Realism Invictus

[ThirdOrbital]

Your point does make sense but I haven't felt it to be a problem in-game. IMHO if your shock-line units are defending in the field, something has already gone horribly wrong. My grenadiers are habitually supported by line infantry anyway (frequently leveled ex-swordsmen defended by leveled ex-pikemen as Snowgerry points out). Also, the fact that they are situated in the tech tree after line infantry but before riflemen kind of makes sense that they should have a window to shine in.

 

[patinthedesert]

Continuing my learning-
Started my first session. Used a map RI-totestra to generate. I was looking for a standard size map, not large or huge. Picked the Romans - Augustus Ceasar to be familiar. After 3 hours play, still in Ancient age at default game speed. Apparently this mod is paced towards a long game. Saved off on that on and restarted using same map option. This time with Gandhi and set the speed to 1.5x. The pace seems more to my liking on this. One thing is that all the units have exotic (to me ) names, so have to rely on thumbnail image and comments to recognize swordsman, archer, cavalry. I have played to where I have expanded a bit and found 3 other civs on the continent. I am starting a first war, waited until I got to catapult. It takes getting thru a lot of tech tree steps to get there. A surprise - using a catapult in a direct attack - not bombarding defenses - does not cause any collateral damage? Not happy with that one.

 

[ThirdOrbital]

Continuing my learning-
Started my first session. Used a map RI-totestra to generate. I was looking for a standard size map, not large or huge. Picked the Romans - Augustus Ceasar to be familiar. After 3 hours play, still in Ancient age at default game speed. Apparently this mod is paced towards a long game. Saved off on that on and restarted using same map option. This time with Gandhi and set the speed to 1.5x. The pace seems more to my liking on this. One thing is that all the units have exotic (to me ) names, so have to rely on thumbnail image and comments to recognize swordsman, archer, cavalry. I have played to where I have expanded a bit and found 3 other civs on the continent. I am starting a first war, waited until I got to catapult. It takes getting thru a lot of tech tree steps to get there. A surprise - using a catapult in a direct attack - not bombarding defenses - does not cause any collateral damage? Not happy with that one.

Lots to unpack here. First of all, RI is a much longer game than vanilla civ by design. Technological advancement is far more granular and historically accurate. I play on the slowest possible speed and 100+ hour games are not uncommon. It may not be to everyone's liking but I would encourage you to put on an easy difficulty level and take your time, try combat out with each tier of units, each new government type, etc.

There are many changes to combat - in particular check out the types of "aid" and "logistical problems" promotions that your units have in a big stack. Siege weapons are generally used to bombard city defenses and should only be used in direct combat as a desperation move. First early siege is done with battering rams, then you have catapults, then trebuchets, and once you get to bombards you actually lose the ability to attack traditionally, but can shoot from range instead. Collateral damage is mostly done by heavy cavalry now. Unlike vanilla Civ, RI encourages you to have a well-balanced stack with multiple types of units rather than spamming the same thing all day.

Finally I agree the naming conventions can be confusing - luckily that is something that is currently being streamlined in the SVN builds. I imagine that will be moved to the installer version at some point. If you really get lost, you can always look up the unit in the civilopedia.

Hope this helps! RI can be intimidating at first but I've been playing it so long now I can't imagine ever going back to vanilla.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Your point does make sense but I haven't felt it to be a problem in-game. IMHO if your shock-line units are defending in the field, something has already gone horribly wrong. My grenadiers are habitually supported by line infantry anyway (frequently leveled ex-swordsmen defended by leveled ex-pikemen as Snowgerry points out). Also, the fact that they are situated in the tech tree after line infantry but before riflemen kind of makes sense that they should have a window to shine in.

First of all, you play on the slowest setting? Realistic already feels like a crawl sometimes, but I like it. How is the scaling in your opinion for tech and unit costs (or does anything feel clunky or out of calibration so to speak)? You've made me want to try this on my next one. Combat is already much more interesting than vanilla for the reasons you've sketched above (in addition to the slower speed even on realistic) but on the slowest speed, you probably get really interesting maneuvers and each era of warfare would really be given plenty of time for lengthy, grueling campaigns.

On the grenadiers, interesting reasoning with the timing after line infantry but before rifleman. I just can't unshake from my mind all the Uhlan charges into grenadier formations in Napoleon Total War which make me think that cavalry should win out in the field.

As a matter of fact, all Napoleonic cavalry is quite weak... Is that by design? Only slightly better than line infantry on flat terrain, but then we have square formations and stack aid to factor in here, as well. The mobility for pillaging is important too, but it seems strange that cavalry doesn't "win" against anything one to one.

 

[ThirdOrbital]

First of all, you play on the slowest setting? Realistic already feels like a crawl sometimes, but I like it. How is the scaling in your opinion for tech and unit costs (or does anything feel clunky or out of calibration so to speak)? You've made me want to try this on my next one. Combat is already much more interesting than vanilla for the reasons you've sketched above (in addition to the slower speed even on realistic) but on the slowest speed, you probably get really interesting maneuvers and each era of warfare would really be given plenty of time for lengthy, grueling campaigns.

I play on larger maps and I hate how debilitating movement time is on faster settings. By the time I build up an army, walk to the coast, load onto my ships, sail for the enemy's shoreline, and deploy, the units I built in the first place are out of date! That is completely immersion-breaking for me. Slower feels better in all respects - in fact, I would love if there was an even slower setting! Alternatively, things could go the way of Civ 5+ and gave every unit 2x their current movement (though that would require a lot of balancing and is presumably far out of scope at this point). Plus, as you mentioned, I like to try and fight one campaign per tier of units to really feel like I'm getting my money's worth out of them.

As a matter of fact, all Napoleonic cavalry is quite weak... Is that by design? Only slightly better than line infantry on flat terrain, but then we have square formations and stack aid to factor in here, as well. The mobility for pillaging is important too, but it seems strange that cavalry doesn't "win" against anything one to one.

Do you find Napoleonic cavalry weaker than that of other eras? Generally I always find cavalry to be something of a nice / specialist thing for when mobility or collateral damage is more important that raw power. They are both too expensive and not strong enough to be used for general purposes. I kind of thought that was an intentional design choice though.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Pre-gunpowder cavalry does feel powerful to me at least. In the classical era, it's likely that many battles (even in enemy territory) will occur on land with fewer roads, meaning that most battles will be chosen at the behest of the cavalry, whereas in the later game, fighting in enemy land is a virtual guarantee that their infantry can "pop out" and attack you unexpectedly, so fighting with cavalry is usually on your terms. They do lose out to spearmen by a pretty large margin but they win against almost everything else in the field, and inflict collateral damage. Basically, the biggest difference I see is that the bonus against melee that heavy cavalry gets in pre-gunpowder warfare doesn't have an analogue in the age of the musket (while cavalry weirdly receives a counter against itself with lancers). I suppose these were cavalry's autumn days, but in the Napoleonic era, it was still really important at least.

 

[ThirdOrbital]

I will agree there is a golden age of cataphracts if you get to armor crafting quickly. I rarely seem to use chariots or horsemen to good effect though. And the rougher terrain can work in both directions - yes defenders can use roads less effectively, but there's also more forests and jungles to negate your mobility and give significant defensive bonuses to melee and archery units. Special shoutout to the Mongols for having one of the most unique playstyles with many of their units ignoring terrain movement costs.

 

[TheBirdMan]

Anything new about if the AI has become better using bombards/artillery as passive defense a là the way it can in the mod "Road To War" by Dale (see posts/screenshots on page 424/425 from May/June 22)?

 

[AspiringScholar]

I will agree there is a golden age of cataphracts if you get to armor crafting quickly. I rarely seem to use chariots or horsemen to good effect though. And the rougher terrain can work in both directions - yes defenders can use roads less effectively, but there's also more forests and jungles to negate your mobility and give significant defensive bonuses to melee and archery units. Special shoutout to the Mongols for having one of the most unique playstyles with many of their units ignoring terrain movement costs.

I didn't realize that this applied to most of their unit catalogue. Given that they certainly get 3 light cavalry, that's menacing indeed.

Horsemen I tend to use just about every game that I have horses, though mostly as support cavalry for the mobility aid. (When I was newer to the mod, I used them to put down slave/serf revolts, but then realized that skirmishers are a much better choice for this role.) I think the appeal with chariots is their near-immediate availability, especially if you have horses in your BFC. A 4 2 unit that you can get with just two opening technologies is nothing to disregard IMO. Even the -40% strength reduction for cities is outweighed by its bonus against melee by 10%, making it a competent unit against all of its peers except garrison archers.

Quick error in the Pedia to report: the entry for Tiridates III says that he reigned from 285 - 330 BC, but this is supposed to be AD.

EDIT: Speaking of cavalry, why does this uhlan have any chance to die in this battle? It has a native 15% withdrawal chance, and with flanking I, II and III, plus tactics, its withdrawal chance should sum to 105%, making the unit technically invincible in combat. Now, I know that that is gamey to say the least, but theoretically that should be the case, yet it doesn't appear so. Does someone know why?

 

[Drakarska]

I didn't realize that this applied to most of their unit catalogue. Given that they certainly get 3 light cavalry, that's menacing indeed.

Horsemen I tend to use just about every game that I have horses, though mostly as support cavalry for the mobility aid. (When I was newer to the mod, I used them to put down slave/serf revolts, but then realized that skirmishers are a much better choice for this role.) I think the appeal with chariots is their near-immediate availability, especially if you have horses in your BFC. A 4 2 unit that you can get with just two opening technologies is nothing to disregard IMO. Even the -40% strength reduction for cities is outweighed by its bonus against melee by 10%, making it a competent unit against all of its peers except garrison archers.

Quick error in the Pedia to report: the entry for Tiridates III says that he reigned from 285 - 330 BC, but this is supposed to be AD.

EDIT: Speaking of cavalry, why does this uhlan have any chance to die in this battle? It has a native 15% withdrawal chance, and with flanking I, II and III, plus tactics, its withdrawal chance should sum to 105%, making the unit technically invincible in combat. Now, I know that that is gamey to say the least, but theoretically that should be the case, yet it doesn't appear so. Does someone know why?

Pure, unadulterated, universe hating RNJ..
I've had similar situations, where the odds above 100%, only to have RNJ come along and knock my feeble hopes and dreams into the dirt. It's particularly brutal when it happens in the modern era, and to a unit you've been giving all your love and attention to.

 

[patinthedesert]

Lots to unpack here. First of all, RI is a much longer game than vanilla civ by design. Technological advancement is far more granular and historically accurate. I play on the slowest possible speed and 100+ hour games are not uncommon. It may not be to everyone's liking but I would encourage you to put on an easy difficulty level and take your time, try combat out with each tier of units, each new government type, etc.

There are many changes to combat - in particular check out the types of "aid" and "logistical problems" promotions that your units have in a big stack. Siege weapons are generally used to bombard city defenses and should only be used in direct combat as a desperation move. First early siege is done with battering rams, then you have catapults, then trebuchets, and once you get to bombards you actually lose the ability to attack traditionally, but can shoot from range instead. Collateral damage is mostly done by heavy cavalry now. Unlike vanilla Civ, RI encourages you to have a well-balanced stack with multiple types of units rather than spamming the same thing all day.

Finally I agree the naming conventions can be confusing - luckily that is something that is currently being streamlined in the SVN builds. I imagine that will be moved to the installer version at some point. If you really get lost, you can always look up the unit in the civilopedia.

Hope this helps! RI can be intimidating at first but I've been playing it so long now I can't imagine ever going back to vanilla.

100 hours or more for a CIV campaign? No that's not what I want. I have a few hours to play a couple days a week. So it would take a couple of months. That takes all the fun out of it.
Use of the siege weapons. In all of the Civilization versions that I have played, there were 2 reasons to use siege weapons. First to destroy city defenses in an offensive operation. The secondary use is on a stack of units to damage more than one of the defensive units to improve further attacks by conventional units. Usually at the sacrifice of the siege weapon. So this is a departure from that and a change in strategy. And it reduces the value of the siege weapons.
I do play most often at a lower difficulty. I am playing at Warlord here since this is a first time with this version of the game and much to discover. I am OK with playing at Noble. Levels above that I am not very interested in as the penalties for unhappiness and corruption force too many changes in strategy. We all should get to play it in the way we can enjoy.
The look of RI probably the most striking feature of the mod. Cities and terrain are detailed and beautiful. But if it can't be played at a speed other than epic, I may have to look elsewhere. If I do another start on it, I will turn off that increasing unit cost penalty and look closely at other options.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

New update up, savegame-incompatible. Expect the several that follow to be save-incompatible as well. Making good progress towards a releasable state.

Does anyone else have the impression that grenadiers are a little OP among the Napoleonic era unit catalogue? They're the only standard units of their time which possess an above average universal utility and lack a hard counter. With later shock troops, you have the beginnings of mechanized warfare and airpower going on as well, but it seems that in the smoothbore era you should always prefer grenadiers over line infantry for everything except cost, which is only marginally different anyway. Perhaps this is by design, since grenadiers actually were elite infantry, but the fact that they're comparably priced in terms of hammers in spite of that is a little puzzling. Also, shouldn't cavalry be better poised against them in the field? I don't have the game up and might be misremembering a detail, but as it is, lancers don't get any direct bonus against them and hussars only get a small one. Wouldn't it make sense to give at least lancers a pretty hefy bonus against grenadiers (but not line infantry) so that these units have an actual counter and are vulnerable in the field if not paired with infantry?

Kinda sorta. They are supposed to be the main shock troop of the era, and they do have a rather steep price increase curve. I may make them more vulnerable to cavalry, but TBH that will mostly be a gameplay- rather than history-dictated decision, as Napoleonic grenadiers were in all senses line infantry (and didn't actually carry grenades; that was basically a legacy name at that point), and as such wouldn't be more vulnerable to cavalry than regular line infantry.

Anything new about if the AI has become better using bombards/artillery as passive defense a là the way it can in the mod "Road To War" by Dale (see posts/screenshots on page 424/425 from May/June 22)?

I will let the actual SVN players comment on that one, but I did implement some changes that should facilitate that.

Quick error in the Pedia to report: the entry for Tiridates III says that he reigned from 285 - 330 BC, but this is supposed to be AD.

Thanks, noted

100 hours or more for a CIV campaign? No that's not what I want. I have a few hours to play a couple days a week. So it would take a couple of months. That takes all the fun out of it.
Use of the siege weapons. In all of the Civilization versions that I have played, there were 2 reasons to use siege weapons. First to destroy city defenses in an offensive operation. The secondary use is on a stack of units to damage more than one of the defensive units to improve further attacks by conventional units. Usually at the sacrifice of the siege weapon. So this is a departure from that and a change in strategy. And it reduces the value of the siege weapons.
I do play most often at a lower difficulty. I am playing at Warlord here since this is a first time with this version of the game and much to discover. I am OK with playing at Noble. Levels above that I am not very interested in as the penalties for unhappiness and corruption force too many changes in strategy. We all should get to play it in the way we can enjoy.
The look of RI probably the most striking feature of the mod. Cities and terrain are detailed and beautiful. But if it can't be played at a speed other than epic, I may have to look elsewhere. If I do another start on it, I will turn off that increasing unit cost penalty and look closely at other options.

As much as it pains me to say it, from what you write, RI might not be your mod of choice. While it is highly configurable (including game speed), it introduces lots of new mechanics and vastly changes the balance of most old ones, and as such has a rather steep learning curve. Your better bet might be mods that stick closer to the original "feel", such as AdvCiv.

 

[TheBirdMan]

Regarding Birger Jarl (non-playable leader european minor kingdoms) - has both the politician (+1 to diplomatic relations) and revolutionary (-1 to diplomatic relations) traits.

I know the politician trait have 2 more "positive" sides, so you cannot directly compare these traits - but still. I think one of those should be replaced by "something else" before next release comes out. Something suitable for a Swede (I'm a Dane you know )

 

[zeofig]

I'm wondering if there's any way to get an archive of the old forums. I recently started playing this very nice mod and I would like to read some of the threads there. I tried the internet archive but it doesn't seem to contain the threads themselves.

 

[Deder]

I very like the idea of negative bonuses when cavalry is atacking a city with walls etc. But that negative bonus dissapear when defense is strike down to 0%. I would like to make that bonus to stay, where i can find the code to modify it?

 

[RED.RED]

@Walter Hawkwood I have a suggestion I just thought of the other night. I find especially on large maps come the Renaissance and Industrial Eras expansion becomes very difficult and it's practically impossible to build a civ to the size of Russia, British Empire, Roman Empire, etc. if you want to win due to the city maintenance and research scaling costs. I do like these scaled costs because it adds more balance and stability to the game, but what I do find is there's no real options to increase economic output to the levels that would be needed. It makes a domination or conquest victory virtually impossible.

What if there was a national "central bank" building that could be built only by a GM which would reduce inflation by certain percentage across the empire? The percentage could also receive buffs from certain techs, national buildings, or economic NWs built by a GM? Economic NWs could reduce city maintenance, distance from capital costs, increase trade routes, gold production in a city, etc. but would require certain civics and techs.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Woohoo, new update!

@Walter Hawkwood I have a suggestion I just thought of the other night. I find especially on large maps come the Renaissance and Industrial Eras expansion becomes very difficult and it's practically impossible to build a civ to the size of Russia, British Empire, Roman Empire, etc. if you want to win due to the city maintenance and research scaling costs. I do like these scaled costs because it adds more balance and stability to the game, but what I do find is there's no real options to increase economic output to the levels that would be needed. It makes a domination or conquest victory virtually impossible.

What if there was a national "central bank" building that could be built only by a GM which would reduce inflation by certain percentage across the empire? The percentage could also receive buffs from certain techs, national buildings, or economic NWs built by a GM? Economic NWs could reduce city maintenance, distance from capital costs, increase trade routes, gold production in a city, etc. but would require certain civics and techs.

Just a quick question, since in my experience it's the precise era you mention when I find that it begins to be possible to expand extensively: do you run free market? The additional trade revenue is enormously significant and can finance the acquisition of initially unprofitable cities until they come to maturity quite nicely. Furthermore, with the ministries mechanic, when you conquer stuff it's usually pretty capable of standing on its own two feet as soon as the initial rioting ends.

I've actually never played a post-renaissance game outside of FM, but might experiment with it sometime soon. At any rate, having 15-20 cities or more on a standard map seldom seems unmanagable in the later game for me. It's the early game where overextension can really cripple you, IME.

 

[TheBirdMan]

It's the early game where overextension can really cripple you

It surely can and it will. Even I know it and try to "stay put" and do my "best" to ignore a "goodie" just 4-5-6 tiles away. I fail to often. Then I do it again (and sometimes again) - and then I drop from a top-dog position in the ancient era to less than a mediocre in the late classical era in both the science and economic output. But NOT the military - and that's saves my a$$ 3 of 4 times.

 

[aantia]

When I press the back button on my mouse in the 'pedia, Python throws an exception.
If I click through the trace popups it references line 623 in handleBack, 2001 in onMouseEvent, and 378 in _handleConsumableEvent.
I can't remember whether the back button used to actually work, but I'm sure it didn't always throw an exception.
The game doesn't crash or go wrong in any way, so this is a low-importance bug, but I thought I'd let you know.

edit: The forward button is the same - lines 631 in handleForward, 2003 in onMouseEvent, and 378 in _handleConsumableEvent.

Spoiler screenshot :

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Regarding Birger Jarl (non-playable leader european minor kingdoms) - has both the politician (+1 to diplomatic relations) and revolutionary (-1 to diplomatic relations) traits.

I know the politician trait have 2 more "positive" sides, so you cannot directly compare these traits - but still. I think one of those should be replaced by "something else" before next release comes out. Something suitable for a Swede (I'm a Dane you know )

I don't really have a problem with the traits "cancelling out", especially since he's not a playable leader except for in the medieval scenario. But I don't feel strongly about it either way, so why not.

I'm wondering if there's any way to get an archive of the old forums. I recently started playing this very nice mod and I would like to read some of the threads there. I tried the internet archive but it doesn't seem to contain the threads themselves.

None that I know of. To my knowledge, they are gone for good.

I very like the idea of negative bonuses when cavalry is atacking a city with walls etc. But that negative bonus dissapear when defense is strike down to 0%. I would like to make that bonus to stay, where i can find the code to modify it?

What you're looking for is a simple city attack malus that can easily be applied in unit xml - perhaps removing the specific cavalry defence from city walls/castles xml.

@Walter Hawkwood I have a suggestion I just thought of the other night. I find especially on large maps come the Renaissance and Industrial Eras expansion becomes very difficult and it's practically impossible to build a civ to the size of Russia, British Empire, Roman Empire, etc. if you want to win due to the city maintenance and research scaling costs. I do like these scaled costs because it adds more balance and stability to the game, but what I do find is there's no real options to increase economic output to the levels that would be needed. It makes a domination or conquest victory virtually impossible.

What if there was a national "central bank" building that could be built only by a GM which would reduce inflation by certain percentage across the empire? The percentage could also receive buffs from certain techs, national buildings, or economic NWs built by a GM? Economic NWs could reduce city maintenance, distance from capital costs, increase trade routes, gold production in a city, etc. but would require certain civics and techs.

Ran an AI-only test game right now for unrelated stuff, and one of the AI players won a domination victory by mid-Industrial. Larger maps might be more restrictive in this regard, but I still saw that happen. I am not sure if I feel the need to tweak the balance further.

When I press the back button on my mouse in the 'pedia, Python throws an exception.
If I click through the trace popups it references line 623 in handleBack, 2001 in onMouseEvent, and 378 in _handleConsumableEvent.
I can't remember whether the back button used to actually work, but I'm sure it didn't always throw an exception.
The game doesn't crash or go wrong in any way, so this is a low-importance bug, but I thought I'd let you know.

edit: The forward button is the same - lines 631 in handleForward, 2003 in onMouseEvent, and 378 in _handleConsumableEvent.

Sorry, but I can't reproduce this. Does it happen all the time or under specific circumstances? Did you modify any files? BTW, large screenshots should probably be put in spoiler tags not to mess with the forum layout.