Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
Not really - probably something wrong, but can't locate it for now.
Realism Invictus
- Thread starter Walter Hawkwood
- Start date
Something like that would be great. One of the frustrations I have with the early game right now is that there's little incentive to explore the world when defending your borders is such a critical and vulnerable thing. Typically I just turtle my early cities, don't explore, and may have a unit or two sit outside of my borders to clear fog around some useful bottlenecks. I only start going out into the world once I have skirmishers, irregulars, and an inkling of an economy. Getting a starting scout would help with that, but quests like these that provide more tangible outcomes for the risk of sending units outside of your borders will definitely give it more life and reason to engage with the ancient world.
AspiringScholar
King
That's exciting to hear! If I can help out with anything in the meantime (research or otherwise), please let me know.
Deder
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2019
- Messages
- 48
Hi, in the ImprovementInfos file, will <iEpidemicModifier>5</iEpidemicModifier> work, or does it always have to be a multiple of 10 now? (-10, 0, 10, 20, etc.)?
and is it possible to change the panaulty for all higher score ? and where?
<iWorseRankDifferenceAttitudeChange>-4</iWorseRankDifferenceAttitudeChange> is that the max value of it?
and is it possible to change the panaulty for all higher score ? and where?
RezerCuid
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2024
- Messages
- 286
No, the chance of an epidemic is >102%, and it can't be less.
Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
Alekseyev_
Prince
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2014
- Messages
- 326
Hey Walter, seeing as you are working on RI again, if you allow, I'd like to bring up some suggestions I made during the last two years:
Traits:
Another change I locally made, but consider less important than the ones above:
Humanist Trait: I doubled the bonuses from +50% to +100%. While it still feels rather limited (using GPs for GAs is rather situational across the span of a full game, and most buildings buffed by it are either cheap or super late (communities)), it is at least a bit more pronounced in these aspects.
Buildings:
While only a minor thing, the Seowon of Korea is quite disappointing compared to other unique buildings. It only provides a net +5% science - something that even some distinctive buildings like the agora may do. I suggest a really simple buff of bumping it to 10%.
The Dravidian Payanam is better than the Carthaginian Cothon (+50% trade income vs. +25% and -25% building cost; one has a short term effect while the other one lasts for the rest of the game), all the while Dravidia also gets a second unique building. Maybe give the Cothon +50% foreign trade to make it better than the Payanam in some situations, but without being a flatly "better" UB as is the case right now. But there are certainly other ways to go about it, too.
Civics:
Let's compare Working Class, Labour Union and Forced Labour. The values in parentheses refer to the effects granted by the civic-specific upgrade building.
I would say that Labour Union is by far the best of the three, with working class second. They also transition super well into another through their slightly different, but similar effects. Labour Union also got further improved with the improved engineers in 3.7, now not trailing behind craftsmen nearly as much. Forced Labour... it is terrible. You lose out on health, get epidemics increased, lose the option to financially rush a project. Furthermore, all your specialists except for craftsmen are worse, and to get craftsmen onto the level of the prior two civics, you need to progress much further into the tech tree and build a moderately priced building in every single city. The only notable advantages compared to the other civics are the free craftsman. The war weariness effect is generally minor.
What I have locally done to Forced Labour is the following: First of all, enabling cash rushing alongside the pop rushing. Pop rushing is awful at this stage of the game, while cash rushing is great. The civic still won't quite have the income of the prior two, due to lack of specialist effects and extra town commerce, but at least this - by that stage of the game - basic ability is retained. Making it kind of an "anti-labour-union", mines and quarries now give +1 production. Craftsmen get +2 base from the civic, and still the +1 from the labour camp. This means that the civic allows for the highest possible production output in the late game, at the expense of not having any other specialists buffed, retaining the awful health & epidemic effects and having to construct a building in every single city they want to fully benefit from the civic in. And having the immediate +2 makes up for the fact that the other +1 hammer effect comes so much later to each city than the ones already established via labour union or working class. I think these make the civic better, and maybe others would like to see that as well.
I still hardly ever go for it, but now it at least feels like an option in some cases.
On a side note, I noticed a bug: Assembly Plants still only give +1 hammer to engineers/great engineers. On the note of these, is the five year plan effect of +2 hammers for machine tools factory/assembly plant intended to only take effect in the city the 5 year plan was built in? It struck me as something that would probably be intended to be civ-wide, akin to the patent office or social guarantees.
Another bug, Constitutional Monarchy requires the Social Contract technology instead of the Representation civic.
Traits:
- Megalomaniac in my opinion should only affect world wonders. By affecting "limited buildings" (a.k.a. national wonders), it hampers a civ's growth from the very start and is hands down the worst negative trait for a leader to have. -20% production on world wonders is harsh, but you can adjust for it. However the same -20% on things such as storyteller huts, weaver workshops, limited liability law and patent offices and every single ministry... that really adds up and is significant all game.
- Militaristic is not a very good civic. The effect of Conqueror on melee/gunpowder units is typically superior, as city raider is a promotion you'll like to get a lot, and having a free promotion easily beats out +2 XP, because it still allows easily reaching two selectable promotions at 2 and 5 XP for 3 promotions total, while militaristic needs to reach 10 XP to get three promotions. Logistics are largely insignificant and its effects are easily countered due to support effects, but even there, the rural logistics are likely more impactful than the city ones. And on top of that, Conqueror still gives +3 XP to the mobile cavalry and armored units too.
- Why exactly is "Imperialistic" associated with great generals, actually? This is probably more a question to Firaxis than to you, since they added it with this as its main functionality when creating BtS. However, on some thought, it does not make all that much sense to me.
- I think both Imperialistic and Militaristic could be significantly improved by doing the following: Move the great general bonus to Militaristic (perhaps reduced to +50%), which would buff that trait and be a very suitable location for such a military-focused bonus (after all, militarism and military traditions/doctrines go hand in hand). Then, give a new bonus to Imperialistic: Reduced city maintenance (either total maintenance or city count maintenance - distance can be brought to negligible levels via civics quite easily). This would mean that Imperialist leaders would have an easier time than others at holding on to large, expansive empires. They'd still suffer from the typical problems of tech cost scaling and separatism, but maintenance already has a huge impact.
Another change I locally made, but consider less important than the ones above:
Humanist Trait: I doubled the bonuses from +50% to +100%. While it still feels rather limited (using GPs for GAs is rather situational across the span of a full game, and most buildings buffed by it are either cheap or super late (communities)), it is at least a bit more pronounced in these aspects.
Buildings:
While only a minor thing, the Seowon of Korea is quite disappointing compared to other unique buildings. It only provides a net +5% science - something that even some distinctive buildings like the agora may do. I suggest a really simple buff of bumping it to 10%.
The Dravidian Payanam is better than the Carthaginian Cothon (+50% trade income vs. +25% and -25% building cost; one has a short term effect while the other one lasts for the rest of the game), all the while Dravidia also gets a second unique building. Maybe give the Cothon +50% foreign trade to make it better than the Payanam in some situations, but without being a flatly "better" UB as is the case right now. But there are certainly other ways to go about it, too.
Civics:
Let's compare Working Class, Labour Union and Forced Labour. The values in parentheses refer to the effects granted by the civic-specific upgrade building.
| Civic | Working Class | Labour Union | Forced Labour |
| Health effect | -1 | +1 (+1) | -2 +3% (+3%) epidemics |
| Happiness effect | +2 (+1) | (+1) | |
| Rush type | Spend money | Spend money | Sacrifice population, (-50% anger duration) |
| Worker improvement speed | +50% | +50% | |
| Craftsman hammers | +1 (+1) | +1 (+1) | +1 (+1) |
| Other specialist effects | ([Great] Engineer +1 hammer) ([Great] Scientist +1 science) ([Great] merchant +1 gold) | ([Great] Engineer +1 hammer) ([Great] Scientist +1 science) ([Great] merchant +1 gold) (Craftsman -1 gold) | (Unemployed citizen +1 hammer) |
| Secondary effect unlock building | Limited Liability Law (national effect, available shortly after working class; 900 hammers) | Social guarantees (national effect, available with labour union; 1300 hammers) | Labour camp (local only, a lot later than forced labour; 400 hammers x city) |
| Improvement effects | +1 commerce for town +200% improvement growth rate | +1 commerce for village, +2 commerce for town +1 hammer for town, settlement +100% improvement growth rate -1 hammer for mine, -1 hammer for quarry, -1 commerce for precious mine | |
| War weariness | +25% | (-25%) | |
| Other | Unlimited engineer slots | (-1 food) (+1 free craftsman, 4 craftsman slots) |
I would say that Labour Union is by far the best of the three, with working class second. They also transition super well into another through their slightly different, but similar effects. Labour Union also got further improved with the improved engineers in 3.7, now not trailing behind craftsmen nearly as much. Forced Labour... it is terrible. You lose out on health, get epidemics increased, lose the option to financially rush a project. Furthermore, all your specialists except for craftsmen are worse, and to get craftsmen onto the level of the prior two civics, you need to progress much further into the tech tree and build a moderately priced building in every single city. The only notable advantages compared to the other civics are the free craftsman. The war weariness effect is generally minor.
What I have locally done to Forced Labour is the following: First of all, enabling cash rushing alongside the pop rushing. Pop rushing is awful at this stage of the game, while cash rushing is great. The civic still won't quite have the income of the prior two, due to lack of specialist effects and extra town commerce, but at least this - by that stage of the game - basic ability is retained. Making it kind of an "anti-labour-union", mines and quarries now give +1 production. Craftsmen get +2 base from the civic, and still the +1 from the labour camp. This means that the civic allows for the highest possible production output in the late game, at the expense of not having any other specialists buffed, retaining the awful health & epidemic effects and having to construct a building in every single city they want to fully benefit from the civic in. And having the immediate +2 makes up for the fact that the other +1 hammer effect comes so much later to each city than the ones already established via labour union or working class. I think these make the civic better, and maybe others would like to see that as well.
I still hardly ever go for it, but now it at least feels like an option in some cases.
On a side note, I noticed a bug: Assembly Plants still only give +1 hammer to engineers/great engineers. On the note of these, is the five year plan effect of +2 hammers for machine tools factory/assembly plant intended to only take effect in the city the 5 year plan was built in? It struck me as something that would probably be intended to be civ-wide, akin to the patent office or social guarantees.
Another bug, Constitutional Monarchy requires the Social Contract technology instead of the Representation civic.
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RezerCuid
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2024
- Messages
- 286
By the way, it would be more honest if the military leader's trait would only give +10% to capturing the city from units.
TheBirdMan
King
This will be a hard take, but if I had to pick, I would actually say that if any era sometimes feels like it drags a little bit, it would be the start of the medieval. While that may be deliberate inasmuch as the "dark ages" apply here, most of the techs are intellectual and physical technology (except for military engineering and land tenure) feels somewhat frozen for a long time. Immersion-wise, that is actually really nice, but sometimes it feels as if there is comparatively little to do gameplay wise in a way that could be spiced up a bit (perhaps anachronistically if one plays a European nation...), and that meaningful strategic alternatives are a bit more stilted here than anywhere else.
After playing the first 3 eras of ver 3.7 a couple of times I totally agree with AS (though I would extend the "need for a little more" to include also the end of the Classical Era).
Not that it's new that only a few major development takes place from the 1st century AD and the next many hundreds of years (few might even be too "many") - which is reflected in the game - but there must possible to find just "a little" more (which are historically correct, of course). Maybe a little inspiration could be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions
Anyway - it's just good to see our "RI Curator" is back again for full power (even though I often get some
for my inputs
) and with many ideas about the future development of this outstanding mod.
Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
Makes sense. I wanted to reply it's already like that, but I guess I forgot to implement the actual change.
Will consider.
Yeah, Humanist does feel underpowered, though I am not sure if it is just psychological.
Probably, but I'm loath to buff Koreans; they're already one of the strongest and best-performing civs.
+50% foreign income (Payanam) vs +25% trade income (Cothon) makes a lot of difference under Protectionism. I will consider a slight buff nonetheless; +1 XP to naval units or earlier on the tech tree (currently it comes at an era when Carthage IRL was already destroyed).
Will consider.
Not a bug. Free craftsman = many additional hammers.
This, OTOH, is an actual bug. Will fix.
Not a bug. Representation civic requirement made it too restrictive, so it was removed by design.
Alekseyev_
Prince
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2014
- Messages
- 326
It's a good point, maybe it is. But I think all-in-all, while maybe not as bad as perceived, it is certainly among the weaker traits. I also only just noticed that golden ages were made to last much longer in 3.7, maybe the default +50% duration from the trait will already feel better now.
Makes sense! I was only looking at it from a building-centric point of view, but it is true that they have a great unique improvement, several nice leaders and good UUs.
OH! I totally missed that the Payanam bonus is for foreign trade routes only - my bad. Then the buildings are fine as they are, I think. Especially since even without protectionism you can often find yourself in situations where some of your trade routes remain domestic.
I thought this additional hammer aspect is the part that makes the assembly plant unique in the first place, and is partially accounted for with the reduced base hammers (+2 instead of +5) of the assembly plant itself compared to the machine tools factory. Nerfing engineer and great engineer specialists compared to other civs seems unfitting in concept imo. Kind of ironic for Germany
I see - then the ingame description needs updating instead, that's where I took the "bug" perception from
<3
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Deder
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2019
- Messages
- 48
Code:
<iDefense>0</iDefense>
<iNaturalDefense>100</iNaturalDefense>
<iObsoleteSafeDefense>0</iObsoleteSafeDefense>
<iBombardDefense>0</iBombardDefense>
<iObsoleteSafeBombardDefense>0</iObsoleteSafeBombardDefense>
<iAllCityDefense>0</iAllCityDefense>
<iEspionageDefense>0</iEspionageDefense>I would like to ask how does each of those line works and especially natural defense in BuildingInfos ?
Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
"Natural defense" is the tag I use for defense against all units, including gunpowder (as opposed for regular iDefense, which gunpowder units ignore).
giorgio1234
Chieftain
If it can be helpful (and you are interested in), I attach a savegame, where you can easily check when and how the problem occurs.
In the saved situation we have:
cost new irregular (role irregulars 3%) - 213% --> 213/3=71 ---------- in game 67 levy + 4 irregulars = 71 ok
cost new line infantry (ranged support, defence 5%) - 245% --> 245/5=49 ---------- in game 2 arquebuser + 16 crossbowman + 1 line infantry + 7 longbowman + 23 pikeman = 49 ok
Everything is ok; there are also 13 swordmen who have "heavy infantry" role (so they are not included in the previous counts).
Now, if you select the army in the Cheonju city (the last one on the list) and promote the 13 swordmen to line infantries, we get the following situation:
cost new irregular (role irregulars 3%) - 213% --> 213/3=71 ---------- in game 67 levy + 4 irregulars = 71 ok
cost new line infantry (ranged support, defence 5%) - 245% --> 245/5=49 ---------- in game 2 arquebuser + 16 crossbowman + 14 line infantry + 7 longbowman + 23 pikeman = 62 ko
Wrong situation, the 13 swordmen promoted to line infantries have not changed the cost for ranged support, defence roles.
If instead you promote the 13 swordmen to irregulars we get the following situation:
cost new irregular (role irregulars 3%) - 252% --> 252/3=84 ---------- in game 67 levy + 17 irregulars = 84 ok
cost new line infantry (ranged support, defence 5%) - 180% --> 180/5=36 ---------- in game 2 arquebuser + 16 crossbowman + 1 line infantry + 7 longbowman + 23 pikeman = 49 ko
which is also wrong, the 13 swordmen promoted to irregulars have changed the cost for ranged support, defence roles (and they shouldn't have).
I don't think it's just my problem, I think it happens to everyone and, unless I don't understand how the role costs system works, I think it's a bug.
Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
I have loaded your save and I cannot reproduce your result. When I upgrade the 13 swordsmen to line infantry I get +310% for line infantry, as expected. Likewise, if I upgrade them to irregulars, the line infantry price remains unchanged, at +245%. Can I bother you to load that save yourself and re-test? If it now works correctly for you as well, this may also be a lead. If it still doesn't, I'll have to think about what is different in our setups.
giorgio1234
Chieftain
I was absolutely shocked, when I saw that the problem no longer occurs even to me, after reloading the savegame!
I am totally sure that the situation was the one reported in my previuos message, and that it was even stable, as, to do all the tests and report the collected data, I had to reload the savegame several times (but without quitting the Civ4 executable).
Also, it is the third time out of three that I play with this version (3.7) and the problem occurs.
It must depend on something I do before, but at the moment I can't figure out what!
Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
Well, as I said, this is also a lead - seems like everything gets calculated and saved properly, but not everything of that gets used properly in an ongoing game.
giorgio1234
Chieftain
There appears to be some information that is reused between games, until the executable is closed.
Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
Simply reloading the game without exiting doesn't seem to reproduce the issue, so be sure to let me know if you notice the trigger that reproduces this error.
giorgio1234
Chieftain
I meant that, once the problem has occurred, it remains even if you reload the game, until you exit the game.
I say this because I reloaded the savegame several times yesterday, and each time it gave the situation I reported.
Anyway, I will be even more careful in the next games, in order to see if I can understand what triggers the problem.
