Realism Invictus

[JDCP]

P.S. A small question: do you think it's worth to play with Revolutions active this time, or it's still a headache?. Thanks

Personally, yeah, sometimes when I've done the BIG error of taking way more cities than my economy can maintain I let weaker cities revolt, so they turn into a minor player of some sorts that usually accepts to be my vassal.

Also it can make some wars more interesting, many times has a revolution happened to one of my rivals while I was fighting him, the rebels then propose to become my vassals or to fight along me. Here some interesting stuff that has happened to me with revolutions enabled:

Once I was going to fight Spain (had not started the war yet, but was about to), one of their cities revolted and became Gran Colombia, I wanted to destroy Madrid really bad (mainly because they had rennounced to my vassalage in the past) but it's position really made it hard for me to do so, doesn't help that as soon as Bolivar declared war on them Spain instantly came to me to ask for protection, and because they bordered with many of my other rivals (which the Colombians didn't) I decided to take on the rebels and now convert spain into my vassal again taking the city of the rebels as mine from then on they never left, an Spain remained my puppet forever. It was a bit scummy (mainly because I was planning to conquer Spain) but that made things easier and definitely much more profitable

Same thing happened to me with Russia who came back from death after a terrible administration of the cities I conquered from them, Warsaw of the Polish (who I also destroyed completely) even joined them under the Russian flag! but that was certainly very good for me because maintaining all those was a cripple on my economy, I fought them and after taking the closest city they capitulated quickly, my research rate jumped from 50% to 90% on a heartbeat!

Another one was my fight agaisn't the Egyptians, I had beaten the greeks and took Athens as mine, but because of Egyptian influence they revolted and joined them little after that, I decided I would take it back one day and when I finally had an army big enough to fight Egypt (which was second in the ranking to me, and by a very little difference) they revolted few turns after I started to siege the city, they became Israel and David instantly asked me to accept them as vassals, which I of course did and suddenly one of the strongest players was at the bottom of the score list, later the conquest of Egypt remaining cities was easy. I would have done it easily anyway because I had Templars with Fervor III (literally unbeatable) but I couldn't have envisioned a better outcome of that war. My crusade to take Athens back didn't exactly work, but having a vassal controlling it was not so bad anyway.

Another good one is that one of my allies lost some colonies they had on an island because of a revolution, this became a opportunity to take it as mine because of the excellent strategic position of that island, lots of resources and near some rivals in another continent.

Sometimes this isn't very good though, when I was fighting the Ottomans some of their cities revolted and they all instead of becoming new players became barbarians, this meant there was no way for diplomacy to work along them, so it became a war of three sides on which none could team and that was a disaster, although I beat them with time, it certainly became harder.

This kind of stuff makes the game more fun and enjoyable, it's unpredictable and while sometimes it can cause rage, look at the good side of it, if the rebels are nice they will administrate those cities for you, if not, free XP! It would be very fun if all rebel nations united together to become a super power of some sorts, it woul be chaotic but a very enjoyable challenge

Oh also, fun fact: This all happened on my previous game! To think all of these events can happen on a single game is amazing! And those are only the revolutions that were to happen around me and had some kind of impact on my land, there were many others around the world and as soon as I got to hear of it I would go to meet the newly formed nations to add them to my side, kind of like how countries recognize an new state as sovereign Of all the things I could have expect of this mod, diplomatic recognition is certainly one of the last ones, but one that adds much to it!

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

But, but, but ! My brain ! My poor little brain

I made a separate epidemic message for when a city had external epidemic "inputs", should make keeping track of that easier

Could map size be a factor? I play on giant with low sea levels, so the map has an immense amount of cities, and it's not uncommon at all to get an epidemic through trade routes in my game. I'm curious to see how the increased rate affects things. I actually wonder if it'll hit the AI civs more than player civs since their cities tend to be so much more populated and prone to epidemics.

Observe and report back if it feels an overkill - but overall my impression was that epidemics are tuned way down as they are; they happen nowhere near often enough unless a city is in extremely unfavourable conditions.

Leaders can repeat. I envisioned it with the spirit you've talked about before, where the leader isn't physically there but symbolic of the civilization's values and attitudes at the time.

With the "spirit" in mind, I felt that repeating leaders that were retired once was out of character - cultures don't "go back" to what they were before. Which is why in the per era changes, if a leader went away, they're no longer eligible to be selected again.

Hi @Walter Hawkwood ,
I think I've finally identified when this problem (messed up roles between irregulars and heavy infantry units) occurs.
I still don't understand what happens, but I've got a savegame where, from a correct situation, it's enough to move on the next turn and the problem appears.

Thanks, I can confirm it is reproducible on my end. This is tremendously helpful, and I will likely get this bug sorted out (sorry people waiting for 3.71, but this is a major bug that I will definitely want to be fixed before release).

prince difflucty, no one invaded that island, no another barbarians island anywhere
i discover it around ~1400 AD
this is not so strange, I have often seen such cities having 80 - 130 units in towns like this in rennesaice era
this one is just bigger then usual

Interesting. I mean, yes, they are supposed to have a lot, but not nearly that many.

headless horseman, immune to critical head shots

Heh, a proper Dullahan! I wll fix this one after 3.71, as I'm not repacking the art assets (or I'd get eternally sidetracked and 3.71 would never happen).

This is just my take, but the "immortal leader" abstraction is one that I am keen on in the series. It personifies the other players and makes them feel more real to compete against and interact with, and having a revolving door for this instead would result in this feeling alienating instead.

In a quick test, once per era didn't feel that much like a revolving door, especially given that sometimes they would stay the same. But yeah, all in all it's an optional side feature, and favouring human players to boot, as humans can strategically switch to leaders particularly suited for a given era, whereas for the AI players the process is random.

I don't know about that, but he sure seems active quite a lot since the 3.7 launch !
I just saw that he already updated the SVN to have the leaders changing by eras.

I'm more a "immortal leader" fan so I probably won't try that (thanks for making it an option, btw) but it adds even another layers of flavor in R:I, and that's always good to have !

As I mentioned before, once I added a new leader picker popup for a different reason (namely the scenarios), it was trivial to bash together this game option, as it would just call on the stuff that was already there, once per era; took me under an hour altogether.

 

[[Y]]

Observe and report back if it feels an overkill - but overall my impression was that epidemics are tuned way down as they are; they happen nowhere near often enough unless a city is in extremely unfavourable conditions.

Will do. Are there any standards you're aiming for? I can easily report back, but with so many variables feeding into epidemic chance, it's hard to provide objective measures.

Say a civ has a size 5 city, a size 10 city, and a size 15 city. Assuming there are no external sources for epidemic chance (so no jungles, flood plains, mines, no pastures, cattle, pigs, deer, etc, no infected trade routes, no wells, aquaducts, bath houses, etc) about how often, in turns, would you want each city to experience an epidemic? How much would you expect resources to deter/encourage epidemics? How about buildings, and map elements?

Maybe another consideration is to add a bit more dynamism to epidemics. Right now each outburst is identical: two turns of losing a citizen and reduced efficiency. What if instead if was tied to the epidemic rate? So a rate of 1-2 only has 1 turn of consequences. 2-5 has 2 turns. 6-8 has 3, etc. Then it's not so much about the frequency but about the intensity. And longer durations would also mean more chance for them to spread through trade routes. This could also do much more to set up a proper Black Death world event which currently isn't possible (or at least is highly unlikely).

Playing with the numbers could also lead to more risky play. For simplicity, I'll start with the idea that for every 10 epidemic rate there's 1 turn of epidemia. But epidemic sources also tuned way up. So there's a little more room for safety, since up to a rate of 10 is less than we currently experience, and a rate of 20 is the current standard, but large cities could be expected to go up to a rate of 30 or 40, with much more devastating consequences. And there's more space for nuance amongst sources, so that some things can contribute an increase of 1 (not much on their own, but potentially pushing a city into the next run of epidemic) and other sources can provide big hits of 3-5.

Smaller numbers are probably better, but I figured a round number like 10 would be good for discussion.

With the "spirit" in mind, I felt that repeating leaders that were retired once was out of character - cultures don't "go back" to what they were before.

Is that really the case, though? I don't think there's much linearity to cultural spirits. Usually it arises as a solution to a broad problem, or through force of personality of someone in charge. I can't really think of a reason that a civ can't experience the same mentality twice, and especially when there are overlaps in the leader traits (eg frequency of imperialist in romans, and how many carthaginians are seafarers, etc).

Feel free to ignore this, since we're talking an optional feature. It's meant more as pontification than feedback.

Though thinking about it more, I'm really curious to see how all the civs changing leaders in each era affects the game. I can imagine the sudden shift of "You've widely chosen your civics" and other diplomacy consequences causing some upheavels. I'm not sure I want that in my games, but I'm sure that can lead to some interesting stories.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Will do. Are there any standards you're aiming for? I can easily report back, but with so many variables feeding into epidemic chance, it's hard to provide objective measures.

Subjective will do - if epidemics feel like a nuisance / a serious factor delaying development / something that can generally be ignored etc.

Say a civ has a size 5 city, a size 10 city, and a size 15 city. Assuming there are no external sources for epidemic chance (so no jungles, flood plains, mines, no pastures, cattle, pigs, deer, etc, no infected trade routes, no wells, aquaducts, bath houses, etc) about how often, in turns, would you want each city to experience an epidemic? How much would you expect resources to deter/encourage epidemics? How about buildings, and map elements?

Maybe another consideration is to add a bit more dynamism to epidemics. Right now each outburst is identical: two turns of losing a citizen and reduced efficiency. What if instead if was tied to the epidemic rate? So a rate of 1-2 only has 1 turn of consequences. 2-5 has 2 turns. 6-8 has 3, etc. Then it's not so much about the frequency but about the intensity. And longer durations would also mean more chance for them to spread through trade routes. This could also do much more to set up a proper Black Death world event which currently isn't possible (or at least is highly unlikely).

If you noticed the general trend lately, I'm trying to retouch the older features. Epidemics are definitely on my list - and sweeping global pandemics are certainly one direction they could be taken. More variable duration and the ability to affect units are also viable paths to explore.

Is that really the case, though? I don't think there's much linearity to cultural spirits. Usually it arises as a solution to a broad problem, or through force of personality of someone in charge. I can't really think of a reason that a civ can't experience the same mentality twice, and especially when there are overlaps in the leader traits (eg frequency of imperialist in romans, and how many carthaginians are seafarers, etc).

Feel free to ignore this, since we're talking an optional feature. It's meant more as pontification than feedback.

Pontification indeed, which can be quite juicy if we don't spiral out of control . I'd say Civilization as a game series is built, from the very first instalment, around the "great person theory" of history. Whether one subscribes to it IRL or not (I know I don't), we have to work with that fact unless we want to uproot Civ gameplay on one of the most fundamental levels (probably the only thing more fundamentally associated with Civ games than civilizations being led by leaders is its turn-based nature; I don't think there's anything else so deeply embedded into Civ as a concept). And non-recurrence fits much better with a "Great Leader" shaping a civilization's direction (even if for an implausibly long time).

I think the above-mentioned overlaps are much better reflective of a general "historical direction" of a civ than a potential regression to a previous leader (one could think of some IRL examples that could be thus represented, such as post-Napoleonic Bourbon restoration, but even then, it is probably better to have Napoleon III follow Napoleon I, rather than an intermission from Louis).

Though thinking about it more, I'm really curious to see how all the civs changing leaders in each era affects the game. I can imagine the sudden shift of "You've widely chosen your civics" and other diplomacy consequences causing some upheavels. I'm not sure I want that in my games, but I'm sure that can lead to some interesting stories.

Yeah, or sitting out an aggressive militaristic leader in hope they'll be replaced by someone friendlier. I'm not sure I myself will play this way too often, but as you say, that can probably lead to some interesting stories.

 

[[Y]]

Pontification indeed, which can be quite juicy if we don't spiral out of control . I'd say Civilization as a game series is built, from the very first instalment, around the "great person theory" of history. Whether one subscribes to it IRL or not (I know I don't), we have to work with that fact unless we want to uproot Civ gameplay on one of the most fundamental levels (probably the only thing more fundamentally associated with Civ games than civilizations being led by leaders is its turn-based nature; I don't think there's anything else so deeply embedded into Civ as a concept). And non-recurrence fits much better with a "Great Leader" shaping a civilization's direction (even if for an implausibly long time).

I think the above-mentioned overlaps are much better reflective of a general "historical direction" of a civ than a potential regression to a previous leader (one could think of some IRL examples that could be thus represented, such as post-Napoleonic Bourbon restoration, but even then, it is probably better to have Napoleon III follow Napoleon I, rather than an intermission from Louis).

Okay, I see your point of view on it now. With that in mind I agree with the current implementation. I guess from my end I don't see Civ as being a Great Person Theory game, with leaders a metaphorical representation of the civ's values/focuses, and not an actual figure pushing the civ forward. For example, I'd probably give modern Germany an industrious leader to represent Germany's reputation of meticulous engineering, though I would attribute that characteristic to the general culture and not an individual. For all I know, it was the result of a single person pushing the philosophy, but that doesn't impact how I've historically interpreted the "leader" of a Civ game's leader. So that's the perspective I come from, and why repetition isn't an issue to me.

 

[PKSRoman]

oh no a huge barbarian army of 50 units came from a distant island and landed near a rich and military weak AI civilization!
(it is a pity that with the event “fall of the Bronze Age” there is no special unit tailored for the ancient era, I would also add to the game)

 

[Ahnarras]

Epidemics are definitely on my list - and sweeping global pandemics are certainly one direction they could be taken. More variable duration and the ability to affect units are also viable paths to explore.

Those could be really neat ideas. I always wondered why all epidemics had the same duration, as it would make sense that a high epidemic %, depicting a really dire situation, would probably take longer to resorbe. Samewise, it would make sense for a really high population city to have a longer epidemic duration than a small village with only a few hundred inhabitants.

On that point, I really liked it when you added the fact that epidemics circulate around trade routes, thus making having a lot of trade route in a city be a real factor of epidemics.

As I'm playing mainly Egyptian on Huge World Map, epidemics are something I have to factor in as I spawn in an unhealthy area (be it the multiple flood plains at the spawn point or the swamped near the sea).
I will take a few more turns at the end of the weeks and see how it plays out.

One thing I can already say is that increasing the epidemic seems totally fine for a "in a good spot" city : the one I usually settle in Libya, with no swamp or flood plains, is usually deep in negatif and is never bothered with epidemics. The only way for it to even have a chance for epidemic is the infected trade route, so I see how it made sense to increase that factor.

Finding the right balance isn't easy, specially for swamp as they are here to stay for a good while, needing to be early middle-age (or really late classical ?) to be able to drain them.

I guess from my end I don't see Civ as being a Great Person Theory game, with leaders a metaphorical representation of the civ's values/focuses, and not an actual figure pushing the civ forward.

I second that, for me the leader isn't a real immortal person, but more an embodiment of the spirit of that civilization. It's further accentuated by how the profil of each leader is tweaked (ie a militaristic will tends to wage war more often, a cultural will wants to build more world wonder...).

 

[[Y]]

The only way for it to even have a chance for epidemic is the infected trade route, so I see how it made sense to increase that factor.

You might already be accounting for this, but in case not: Improvements (mines, pastures, and villages/towns) and resources (cattle, pigs, sheep, deer) can also increase epidemic chance. Some resources can also reduce it (grains and seafood, I think).

 

[JDCP]

call me when leaders or leader traits will be randomised per era because this looks promising!

This was something I had in mind once, but after thinking a bit more of it... the idea of changing leaders could really harm the flow of a game. It woul be fun as a challenge, but not adequate. Also probably very time consuming to make in a way that really worked well.

At least in the civilization series, where you are set with one leader and can't change it, I always saw it as the person you chose to lead your civilization represented more the ''national spirit'' of it rather than whoever was in power. Changing this feels wrong, as if whatever you were in the past ceased to exist and now you're something else.

This could be realistic because nations constantly change, but to such an extent where all trace of the previous leader traits disappear and are replaced with 3 new ones it still doesn't feel right. I would vote for something like being able change some traits as the game progresses but that sounds like a hassle to code. There are some things best left untouched, and I believe this is one of them.

If anything, I'd like to be able to see a separate system of civics that works like the actual ones, but grants bonuses based on other aspects, with certain limitations as to what you can enable. Such is the case of History Rewritten, another great civ4 mod that adds ''religious tenets'' some sort of system like civics but for religions. Of course if I was to see this in RI something like that shouldn't be only centered on religion, a more complex dive into what politics your country has and how citizens respond to them (in the form of separatism, happiness, etc) would be better in my opinion. In that mod you need a Great Prophet to trigger it, so with that another great people (something like a Great Politician? ) Would be nice to trigger some sort of constitutional reform. But I really don't know how this would play out.

 

[PKSRoman]

This was something I had in mind once, but after thinking a bit more of it... the idea of changing leaders could really harm the flow of a game. It woul be fun as a challenge, but not adequate. Also probably very time consuming to make in a way that really worked well.

I was rather thinking of randomizing perks every era rather then change leader - but changing leaders it isnt a bad idea at all

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

All right, the 3.71 installer has been uploaded; I'm not "releasing" it officially yet, as I would appreciate people telling me it works ok for them first (you never know what might blow up )

https://sourceforge.net/projects/civ4mods/files/Realism%20Invictus/Realism%20Invictus%203.71%20%282025-02-04%29%20Setup%20%28Full%29.exe/download

The 3.71 changelog:

Major changes:
- Map scenarios (as opposed to historical: Deluge and Crusades) now offer an option to choose your leader and randomize AI leaders (you still have to choose the fixed leader first when starting, you get a popup after the scenario has loaded)
- A new game option, off by default, to change leaders every era (AI leaders choose from the current leader - so a chance to stay with the same one - and all leaders that weren't used yet in that game, humans get to pick the one they want from the same list)

Balance changes:
- Upped the epidemic rate from trade routes, seemed almost irrelevant most of the time
- Distributed some of the Salt Pit bonuses across the tech tree to reduce its overwhelming utility in early game (1 production to Mining, 1 commerce to Currency, further 1 commerce to Commerce Code)
- Megalomaniac trait only affects World Wonders (but is a bit more severe at -25%)
- 5 Year Plans now have a civ-wide effect as intended, rather than just affecting the city where built
- Made Ancient and early Classical techs somewhat cheaper (first three tech columns substantially cheaper), while late Classical more expensive
- If a civ is a vassal, instead of joining it, a culturally-appropriate separatist city will spawn a separate "Free ..." civ
- Players that share a civilization (such as a hypothetical vassal and free civ above) instantly assimilate 80% of the other civ's culture on conquest

Bugfixes:
- If a city revolts to barbarians, they don't get a palace (as it breaks barbarian functionality); thanks Deder for this one!
- Fixed a major bug that would mess up unit role costs and unit classes in pedia
- Fixed a major error in AI evaluations that resulted in CTDs for team sizes over 1
- Fixed "smaller fonts" setting in Installer to actually work

Cosmetic and technical changes:
- Renamed scenarios to conform to a consistent naming scheme
- If a city has trade routes as an epidemic source, the epidemic message will be different from the standard one
- Rewrote code for Ahead of Time tech penalty to be much more compact, moved to a separate file for easier editing of variables
- Main interface should now better accommodate lower resolutions
- Swapped the art for Bomb Shelters (now Fallout Shelters to better reflect their effects) and Bunkers
- Fallout Shelters can now only be constructed if nukes are enabled
- Reformatted most tech pedia entries and updated some
- New terrain detail maps that should look detailed up close and not noisy when zoomed out. Other small terrain tweaks
- Tweaks and additions to some game texts

Further nuclear code changes by Takofloppa:
- Added new definitions in GlobalDefinesAlt for nuclear winter mechanic, making it easy to customize or disable entirely
- Readjusted nuclear winter parameters to make them a bit more aggressive
- Increased interception chance of SDI projects to compensate for AI making more nukes
- AI should no longer fear a former nuclear aggressor if the nukes are banned and they have none left

 

[JDCP]

Something weird happened on my last game, Austronesians funded Orthodoxy in the Triassic scenario:

HOW?????

 

[[Y]]

Something weird happened on my last game, Austronesians funded Orthodoxy in the Triassic scenario:

View attachment 718024
HOW?????

How unorthodox

 

[JDCP]

How unorthodox

That gave me a laugh but I am curious as to how they funded it, because as far as I know Orthodoxy is only in Deluge, am I right?

EDIT: I'm trying out the new update and I must say... the idea of letting you select leader in the scenarios is amazing, now I don't have to edit the save filemuch thanks guys! Once again your efforts make someone immensely happy!

How is 32% miraculous?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Something weird happened on my last game, Austronesians funded Orthodoxy in the Triassic scenario:

Interesting. Did you edit the scenario / use the WB in any way?

How is 32% miraculous?

It might have even been 1% if the barbarian was lucky enough. This shows up for a unit that would have died otherwise - so while the barbarian had bad odds, they would have been enough for them to win in that situation.

 

[JDCP]

Did you edit the scenario / use the WB in any way?

Yes but only to see how the Hospitaller looked ingame, I had conquered Rome so I thought it would be fun to keep one of those just because how good it looked, I also did change the time speed to Legendary. Still, I'm unsure how any of this could have triggered the funding of Orthodoxy I even went as far as to believe at first that was part of the Triassic scenario

Changing the time speed did make some weird stuff happen, like, I had a great people every 20 turns and realized of the big mistake I had made. What is weirder is that I believe they were on the classical age back then (assuming from the fact it was funded in 400AD and they were at the bottom of the score list).

It might have even been 1% if the barbarian was lucky enough. This shows up for a unit that would have died otherwise - so while the barbarian had bad odds, they would have been enough for them to win in that situation.

Interesting. I didn't knew about this, I thought it was just a random message to make you feel better, which now does

Oh also I've been trying out the new version since about 2 hours ago (mainly because I've got most of tomorrow off ) and everything seems to work well, have had no errors and the game even with changing leaders flows well, I don't think I'll keep playing now but in my case everything works as it should. Although I only changed my leader once at the start which works in a very curious way, though I've only done this once it seems that if you started with a leader with traits that give units promotions (such is my case, conqueror with Genghis) those promotions will stay even if you change to a leader without these traits, not anything gamebreaking really, a warrior with a free promotion at the start and some free XP does not give much advantage, just by a very tiny margin. I like to think of this as knowledge the defensive forces of the newly founded civilization (who would have been nomads before) inherited after he went away.

You know I think changing leaders isn't as bad as I was thinking, but I have to play more

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Interesting. I didn't knew about this, I thought it was just a random message to make you feel better, which now does

It's a message notifying you that you've used up one of your free barbarian wins.

I also did change the time speed to Legendary

Ah, that would do it. Changing game speed does weird stuff to the game - I think it then tries, among other things, to found all religions it believes should have been founded by then. Never found why.

Oh also I've been trying out the new version since about 2 hours ago (mainly because I've got most of tomorrow off ) and everything seems to work well, have had no errors and the game even with changing leaders flows well, I don't think I'll keep playing now but in my case everything works as it should. Although I only changed my leader once at the start which works in a very curious way, though I've only done this once it seems that if you started with a leader with traits that give units promotions (such is my case, conqueror with Genghis) those promotions will stay even if you change to a leader without these traits, not anything gamebreaking really, a warrior with a free promotion at the start and some free XP does not give much advantage, just by a very tiny margin. I like to think of this as knowledge the defensive forces of the newly founded civilization (who would have been nomads before) inherited after he went away.

Thanks for reporting! I'll proceed to build and upload the final installers (my own testing also shows no weirdness).

Yeah, I suspected that leader changing would have at least some side effects. Going forward I'll try eliminating edge cases like free promos - but given how the ability to choose leaders in World Maps was something people kept requesting for literally decades, I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

 

[Ahnarras]

You might already be accounting for this, but in case not: Improvements (mines, pastures, and villages/towns) and resources (cattle, pigs, sheep, deer) can also increase epidemic chance. Some resources can also reduce it (grains and seafood, I think).

Yup, I knew that ^^
Except for Mine : I'm sure they used to increase epidemics, but so far in my game they don't seem to do anymore, nor is it written in pedia. I think Walter took that out while rounding the 0.5% epidemics chance to 1% or none.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

3.71 officially out. If you're not running SVN, go grab it.

 

[Panzeri]

Amazing work, as always. Thank you very much.
Is it savegame compatible with 3.7?