Realism Invictus

[Joij21]

As you likely noticed from your original comment, however, keep in mind that Babylonia can spawn from revolution or from a barbarian city

I wish they were there from the beginning of the game at 4000 b.c.

 

[AspiringScholar]

I wish they were there from the beginning of the game at 4000 b.c.

You can make a simple edit to make them playable if you wish. Babylon is pretty cool.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Why is Mesopotamia a derivative civilization? Weren't they like the first civilization in history? Also why not split them into Sumerian, Amorite (Babylonian), and Assyrian?

Are you implying they were SAVAGES compared to Egypt and Persia? Hittites were also an empire.

Simple lack of resources. Derivative civ status does not imply any judgement on my part - if I had an infinite amount of time plus enough reference material / community made content, I'd implement any/all of them as playable. The mod is older than BtS where Babylon was added as a playable civ though, so its inclusion was not "automatic", it'd require quite a lot of effort to implement to the standard of a playable civ in RI. That said, it's one of the better fleshed-out derivative civs, which is why it's playable in some scenarios - but it still lacks quite enough content to qualify for what fully playable civs currently have.

 

[Deder]

Hi! I can't find the code responsible for increasing the chances of an epidemic due to additional unhealthiness. I would like to change it from +3 to +4.

Edit: Damn! So simply ^^
in xml HandicapInfo

 

[AspiringScholar]

More feedback, if it's wanted!

Spoiler :

- For livestock resources in jungle, you can build a pasture before researching water pump, but not a farm for rice which is covered in jungle. Is this intentional? I did encounter this specific example, which might be a bug (though, it might have been another cereal bonus which was adjacent to a jungle, and then a jungle spread to its tile over it, which still effectively nullifies parity with the same effect for livestock, since it can be generated on the map in this way when I believe only plantation resources also can). If it is, I'll fish for the save, but I don't have it handy right now. All gameplay considerations notwithstanding, it does make more sense that you could raise and keep at least semi-large populations of livestock in otherwise untamed forest than that you could conduct large-scale agriculture there, but I wanted to report it and make sure anyway.

- I had a peasant revolt that occurred outside of the nominal city of origin's BFC radius, which leads me to ask: does this stem from the city's own cultural borders, rather than its workable tiles? In that case, having a very high culture city which is a massive metropolis could end up being a rather large liability for your empire at large, if it means that cities two or even three tiles outside of the workable land of said city could end up spawning a huge revolt capable of taking any of several otherwise not immediately reachable and more poorly defended border cities. When one can know that this is the case and bear it in mind when planning defenses, it seems reasonably enough I suppose, but not knowing that ahead of time can mean losing a key city against reasonable defenses for its strategic location otherwise, and is a little dissonant with the fact that the revolt size cap is sensibly scaled to the city of origin's size, which is itself tied to workable food rather than culture radius.

- This has come up before, but in light of the new changes to AI behavior with respect to ranged attack capabilities, I'd like to ask what the specific logic is behind target selection for the player. I always target the enemy stack and fire with one unit of artillery at a time (since doing so with the whole stack seems to exacerbate this), but often the ranged attack becomes impossible well before the full damage cap has been reached for all units in the targeted stack. I suppose that makes enough sense from a roleplaying perspective (since, the maximum damage threshold of an artillery battery is as much represented by its own individual accuracy and firepower as it is by the positioning and distance of the enemy's army, and at some point, the rank and file has borne the brunt of it) but as the player, it's frustrating and annoyingly arbitrary when your ranged attacks get absorbed by a random slew of units which are often run of the mill and easy pickings anyway and there remain premium and well-promoted units unscathed when further ranged attacks are technically possible for your own attacking stack (which, with Civ4's combat logic, means that they will be what gets to teleport to the front with the defender's advantage if the situation demands it when you actually commit your forces directly, until they get damaged enough to be shielded by the "protect valuable units" option, which never seems to be the case until said unit becomes less likely to win relative to some other potential defender), which on your part requires a decent amount of investment to defend anyway because artillery is as a rule rather vulnerable on its own against virtually any other unit contemporary with its own era, and this ends up meaning that you as the player consequently have to invest a sizeable amount of time and money and hammers putting your army into a defensible position to barrage to the advertized limit, only to find that full-strength and ready-for-battle artillery pieces are completely impotent for this purpose against otherwise unscathed and fresh enemies within their range, and as a result have to fully waste their intended use-case combat potential (and that of their precious defenders) to a grey square which the Pedia tells you should yield an HP drain against any viable selected target within range, and instead have to forfeit their movement points and skip their turn while contenting themselves with their consumption of the stack's limited logistics and the passive bonus that they provide. I can live with and be content with that (since it at least sort of is believable enough from a historical perspective, because no defender would place its precious units in certain artillery fire if something cheaper and more expendable could shield it) if I knew what the code logic was, so that I wouldn't anticipate it and then invest costly resources against an opponent that offer no return, and play tactically in accord with it.

On a more positive note, however, I can in fact certainly report that the AI is barraging offensively before following through with its own direct combat! I don't think I've ever seen it happen before, and in a game which became losing for me in early renaissance, I saw it happen at the earliest possible moment with bombards before collateral damage even becomes part of the AI's combat calculus (which, I would assume should become increasingly and hugely important for the utility it provides given how upwardly significant this becomes with ranged attacks from this point in the game on) when it's already doing so initially before that even enters into the decision to commit movement into a ranged attack.

- BUG: In the attached save, it seems that trading for seafood resources consistently forces me into a switch to Judaism. This literally happened about 3 or 4 times, and I never once went to the religious advisor and did it myself or responded to an event prompt to do it. So, in this game, that resulted in a lot of expensive anarchy when I could have enjoyed an unperturbed and rock-solid triangular alliance of the Solar Faithful, but privateers and sporadic religious enemies kept pillaging my own seafood, and trades made to smooth the reintroduction of my native resources for some reason kept force-changing my religion to Judaism (which, I guess, has something to do with the health effects that some religions do or don't get with some resources? - otherwise, I really don't have an idea where to point a finger at the code from a user standpoint ). [Save Included]

- In a subsequent game as Rome, I was able to build the classical warband (Polybian Legionary) even when the iron-upgrade (Imperial Legion) was also available. Is this intentional? I in fact am kind of appreciative of this because the hammer (and food, being an irregular ) cost of the former is a lot lower even if I do in fact have iron, even if the units' strength difference is commensurate, because spamming classical-era buffed Roman warband is still a good value against early medieval attackers, even when their attackers are one-on-one their better, price notwithstanding. Is this intentional? There are a few civs (France with its Foreign Legion, America with its Marine Corps) that have a comparable transitional upgrade line, and it makes sense to me, but I just want to make sure that it's in-step with the historical spirit of the mod if Polybius could write of lorica segmentata-laden men salting the earth of Carthage just the same as the soldiers of his own day, or if Trajan could do the same if the former were bearing the brunt of Dacian wrath with the plate-iron held in reserve. One of the recent commits removed the ability to train classical swordsmen when "medieval" swordsmen become available (formerly possible, with no obvious historical or gameplay reason to omit) so I just want to make sure that the "special" multi-tier UUs like Rome's, France's and America's aren't somehow intentionally special, because they deliberately are modeled to be cool beyond an acute time-period.

- I noticed that captured slaves cost unit maintenance the same as workers and your own properly built units. As "spoils of war" in a sanctioned cultural mentality only available when you have officially endorsed the civic and paid anarchy for it, that not only have they no rights to enjoy the full participation in your society (else city happiness should have some bearing on your revolt risk, the standing argument against that being that they in fact do not), but that they also get a chance to die after building improvements because they don't (and even build them slower than "state-fed" proper workers) and in-game are treated as short term exploitable "flares" of doomed labor either to be worked to death in the countryside or hurried for production of an urban building without heed of longevity or quality of life, what is the warrant for paying anything to maintain them if they've been (against 4:1 odds in battle and their peers of the outright vanquished) captured rightfully by a society which already tolerates or even celebrates this institution? They are already modeled to spend the rest of their lives on an on-ramp to an early death, and historical classical slavery fully supports that scary reality (unless we could get a cool and rare literate slave, that was something like a diminutive great scientist that you could settle in the city for a research bonus ). I don't think captured slaves should have maintenance cost just like the rest of your units which are always the recipient of some kind of a payroll.

- As Rome, I noticed that I could build the Ballista without siege-craft. (Inconveniently, I also noticed that they are worthless in bringing walled defenses down!) Isn't a Ballista already more complex than an onager, which other neighbor-civs of Rome were able to build? If this is a gameplay decision, I can see the reason, since requiring a later tech nerfs the NU, but from a historical standpoint it's hard to imagine that I can build a special giant crossbow but not a proto-catapult.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

More feedback, if it's wanted!

It is appreciated, as always. One request, though - please always provide the revision number. With saves, it becomes a guessing game for me otherwise.

- For livestock resources in jungle, you can build a pasture before researching water pump, but not a farm for rice which is covered in jungle. Is this intentional? I did encounter this specific example, which might be a bug (though, it might have been another cereal bonus which was adjacent to a jungle, and then a jungle spread to its tile over it, which still effectively nullifies parity with the same effect for livestock, since it can be generated on the map in this way when I believe only plantation resources also can). If it is, I'll fish for the save, but I don't have it handy right now. All gameplay considerations notwithstanding, it does make more sense that you could raise and keep at least semi-large populations of livestock in otherwise untamed forest than that you could conduct large-scale agriculture there, but I wanted to report it and make sure anyway.

You probably noticed that a lot of recent revisions focussed, among other things, on removing such inconsistencies. While it can be explained away, I'd rather have everything follow the same rules unless otherwise explicitly explained. So, thank you for pointing that one out.

BTW, backtracking to the barbarian cog situation - if you look at Spanish caravel in pedia, you'll notice it has in its description the ability to carry "normal" units, and not just spies/missionaries. Technically that shouldn't be "news" for the pedia engine, but I can add such custom descriptions to any unit, building or civic (or pretty much anything, really). So one thing you - and anyone - can point out to me is where such a description would be useful. Since I know most of the inner workings of RI, it isn't always obvious to me that people are missing something.

- I had a peasant revolt that occurred outside of the nominal city of origin's BFC radius, which leads me to ask: does this stem from the city's own cultural borders, rather than its workable tiles? In that case, having a very high culture city which is a massive metropolis could end up being a rather large liability for your empire at large, if it means that cities two or even three tiles outside of the workable land of said city could end up spawning a huge revolt capable of taking any of several otherwise not immediately reachable and more poorly defended border cities. When one can know that this is the case and bear it in mind when planning defenses, it seems reasonably enough I suppose, but not knowing that ahead of time can mean losing a key city against reasonable defenses for its strategic location otherwise, and is a little dissonant with the fact that the revolt size cap is sensibly scaled to the city of origin's size, which is itself tied to workable food rather than culture radius.

It looks for suitable plots (land, owned by player in question, unoccupied) within 2 to 3 tile radius of the city (never immediately adjacent). Looking at the code made me realize I can improve it a bit...

- This has come up before, but in light of the new changes to AI behavior with respect to ranged attack capabilities, I'd like to ask what the specific logic is behind target selection for the player.

This is the most honest answer I can give: . Ranged attacks are already set up in a way that's supposed to ignore the "Protect valuable units" setting. I guess I'll go digging and see for myself, as I never looked at that bit of code.

- BUG: In the attached save, it seems that trading for seafood resources consistently forces me into a switch to Judaism. This literally happened about 3 or 4 times, and I never once went to the religious advisor and did it myself or responded to an event prompt to do it. So, in this game, that resulted in a lot of expensive anarchy when I could have enjoyed an unperturbed and rock-solid triangular alliance of the Solar Faithful, but privateers and sporadic religious enemies kept pillaging my own seafood, and trades made to smooth the reintroduction of my native resources for some reason kept force-changing my religion to Judaism (which, I guess, has something to do with the health effects that some religions do or don't get with some resources? - otherwise, I really don't have an idea where to point a finger at the code from a user standpoint ). [Save Included]

Will have a look once I get the revision number from you. Sounds very weird.

- In a subsequent game as Rome, I was able to build the classical warband (Polybian Legionary) even when the iron-upgrade (Imperial Legion) was also available. Is this intentional?

Yes, you are always able to build some irregular unit. And that's Rome's first irregulars. I guess from storytelling perspective that's Roman citizens dusting off their grandpa's Montefortino helmet and phylax as Rome can't afford to raise another "real" legion.

- I noticed that captured slaves cost unit maintenance the same as workers and your own properly built units. As "spoils of war" in a sanctioned cultural mentality only available when you have officially endorsed the civic and paid anarchy for it, that not only have they no rights to enjoy the full participation in your society (else city happiness should have some bearing on your revolt risk, the standing argument against that being that they in fact do not), but that they also get a chance to die after building improvements because they don't (and even build them slower than "state-fed" proper workers) and in-game are treated as short term exploitable "flares" of doomed labor either to be worked to death in the countryside or hurried for production of an urban building without heed of longevity or quality of life, what is the warrant for paying anything to maintain them if they've been (against 4:1 odds in battle and their peers of the outright vanquished) captured rightfully by a society which already tolerates or even celebrates this institution? They are already modeled to spend the rest of their lives on an on-ramp to an early death, and historical classical slavery fully supports that scary reality (unless we could get a cool and rare literate slave, that was something like a diminutive great scientist that you could settle in the city for a research bonus ). I don't think captured slaves should have maintenance cost just like the rest of your units which are always the recipient of some kind of a payroll.

That sounded like a great idea to me until I actually looked at the feasibility of implementing it. Turns out, it's surprisingly hard to code an upkeep-free unit in Civ 4. I really like that idea and I'll implement it if I find a way to do it that's not very performance-heavy. But then again, slaves aren't supposed to be hoarded, as they are "used up" for buildings and improvements anyway. So their upkeep is a problem that solves itself rather quickly.

- As Rome, I noticed that I could build the Ballista without siege-craft. (Inconveniently, I also noticed that they are worthless in bringing walled defenses down!) Isn't a Ballista already more complex than an onager, which other neighbor-civs of Rome were able to build? If this is a gameplay decision, I can see the reason, since requiring a later tech nerfs the NU, but from a historical standpoint it's hard to imagine that I can build a special giant crossbow but not a proto-catapult.

I guess for consistency it should come with Siegecraft - the tech even has a ballista on its icon! As for the inability to bombard city defences, my initial concept was to have it model the lighter scorpions that Romans used, but then again, they had plenty of heavy siege ballistae as well, and for consistency with all the other ranged attack-capable units, I guess I'll give it a catapult-like ability against cities.

 

[Soulmate]

Soulmate said:
Why is AI so focused on destroying other civs, even though they have less defended barbarian cities literally near them?(with good resources)

I also believe it's a scenario-specific issue. My theory (unbacked by any actual digging around in AI code for that) is that AI evaluates potential strength of every "victim", and with lots of pre-placed barbarian cities and units, it considers barbarians a far greater threat than other civs, up to a certain point in time. I'll see if I can maybe a) prove/disprove it, and b) if it's true, implement a reasonable workaround

Thanks for looking into it!

While we're on this topic, I've also noticed on Europe scenario map that AI is rather weird with it's city placements and sometimes ignores very lucrative locations/resources just leaving them out of the reach while settling nearby with worse placements.(can provide some examples if that's relevant/needed)
===========================
On a separate note: does anyone know if RI has any adjustements to the difficulty settings?
More specifically does difficulty increases the actual decision making or only the tech/happiness as in civ4?

I want to try harder difficulties(Emperor+) but I DON'T want to blitz through tech tree due to AI research buffs.

Having a blast with RI,
Cheers!

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Thanks for looking into it!

I actually found and fixed (likely) the issue. It was a bit different from the one I hypothesised, but AI now seems better at dealing with barbarians in scenarios.

While we're on this topic, I've also noticed on Europe scenario map that AI is rather weird with it's city placements and sometimes ignores very lucrative locations/resources just leaving them out of the reach while settling nearby with worse placements.(can provide some examples if that's relevant/needed)

Sure, please do, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to do anything significant there.

On a separate note: does anyone know if RI has any adjustements to the difficulty settings?
More specifically does difficulty increases the actual decision making or only the tech/happiness as in civ4?

I want to try harder difficulties(Emperor+) but I DON'T want to blitz through tech tree due to AI research buffs.

There are no difficulty level-specific adjustments to AI calculations, but the amount of freebies AI gets in RI per difficulty level is actually lower than in vanilla Civ 4. You can see all the particulars on the difficulty levels in Pedia.

 

[Soulmate]

I actually found and fixed (likely) the issue. It was a bit different from the one I hypothesised, but AI now seems better at dealing with barbarians in scenarios.

Sure, please do, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to do anything significant there.

There are no difficulty level-specific adjustments to AI calculations, but the amount of freebies AI gets in RI per difficulty level is actually lower than in vanilla Civ 4. You can see all the particulars on the difficulty levels in Pedia.

Thank you for such a fast reply!

Pedia is also extremely usefull and I've acquainted myself with the difficulty settings just as suggested
I'm happy that the
Tech malus is applied to the player, instead of boosting the AI. No idea if that was always the case in civ4, though.


I'll provide a good showcase of the AI settle priority in a couple days.

In the meantime,I have to report something more minor, which can be easy to fix(hopefully)

Spoiler Man-at-arms :

Seems like Spaniards have a generic model for Man-at-arms(using Ver. 3.61).
Unless it's their historically appropriate model =)

 

[Pepo]

On a separate note: does anyone know if RI has any adjustements to the difficulty settings?
More specifically does difficulty increases the actual decision making or only the tech/happiness as in civ4?

I want to try harder difficulties(Emperor+) but I DON'T want to blitz through tech tree due to AI research buffs.

Having a blast with RI,
Cheers!

You are going to be doing it faster bc the lower AI econ cost do translate into a more solid tech - I'm playing on Inmortal and I have been living off tech research from the AI and I'm pretty sure the renaissance tech is going to be done before the full discount applies.

Regrading some feedback @Walter Hawkwood, there is a tip saying that unit upgrades cost don't increase with scaling costs which on live doesn't seem to be the case (and it was a bummer to find out that cost raising is still the case ). In regards to what I said above, tech diffusion seems to be very good on harder difficulty levels couple with the politician trait and money begging. I'm not to fan either of the opinion modifiers regarding score, being more or less of a threat number wise should not have a big impact on civs relations.

 

[molesworth]

Hi all, please can anyone help me with this crash on loading RI 3.61 patched with V3.6 patch.
Running Civ IV via Steam on Windows 11 (Compatibility mode set to Windows XP Service Pack 2)

19:59:52 DEBUG: BugUtil - extending BugEventManager.preGameStart instead CvAppInterface
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'PreGameStart'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'BeginActivePlayerTurn'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'SwitchHotSeatPlayer'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'LanguageChanged'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'ResolutionChanged'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'PythonReloaded'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'unitUpgraded'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'unitCaptured'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'combatWithdrawal'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'combatRetreat'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'combatLogCollateral'
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'combatLogFlanking'
19:59:52 WARN : BugEventManager - event 'playerRevolution' already defined
19:59:52 DEBUG: BugInit - game not fully initialized
PY:OnInit

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

In the meantime,I have to report something more minor, which can be easy to fix(hopefully)

Well, he kinda is historical, as in, not terribly ahistorical. But of course now that you pointed him out, I can definitely do better.

there is a tip saying that unit upgrades cost don't increase with scaling costs which on live doesn't seem to be the case

They don't increase, if it is same role to same role upgrade, like spearman to pikeman. Upgrades from irregulars to any regular unit can get expensive very quickly.

Hi all, please can anyone help me with this crash on loading RI 3.61 patched with V3.6 patch.

I don't understand what's that supposed to mean, "RI 3.61 patched with v3.6 patch". Also, this is the least helpful log of them, it never says anything relevant.

 

[molesworth]

Well, he kinda is historical, as in, not terribly ahistorical. But of course now that you pointed him out, I can definitely do better.

They don't increase, if it is same role to same role upgrade, like spearman to pikeman. Upgrades from irregulars to any regular unit can get expensive very quickly.

I don't understand what's that supposed to mean, "RI 3.61 patched with v3.6 patch". Also, this is the least helpful log of them, it never says anything relevant.

Thanks for getting back to me and sorry about the poor the debug info!
I just meant I am running Realism Invictus 3.61 with the latest patch.
It crashes during launch just after INIT XML (uncached) screen
Which log would be most helpful?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

If it crashes while loading, no log will be helpful, as the game hasn't been properly initialised yet. Did it install ok? What is the "Realism Invictus" folder size?

 

[molesworth]

If it crashes while loading, no log will be helpful, as the game hasn't been properly initialised yet. Did it install ok? What is the "Realism Invictus" folder size?

Yes it installed OK. Folder size = 1.9GB

 

[shkitur1]

hi. i found that tech coal mining is prerequisite for tech gunpowder. but gunpowder is medieval era tech and coal minimg is renessanse era. is it a bug or that's how it's meant to be

 

[AspiringScholar]

It is appreciated, as always. One request, though - please always provide the revision number. With saves, it becomes a guessing game for me otherwise.

Oh, I took it as given that I would always be playing the latest revision. Occasionally I might not notice that it was updated, but while playtesting the SVN I have always kept a fairly current tab on updates to it. In this case (and in reference to the Judaism bug I mentioned further down), it's 5394. I'll make sure to specify that in subsequent feedback messages, though.

Thank you for your replies, as well!

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Yes it installed OK. Folder size = 1.9GB

Yes, it doesn't seem like your installation is incomplete or damaged anyhow. Can it be that the overall folder path to where your Civ 4 is located is too long? One poster had this issue recently.

hi. i found that tech coal mining is prerequisite for tech gunpowder. but gunpowder is medieval era tech and coal minimg is renessanse era. is it a bug or that's how it's meant to be

Nope, definitely not, it's from a recent tech tree reshuffle. Thanks for noticing, I'll get that fixed.

Oh, I took it as given that I would always be playing the latest revision. Occasionally I might not notice that it was updated, but while playtesting the SVN I have always kept a fairly current tab on updates to it. In this case (and in reference to the Judaism bug I mentioned further down), it's 5394. I'll make sure to specify that in subsequent feedback messages, though.

Well, with lots of moving parts, it's always best to be precise - I might have been returning to a particular bug report in many weeks or even months. And BTW the most recent revision at the time you posted that bug was 5395

 

[molesworth]

Yes, it doesn't seem like your installation is incomplete or damaged anyhow. Can it be that the overall folder path to where your Civ 4 is located is too long? One poster had this issue recently.

Possibly as even the "vanilla" CIV 4 sometimes fails to launch. Below is my overall folder path. Civ4BeyondSword.exe is in 'Beyond the Sword';
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Realism Invictus

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

No, that's a fairly standard path, but if you say you're even having trouble with vanilla sometimes, try moving it somewhere short, such as C:\Games\CivIV