specific resources other than elephant (and those resources which don't care about overlay, obviously).
EDIT: I reviewed the taxonomies on wikipedia, and gazelles actually are members of the family Bovidae which includes domestic cattle. So there.
I wouldn't want so many that it turned into Caveman to Cosmos. LOL.
That game ultimately crashes every time I get so far into it. One of those, too much of a good thing can be bad for us.
The reason I suggested gazelles, was the addition of Savanna not in the base game. One of it's home terrain are the Savanna of Africa. Providing a unique terrain bonus.
Perhaps in the years to come when other more important tasks are completed, additions like it could be considered.
As far as the Gulyay-gorod is concerned, was it enhanced beyond what is really is to provide Russia with a good siege unit for that time period?
As far as I can tell, Russia is already one of my top 4 choices of an empire to play. The others being Transoxianan, Hungarian and Persian.
That Lovischche improvement with it's +1food, +1prod, +1commerce in all forests, not just tundra forest, is a very powerful improvement.
Russia is also the only empire to have both a ranged mounted str8 spd3 unit and a charge mounted str9 spd3 medium cavalry.
I realize and even like the fact that all empires don't have the same units at that Archer Training tech, but to have both without having to go into Feudal Aristocracy for the charge mounted improved unit, makes them very powerful at that time.
Well, this is my list of things I'd like to be changed.
1) Infinite workers
This is an "old" problem that one builds several workers in the ancient times and that's it. The rest of workers come from conquests and direct worker capture. This is bad flavour wise because a unit built in the ancient times can do modern stuff till the end of the game. And this is bad gameplay wise because it is possible to improve all tiles and make roads everywhere very fast. My proposal is this:
- Improvements now consume workers - Units\CIV4BuildInfos.xml
- To compensate the cost of workers is reduced by half - Units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml
- Chopping, clearing swamp don't consume workers
- Building roads doesn't consume workers
- Slash and burn farms don't consume workers
- Breaking ice doesn't consume whatever does that
- Cultivation doesn't consume workers
I have tested this for some time now and this change works really well: workers are always in short supply, often built only to make certain things, no more stupid roads everywhere - on the contrary - a lot of uninteresting tiles remain untouched. The world development is reduced, much less hammers left to produce early buildings, improvement rebuilding (e.g. slave farm -> farm) is quite a challenge and most importantly AI is handling this change quite well.
In my local version of RI I also increased the growth rate of features (forests, jungles, savannas) to slow down improvement expanding even more.
While I somewhat agree with you, the problem as I see it does not require such a radical solution, changing a fundamental gameplay mechanic. Perhaps the amount of workers should be tweaked through a different way already suggested before. After all, "the rest of workers come from conquests and direct worker capture". So why don't we eliminate this source? We can just try making workers uncapturable (mechanically it feel a lot like slavery anyway, and we have a separate mechanic for that one).
2) Totally random battles
I understand that this game is not about military tactics but about strategy. The more units you build the better chances you have in battle. But there are times when you don't want to lose that carefully "crafted" unit with half a dozen promotions in a 95% battle. Gameplay wise this is kinda OK but so frustrating!
I found this mod - Pyrrhic Victories. Since it requires more to include to the mod than to change numbers in XML files I can't do it myself. If someone merges Pyrrhic Victories with Realism Invictus it would be magnificent!
I was actually eyeing this component wistfully myself, as well as some other minor stuff like that. I can't add them myself, but if AbsintheRed finds enough time, it might happen. Lowering the lethality of combat in some way was on my wishlist for quite a while now.
3) Imho resource trading is almost dead
There are two points to this:
- AI refuses to trade resources
- AI values resources differently than players I do (e.g. cattle, wheat and especially incense are super valuable for AI)
In the times without per-city research cost increase I'd just capture the resource directly but even then it would be hard to acquire a distant resource. But now it is either pay double digit gold per turn (in the classical era) to get one resource or never get one because AI is just not trading with you. Is it possible to assign fixed costs to every resource so that AI "logic" doesn't mess with trading?
As an additional point: with the introduction and development of converter buildings I think it's time to implement the ability to buy/sell more than one resource.
Strange, I never found this to be much of an issue in my games. While AI doesn't trade fair, trade is still happening. As for more than one resource, I agree that it would be nice to have, but this is messing with AI brains, which may or may not be possible to the extent we want it to be.
4) Health and epidemics system
I like the system as a concept but don't like the way it's implemented. For example, I don't understand increased epidemics from forges or flood plains, increased health from forests, weak impact of sanitary buildings and projects in combating epidemics on the one side and trading in spreading on the other side. I would like to hear from other players about this topic.
So basically, what you're saying is you don't like the way the system is balanced currently? I actually think it works pretty well, as it's a mechanic that is avoidable to a certain extent, but still kicks in for larger cities or cities in unfortunate locations later on. It requires investment to combat, which adds a layer of decision-making, which is a nice thing in my book.
As for particulars, the stats generally represent various public health impacts. This is more or less my "thing", as I am a fan of medical history, and consider myself rather well-versed in the subject. For flood plains, it is first and foremost malaria and other mosquito-born diseases (which is actually, taken cumulatively, likely the single largest disease-related cause of death in human history over time, beating even the plague). For forests, it is the ability (marginally important in our time, but actually rather critical for poorer folks in ancient age who couldn't just go to the nearest supermarket to buy a lemon or a pepper) to supplement your diet with smaller game, mushrooms, berries and various herbs, which for many pre-modern populations was the only way of getting all the vitamins people needed (especially since agriculture in many places was monoculture). In places where this broke down due to farmland eating up all the previously forested areas, like northern Italy, populations suffered from diseases like pellagra (which isn't of course represented as an epidemic by itself, but a body weakened by imbalanced diet and chronic disease is more vulnerable to communicable diseases as well). Forges of all kind pollute the air with particulate matter, again impacting public health (though in this case I may agree that the effect may be considered exaggerated and the impact on epidemic chance is less warranted).
5) Mongolians
There is no point to play pastoral nomadism powered mass grazing grounds. In the beginning the stats are amazing but this combo becomes obsolete in the late classical era and the more you invested the harder it will be to rebuild to become like everyone else. My idea to buff the "nomadic" style of play for Mongols is to buff grazing grounds by giving them +1 with calendar and/or +25% production of mounted units to pastoral nomadism. Discussion is welcome.
They had it at one point, and were terribly overpowered. Unfortunately, for an improvement that can go everywhere, adding even one more of something can completely overturn the balance. As they are right now, they are roughly equally balanced to other civs, from what I feel. Becoming obsolete at some point and settling to regular economy once you become advanced and big is exactly how I wanted this improvement to play out, because that's exactly what most post-Genghis Mongols actually did. "You can conquer an empire on horseback, but you can't rule it from horseback" as one of Genghis' advisors used to say IIRC.
6) Taking cities give very little tech points. Most times it is a double digit number of flasks which is quite disappointing.
This prompted me to go and have a look in the file, and I realized that it wasn't working how it was supposed to. Now it's corrected. Taking a city is supposed to give you a minimum of 30% towards a tech. What it did was to give a minimum of 1/30 towards a tech, which is laughably small indeed. Now it's 30% + up to 5% per population point (randomly from 0 to pop*10%). So taking a city with 10 pop will on average give you around 80% progress, while taking 1 pop city will average 35%.
7) Onslaught of barbarian archers on random maps on higher difficulties especially if there are no other civs nearby or there are little geographic obstacles.
I am considering some tweaks in this direction, but no promises, as it is not totally up to me.
8) stupid AI
My post is already too big and this topic is extensive so I'll just mention it here.
There are at lest two major weaknesses of AI (plus a lot of peculiar behaviour):
- Inadequate idea of distances
This translates into distant attacks, poor city placement, vulnerability to counter-attacks etc.
- Poor military tactics
We all noticed and abused it but it's still there.
The thing is such stupid behaviour hits mostly civs that are already weak which only speeds up their collapse.
Yes, I know what you're talking about. Unfortunately this is about the hardest thing to fix. We're working on this, though (for real).
You don't have to do that. First you can create a new World Size in a \XML\GameInfo\CIV4WorldInfo.xml file. And thanks to the updated World Builder it's possible to set a World Size for a scenario. After declaring all the players the World Builder adds a section: https://pastebin.com/Ej8yYpVm
As an example in the attached file I made a new World Size: WORLDSIZE_WORLD_MAP_HUGE with modified maintenance and research percent. Unfortunately this way creates an additional "(Don't select)" option when choosing a world size in a custom game window.
Walter: Could you make each of the different canned good factories a limited building set at 1 maximum? You'd still be able to make 4 of them total, and it gets kind of annoying when the AI suggests you build the umpteenth one even when there's no real benefit.
Perhaps there should be a benefit. Either a flat bonus food to the city, or +1 commerce to relevant improvement (probably would be too much).
My gut reaction was initially negative but what you're saying does make sense.
(Some reservations, which are far too wordy considering I'm overall intrigued by this idea.)
Spoiler:
I'm still concerned about the AI, even though you tested it. For one, human players tend to be about 10 times better at protecting improvements from pillaging (Might not be so on super-difficult levels, where the human can be overwhelmed and forced to retreat into cities, and AI can handle early barbs better) Then there's the improvement rebuilding. This nerfs Slavery HARD, any benefit you'd gain from it would likely be offset by the 10-20 extra workers you'd need to build. The farms to mech farms conversion you'll do anyway, so it doesn't seem so bad... until I'm imagining myself facing the task of modernizing 60 squares of farms. It's a bit of a chore already, but at least it's relatively easy to do it systematically, because the stack can just methodically move into the next one.
In fact, and this is crucial for game-play in my opinion, apart from prioritizing my most important cities, I usually just neglect strategy in modernizing simply because I don't want to go hunting individual farm squares scattered randomly here and there amidst a sea of mech farms. They're a pain to differentiate. I don't know about the rest of you -- maybe you have 40" monitors and eyes like a hawk -- but I get a headache unless I simply do it systematically. So with this change, the strategy might still go out the window and I'd just end up converting pretty much every farm anyway only this time I have the added chore of building another worker, and unless I'm using a "marker" unit, having to remember where the previous one was consumed.
Also, as a general rule in a game that forces you to click a thousand times already, the less you have to fiddle to do something, the better. Previously you made a worker (click), moved it onto the square to be improved (click), ordered it to improve it (click), then repeated this process except for step one. (3 + 2 + 2 + ... clicks ) Now you make a worker (click), move it (click), consume it (click), then repeat. (3 + 3 + 3 + ... clicks). And while you're fiddling a lot less in the short term, won't you eventually still improve every worthwhile square anyway? The fiddling is just stretched over a longer period of time. I like the point in the game where I realize there are no more relevant squares to improve, so I can retire my workers to automation and I no longer have to devote effort to something that while interesting in the early game, eventually, inevitably, becomes a chore as your empire has grown. Does the "retirement" point ever come with this proposed change?
Anyway, this latest point seems like a rant, especially since I actually do find this entire concept intriguing to test out. The improvement rebuilding is by far the biggest hurdle to enjoyable gameplay, and there might be solutions to that. Slave farms could simply be buffed, for example, with a technology-induced nerf at some point to ensure you'll change out of it eventually.
This is actually a very good point - worker management is already probably the most micromanagement-happy part of the game, and making them consumable would only serve to further that. Also, I will try to make mech/regular farms more visually distinct at a glance. I already gave mech farm two silos as opposed to one for the regular, but I can try making actual farm plot textures visually different as well...
Though tech trading isn't a part of core mod experience, my bet is that AI is actually quite smart about it. They likely base the price on how many people already know the tech and how easy it would be for them to research it themselves.
4) I think the epidemics from buildings could be reduced and the bonuses increased. In most games I rarely build them unless I am an Administrator leader and have a shot at the Collossus. The production gained just isn't enough to bother with the loss of time. I'd rather have something else sooner. The rest of the Health system is fine by me.
Yeah, I guess punishing people for building stuff isn't a good idea... I will remove the forge malus (as I note above, I was pretty much on the fence about it anyway) and reduce the bonus from granary to compensate.
5) I've noticed this too. Mongolians are powerful in the early half of the game when in Pastoral Nomadism. I think the purpose of having it decline is that Civilizations really did stop relying on a nomadic lifestyle and became sedentary farmers. Maybe Supermarket could add a +1 commerce to Grazing Grounds, Highland Pastures, Horse Breeders and Ranch while in Pastoral Nomadism. It could add the same bonus to Anden, Fortified Monasteries, Chinampa, Kemet, Pet Kot and Timars while in Agrarian Economy.
I don't think this bonus would make them viable that late in game. A farm would at that point simply feed at least one extra pop compared to them, who could be a specialist providing far more than +1 commerce.
I'd like to see a Fishing Economy Civic added, permitting a Fisherman's Hut providing +1 Production, can only be built on a coast.
I think it would be grossly overpowered to do so. Especially I'm inviting you to imagine doing this in a city with Moai Statues already built. And shudder.
I would like to see Gazelles added to the Savanna terrain and Nguni have a unique improvement that has a random chance to spawn one. That would seem to be more realistic than cows. If anyone should create more cows, it's America with all of it's hamburger & steak restaurants, and cattle herding ranches.
Cows were a staple of Nguni (and in particular Zulu) economy. One could actually go as far as to say it was almost entirely cow-based. So I stand by my decision here, it is absolutely grounded in historic reality.
I think the "Deer" resource is supposed to represent more than just reindeer and regular deer on the World map at least. And that would cover antelopes and gazelles. I think in Australia it covers for kangaroo. One thing I'm pretty sure of: Walter et al. won't make any new map-based resources. The map scripts struggle with their number as it is.
EDIT: Maybe the Deer resource could be renamed "Game" in honor of the very first Civilization game where it was called just that, and allowed to spawn on savannah as well.
Yeah, Deer is supposed to be more than just reindeer. Allowing it to spawn on more terrain types is a good idea, and I will see to it. But I will not be renaming them to "game", as reindeer are very much cattle and not game. Also, I'm deliberately not adding resources specific to new terrain features, for compatibility reasons. All new terrain features are designed in such a way that if they aren't placed by a particular map script, the game still remains perfectly playable and has essentially the same balance as before. Any resource specific to those features would violate that.
That would work too. I just thought the point of the mod was Realism, not the old ways. Just a suggestion.
The other odd thing I came across was the Gulyay-gorod.
The one I googled brought up this picture in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulyay-gorod
and a Russian military history site. http://russianbattlefield.blogspot.com/2012/04/ivan-iv-and-streltsy.html
This looks very different from the Gulyay-gorod in the mod.
It's basically a portable wall on wheels used for temporary defense.
It mentions nothing about being a covered battering ram siege unit.
Now, the Hussite War Wagon would be an interesting unit for Bohemia/Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic if such a Civ were added. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_wagon
I wouldn't want so many that it turned into Caveman to Cosmos. LOL.
That game ultimately crashes every time I get so far into it. One of those, too much of a good thing can be bad for us.
The reason I suggested gazelles, was the addition of Savanna not in the base game. One of it's home terrain are the Savanna of Africa. Providing a unique terrain bonus.
Perhaps in the years to come when other more important tasks are completed, additions like it could be considered.
As far as the Gulyay-gorod is concerned, was it enhanced beyond what is really is to provide Russia with a good siege unit for that time period?
As far as I can tell, Russia is already one of my top 4 choices of an empire to play. The others being Transoxianan, Hungarian and Persian.
That Lovischche improvement with it's +1food, +1prod, +1commerce in all forests, not just tundra forest, is a very powerful improvement.
Russia is also the only empire to have both a ranged mounted str8 spd3 unit and a charge mounted str9 spd3 medium cavalry.
I realize and even like the fact that all empires don't have the same units at that Archer Training tech, but to have both without having to go into Feudal Aristocracy for the charge mounted improved unit, makes them very powerful at that time.
OK, so every civ in RI has a kind of "gameplay/historical philosophy" behind it, and it influences its improvements, units etc. So what is the gameplay philosophy for Russia? Russia's whole history was shaped by a single geographical fact that it sits in the middle of a very large plain with no natural barriers (coasts, mountains, deserts etc) for hundreds of miles in any direction - especially eastwards, where it doesn't seem to end until the Pacific coast. So unlike most other nations, Russia had a wild frontier for most of its history - and definitely for all of its medieval and early modern history. On the other hand, there was also the border with Europe, which was also mostly not delimited by any natural obstacles (Eastern Europe is rather flat as well) - and that was also rather long and very poorly defensible (compare it mentally to, say, France, bordered by sea and mountains for most part).
This meant that Russia had to face a very wide variety of threats on a rather constant basis - steppe nomads to the East, typical European armies to the West etc. This in turn meant that a lack of manpower to actually maintain all borders in a defended state and a lack of ability to focus on one single threat type turned Russian armies into an ultimate generalist force. These troops were supposed to be able to face a wide variety of threats, sometimes in rapid succession, when they were frantically shuffled from one edge of Russian state to the other. And this is exactly what it translates into when it comes to Russian gameplay: a jack of all trades and a master of none. Russia is the only civ to be able to field almost all unit types, but none of those are actually better when compared to other civs. Same with improvement - it provides a decent amount of everything, but not so much as a more specialized one would.
And I feel that Gulyay-gorod is a very good tie-in into this as well. Historically, it was an ingenious attempt at solving the most daunting feature of the steppe - that it is flat and featureless and you are at a complete mercy of a cavalry-based force there. Russians couldn't hope to compete in cavalry quality with steppe peoples, so they took the steppe from them by bringing in mobile forts. As far as unit design is concerned, you have to remember that "Gulyay-gorod" is a rather catch-all term, and represents all kinds of mobile fortifications, from simple moving walls you pointed out to much more sophisticated designs. Here are some illustrations that I used for inspiration while creating the unit:
SpoilerA western illustration, might be more fanciful than realistic, but gives a good idea of basic function :
SpoilerA version that is more alike a traditional siege tower :
SpoilerA version most alike the hussite war wagons, and maybe actually inspired by those rather directly :
SpoilerAnother version, probably the more commonly used one :
What I put into game has a design that came from using elements of above-posted illustrations, as well as a need to somehow represent the unit without using complex custom animations. Gameplay-wise, I tried to make it fill an interesting niche - a defensive siege unit that is intended more not for taking cities, but for providing cover and protection to an army in open field (where a normal army, as you know from gameplay, is very vulnerable to cavalry).
Interesting. I've never seen that 1st image. It does show ram's heads on each side. Possibly for ramming.
The 3rd image looks like it has a plank of wood to divert snow out of the path, or to keep gunfire from hitting the legs of the people who would be behind it.
A question about the Lovischche. I hear what you are saying with regards to jack of all trades. When I compare it to other improvements, say the Ranch's +1 commerce, it is far better. Forests are everywhere. Ranches are only on a few tiles and for 1/3rd the benefit. England's Floatsom Recovery, while a cool idea, making a tile that one would usually avoid most of the game, actually useful, is rare to benefit from. The same for Japan's Traditional Fishing.
In Japan's case, it wouldn't do much harm to add more islands and rocky islands to maps. I like the look and feel of those already. Plus they help make not all water tiles the same speed to travel thru.
Could anything be done to improve the usefulness of America or England's Improvements?
A side topic. I played a game with a friend and he was getting spied upon a lot. It was refreshing. This made me think about the great spy activities of the past and all of the gadgets one can look up that some of our ancestors might have invented back then. Usually around the cold war time. Perhaps I've watched a few too many James Bond movies. The usual empires I think of when I think of spies are Russian KGB, America CIA, England's MI6, Germany during the WWs and France for it's sabotage efforts during the World Wars to reclaim it's country.
So, I look at those country's leaders and not all have a Politician leader around the same time. I see Stalin, Bismarck and De Gaulle, but no equivalent for the other two. I know the base game has Churchill's traits the same, but would it make sense for him to also be PRO/POL or is there another leader around that time period who it would make sense to be POL?
For America, I could see a Kennedy or Reagan being a POL leader probably with CHA as the other trait. Their others don't seem like the spying types.
It's not balanced. What you described is the gameplay influence it has on civs that start with fair health, meaning near forests, on fresh water, etc. But for civs that start amidst a sea of jungle, with no nearby freshwater, or near flood plains, it's an unbalanced uphill battle for the first half of the game. They are forced to concentrate on buildings that other civs, which already have access to better tiles, don't need need to bother with. So it's a double whammy. "Here, have tiles with less food, production, and commerce, as well as a handicap with necessary infrastructure".
Mongolians and Zulu are fine. Nothing wrong with having a unique play style. But I never play them because the omnipresence and benefits of their improvements meant that each game ends up being played the same, and that bores me.
I stopped playing RI because it's become rather unplayable in my eyes, or at least on my settings (slightly modified Emperor, largest maps with all civs). Last time I brought this up the attitude was simply "we're not going to account for all settings", which basically translates to "we're only going to concentrate on the ways we like to play", and ultimately becomes "if it doesn't disrupt the world maps, we're not going to bother".
I know that this is a hobby and not a job, which is why I don't mind those attitudes. You need to be able to enjoy working on the game, because that's the real incentive to invest in it, so I encourage you keep it up. But it's also meant that RI has become more of a frustration than a pleasure for me as a player.
1) Workers
I see your points. However, I urge everyone to try this and "feel" it yourselves. I'm attaching files that provide the changes (Assets\XML\Units\).
2) Trading
I guess you missed this, Walter. Is it possible to assign fixed costs to every resource so that AI "logic" doesn't mess with trading?
3) Health system
I have several thoughts
- Production buildings should not affect epidemics rate directly or add green faces before industrial era. Same for the corresponding techs like metal casting or coal mining.
- Trade buildings should have epidemics rate increase instead.
- Unimproved tiles should influence the epidemics rate and health less (more emphasis on what the player does not how lucky he is). For example, a flood plains tile doesn't increase epidemics rate on its own but if there is a farm on it then this farm has an increased epidemics rate. Same for the forests, jungles etc.
- Btw, farms should definitely increase the epidemics rate in general - congestion of people and so on.
- Sanitary buildings and projects should combat epidemics rate more confidently. Especially after renaissance. I remember that even before the health system change the main constraint on city growth was epidemics rate.
4) Mongolians
I'm not saying that Mongolians should use "nomadic" play style till the end of the game. I just want to make pastoral nomadism powered mass grazing grounds combo last a little bit longer. Currently it becomes weaker in stats than the "standard way" with the Irrigation Systems tech. By the time of Archery Training tech it falls behind even more.
In a way my proposal may simulate the steppe humidification that (along with other things of course) kicked off the Mongolians.
I like that idea. There used to be one, +1 health to the city, but it got removed at some point. Hard to justify industry adding health, but the flat food bonus would work. As for improving the commerce of the relevant improvement... well, I already keep forgetting to make sure I build my Wool Mills next to sheep pastures, and Cotton Mills next to cotton plantations, instead of accidentally vice versa. Going by their example, another suitable bonus could be a free craftsman, but that might be a bit too much.
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with calendar and/or +25% production of mounted units to pastoral nomadism. Discussion is welcome.
), dates, olives (although those actually are put in, with an art file and all, just not used), soybeans, cassava, yams, chocolate, mangos, shrimp, apples, pineapples, coconuts, duck, shrubberies, the holy gr-- wait this is getting too silly. Sorry.
