Realism Invictus

[Ahnarras]

Fully agree - I don't think stunting your own expansion should be rewarded, "tall" playstyles in strategy games are generally artificial game mechanics, IRL going "wide" to some extent is always better.

Playing tall also has the benefit of needing less space and reducing the odds of war. When you play wide, you have, sooner or later, to declare war on your neighbors to take their lands (which will reduce your overall diplomacy score amongst everyone, leading to more wars...).

I think it's also an easier playstile : micro-managing 2-3 cities take less brainpower than micro-managing 15-20. For a perfect player, it makes no difference, but I have stopped counting the number of small errors I've made (building the wrong improvement, switching a few specialists to test something and forgetting to replace them, sometime leaving them as citizen for a few turns, stuff like that) simply because I have multiple cities needing my atttention every single turn and fatigue always seems to be the real winner

 

[globosud]

Everything really needs to be evaluated in relation to the number of turns and the overall game setup. Playing 2200 turns on an ultra-huge map is one thing; playing 400 turns on a medium-sized map with 12 civilizations is something else entirely. On an enormous map with 40 factions, it's not exactly engaging to watch civilizations just barely survive—or to realize the game is practically decided by turn 500, making the remaining 1700 turns feel more like a formality than actual gameplay.
This might still be enjoyable when you're new to the game and every situation feels like a new challenge. But for more experienced players, it often turns into a long wait between meaningful decisions. Turns can stretch to 2–3 minutes or more, without offering much in return—just enough time to wonder why you’re still playing. It’s easy to lose interest and abandon the match halfway through.
So, it's hard to generalize. It all depends on your playstyle, the game options you enable, the size of the map, the number of factions, the number of turns—and yes, even the victory conditions you've selected. After all, playing for a science or cultural victory requires a very different pace and focus compared to domination or score-based wins. And if the game mode doesn't align with your setup, you might find yourself playing dozens of extra turns with nothing meaningful left to achieve—except maybe setting a new record for patience.
Take the vassal system, for instance. After the recent changes, enabling it actually makes sense. Before that, vassals didn’t contribute much to gameplay and mainly served to slow down turns

 

[Alekseyev_]

I generally accept inefficiencies from subpar micromanagement. I play this game for fun, not for it to be a chore. So I'd rather put the difficulty down a level most of the time and just go with the flow rather than micromanaging every city and worker every turn. That certainly has its own appeal, but I only do that in maybe 5% of my games.

 

[[Y]]

Everything really needs to be evaluated in relation to the number of turns and the overall game setup. Playing 2200 turns on an ultra-huge map is one thing; playing 400 turns on a medium-sized map with 12 civilizations is something else entirely. On an enormous map with 40 factions, it's not exactly engaging to watch civilizations just barely survive—or to realize the game is practically decided by turn 500, making the remaining 1700 turns feel more like a formality than actual gameplay.

It's also not interesting playing 2200 turns where the map doesn't meaningfully change. I play on the largest map size and the last thing I want is to feel like the global setup is the same on turn 1500 as it was on turn 500.

I generally accept inefficiencies from subpar micromanagement. I play this game for fun, not for it to be a chore. So I'd rather put the difficulty down a level most of the time and just go with the flow rather than micromanaging every city and worker every turn. That certainly has its own appeal, but I only do that in maybe 5% of my games.

Same here. Unless there's a very particular thing I need to manage, I just let citizen automation run the show. I manage all my workers, though.

 

[Ahnarras]

it's not exactly engaging to watch civilizations just barely survive—or to realize the game is practically decided by turn 500, making the remaining 1700 turns feel more like a formality than actual gameplay.

Counterpoint : by early medieval, everything seems to show that Japan would win. It was 20-30% above me, and a good 50% above everyone else.
We are now entering industrial era, and as Tokugawa badly manages the separatism in recently taken cities, he spent all Renaissance in awful wars with no real gain (and even a few losses).
I've managed to catch up to him, and a handful of others Civ are not far from doing so too.

Granted, the 1-city-kingdom harassed by everyone in central europa, which is still surviving only thanks to the fact that everyone around is also busy fighting their own neighbors, has little chance to do something.
But it's not as permanent as you depict it... at least with separatism. Without it, Tokugawa would have probably taken all Asia by now and snowballing all of us to oblivion.

Same here. Unless there's a very particular thing I need to manage, I just let citizen automation run the show. I manage all my workers, though.

Oh my. I'm shocked. SHOCKED I TELL YA !
If it wasn't for my game, started in ~March and only a little after turn 1300 in August, I would probably say something !

On a more serious topic : old SVN so perhaps it has been fixed by now, but one of the main culprit for AI fudging up with Separatism is how they under-garrison their newly settled cities in mid-game.
Exemple : Cyrus destroyed a bunch of cities from Hammurabi, and came with a settler and 2 (two.) units to found a new city. To the surprise of absolutly no one, that city revolted the very next turn as it started with 0% persian culture once settled. Another turn and the city secessed and turned barbarian. It seems to be a common occurence in my game so far, and even I was tricked the first time I tried to settle far from my border. Now I know that I need at least 10-12 units + an official to instabuild a justice court to put the only citizen as an informant, which is doable but seems way overkill to etablish a small colony on some far-away coast.
Again : probably a huge world map problem, as there are so many Civ around and not a single case void of culture by that point of the game (except perhaps some islands in the middle of the ocean).

 

[[Y]]

Exemple : Cyrus destroyed a bunch of cities from Hammurabi, and came with a settler and 2 (two.) units to found a new city. To the surprise of absolutly no one, that city revolted the very next turn as it started with 0% persian culture once settled. Another turn and the city secessed and turned barbarian. It seems to be a common occurence in my game so far, and even I was tricked the first time I tried to settle far from my border. Now I know that I need at least 10-12 units + an official to instabuild a justice court to put the only citizen as an informant, which is doable but seems way overkill to etablish a small colony on some far-away coast.

It's been fixed by requiring a city to have 4 or more separatism to revolt. At least to start a revolt, I think smaller ones can still join an ongoing revolt?

 

[globosud]

Counterpoint : by early medieval, everything seems to show that Japan would win. It was 20-30% above me, and a good 50% above everyone else.
We are now entering industrial era, and as Tokugawa badly manages the separatism in recently taken cities, he spent all Renaissance in awful wars with no real gain (and even a few losses).
I've managed to catch up to him, and a handful of others Civ are not far from doing so too.

Of course, I was referring to games with separatism turned off, because naturally, separatism puts the AI at a significant disadvantage.

 

[Alekseyev_]

Finally downloaded the SVN.

First impressions: Cool stuff with the noble fiefs! Looking forward to trying them.
Also really like the buff to Enlightened Absolutism and Civil Service.

Is the Arabian unique noble family supposed to have something over the generic enterprising traders? It doesn't look like there is any difference at the moment.
The power level of some unique noble families also differs quite drastically: The transoxianian or the russian one are extremely good, while the English one is fairly mediocre in comparison. All in all however, I think pretty much all of them are fine, I would only bump the English one up a bit and fix the Arabian one. Maaaybe slightly weaken the Russian one, they're already really good during the middle ages with their Lovisches, and later Gulyay Gorods.

One of the four mongol noble families is listed under "distinctive" rather than "unique" with the other three.
Why do some civs like Mongols, Incans receive 3+ unique & better noble families while other civs only receive one? Aztecs are fine because they receive one specific unique thing three times, but it is not strictly superior to the generic versions, just different.

Should the unique palaces (like Persian, German, American) not rather be a distinctive building? After all, they share all the same effects and only differ graphically.

Edit: Also, Spiritual nicely states that "religious communities" are built faster. Should humanist also state it that way, rather than listing each of them individually?

I manage all my workers, though.

Yeah, same. But I don't take extreme care to only move them to tiles where they still have fractional movement to e.g. build a road for 1 turn and then go on the next in order to never ever waste a worker turn.

 

[[Y]]

Yeah, same. But I don't take extreme care to only move them to tiles where they still have fractional movement to e.g. build a road for 1 turn and then go on the next in order to never ever waste a worker turn.

Oh, I do. I also never issue orders in groups (other than movement). If 2 out of the 4 workers on a tile are freed, I don't want them wasting their turn while the last ones finish the improvement. They've got places to go! Now!

 

[Ahnarras]

It's been fixed by requiring a city to have 4 or more separatism to revolt. At least to start a revolt, I think smaller ones can still join an ongoing revolt?

Oh, I think I may have even seen that one pass on the SVN log ! Great news, then

 

[tobitakaa_saans]

Hello! First of all, I want to congratulate and thank you for your work on this wonderful mod. I started playing a few months ago and I’m totally addicted. I have a question: I’ve already finished a campaign on the Huge Earth scenario, but I’d like to know if there’s any way to play on the same Earth map (not the one that comes with the base game, but the one from the RI scenario) without True Starting Locations — with civilizations starting in random places on the map, or even in the usual TSL spots but all shuffled. Is that possible?

 

[[Y]]

Random thought, but I was thinking about ways to curtail early game trade networks, so that you can't have stuff like Rome trading directly with China in 3000 BC. What if reefs prevented trade networks when outside of a civ's cultural borders? Hazardous waters that, if there isn't any civilized presence to support with repairs, aren't fit for casual crossing. Could even make them actually impassable, to prevent sailboats from casually exploring whole coastlines.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Hrm. TortoiseSVN isn't available for macs, sadly. So far I've been getting by with Git's `git-svn` command, which has been working very smoothly, but that could potentially affect things too.

Oh, in that case, I don't think I can help you, at least not that way - I am not sure if in your case the same files are even stored there at all. As far as files are concerned, I think I did a pretty decent job of removing everything that's not used lately, but if you're desperate you can for instance delete everything from Art/GreatPeople except for "Great ...". They are not essential for gameplay, but of course, you'll not get any GP-specific splashes afterwards.

Harming city population like that would make this wonder an absolute shot in your own foot. Better to just count vassals as 50% only, i.e. 1 unit per full civ declaring and 1 unit per 2 vassals declaring.

In a recent revision, I did it even more radically and simply disregard vassals altogether.

Good point with the citadel. In BtS with its suicidal siege weapons, the +5 xp are amazing to stack up some absurd siege units (ideally with barracks and great instructors on top), but in RI siege is hardly ever at a point where its xp matter (and rack up free xp from bombarding anyway). I think the bonus can certainly stay (it's nice in a thematic way), but it's not enough to make the building any interesting.

I mean, citadels also offer more actual defence. But I get it that XP to siege units isn't that impactful in RI - and TBH, Spain can have a lot of other flavourful bonuses from which it could choose. Not like it's spoilt for historical context in the medieval era.

I am a bit confused: If Autocracy represents absolute monarchies, and Monarchy with Social Contract -> Constitutional Monarchy represents constitutional monarchies... what exactly does Monarchy represent prior to that limited building? I always assumed it was constitutional monarchies all the time, but the later limited building contradicts that.

Constitution is not the only form a monarchy could be anything else than absolute. You're right on autocracy, and Monarchy represents other forms of limited monarchies that existed in history, even before the constitutional era - elective monarchies (such as HRE post-Golden Bull), strong feudal monarchies (such as medieval France before consolidating into French absolutism), parliamentary monarchies (such as England; the UK technically doesn't have a constitution even to this very day).

Do you think you can add building yields & building commerce functionality to traits, so these fields can be used by modmodders? I think for example that extra gold or culture for some buildings could be nice for protective, or extra science for progressive.

I generally don't add stuff that I won't be using, unless it's really simple. This isn't.

In the latest release they have +1 compared to precious mines, and another +1 from Protectionism, for +2 total if that civic is used.

I meant to make it so that it would always have at least +2 for a while now. Done now.

By the way since you mention Trading colonies: What do you think about giving them +1 hammer instead of +1 commerce? I think this would make them a bit more interesting and distinct from generic plantations rather than just "gives 1 happiness and 1 commerce". Similar to dravidian pepper plantations giving +1 food. This still leaves the +commerce for the more broadly applicable Minerias.

Maybe. I'll think about it.

Is the Arabian unique noble family supposed to have something over the generic enterprising traders? It doesn't look like there is any difference at the moment.

Hm, it seems like it isn't working as intended. I wanted it to have +2 with state religion (any state religion), but it seems like one needs to specify a specific one for it to work. I'll see whether I'll fix this or just go for a different effect.

The power level of some unique noble families also differs quite drastically: The transoxianian or the russian one are extremely good, while the English one is fairly mediocre in comparison. All in all however, I think pretty much all of them are fine, I would only bump the English one up a bit and fix the Arabian one. Maaaybe slightly weaken the Russian one, they're already really good during the middle ages with their Lovisches, and later Gulyay Gorods.

The English one is a typical example of something that is better than it looks - its additional ability can save you a lot of gold if placed somewhere relatively remote. And given that the other abilities aren't that sensitive to the actual quality of the city it's in, that's exactly what is recommended to do with it.

One of the four mongol noble families is listed under "distinctive" rather than "unique" with the other three.

Noted, will fix.

Why do some civs like Mongols, Incans receive 3+ unique & better noble families while other civs only receive one? Aztecs are fine because they receive one specific unique thing three times, but it is not strictly superior to the generic versions, just different.

Both Incan and Mongol ones have fairly limited bonuses compared to the generic ones they replace, and both only get 4 to choose from rather than 5 with everyone else. It's meant to be a "sidegrade" rather than an "upgrade", a system that's different rather than strictly better.

Should the unique palaces (like Persian, German, American) not rather be a distinctive building? After all, they share all the same effects and only differ graphically.

Yup, well noted. Will change.

Edit: Also, Spiritual nicely states that "religious communities" are built faster. Should humanist also state it that way, rather than listing each of them individually?

Great point. They were handled differently by the two traits, but there's no reason why they shouldn't be handled in the same way.

Hello! First of all, I want to congratulate and thank you for your work on this wonderful mod. I started playing a few months ago and I’m totally addicted. I have a question: I’ve already finished a campaign on the Huge Earth scenario, but I’d like to know if there’s any way to play on the same Earth map (not the one that comes with the base game, but the one from the RI scenario) without True Starting Locations — with civilizations starting in random places on the map, or even in the usual TSL spots but all shuffled. Is that possible?

Not natively, but you can probably get this result with this tool by removing all civs: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/wbcleaner.9004/ (don't forget to backup the original file you're experimenting on)

Random thought, but I was thinking about ways to curtail early game trade networks, so that you can't have stuff like Rome trading directly with China in 3000 BC. What if reefs prevented trade networks when outside of a civ's cultural borders? Hazardous waters that, if there isn't any civilized presence to support with repairs, aren't fit for casual crossing. Could even make them actually impassable, to prevent sailboats from casually exploring whole coastlines.

It's one of these ideas that may sound good on paper but would be very tough to adequately support AI-wise.

 

[XO_Saul_Tigh]

Hi Walter,

I have a simple question. When are you planning to release the new patch? I play online with a friend and we like the new changes, especially the technology transfer. But it's almost impossible to make the right changes for both of us via SVN to achieve the same game version. We don't want to wait any longer

 

[[Y]]

Oh, in that case, I don't think I can help you, at least not that way - I am not sure if in your case the same files are even stored there at all. As far as files are concerned, I think I did a pretty decent job of removing everything that's not used lately, but if you're desperate you can for instance delete everything from Art/GreatPeople except for "Great ...". They are not essential for gameplay, but of course, you'll not get any GP-specific splashes afterwards.

I'll give that a try, thanks. I was looking through the art assets a few days ago and noticed that these files seem to be much larger than most other art files, even the leader heads, so hopefully removing them gives a lot of extra leeway.

It's one of these ideas that may sound good on paper but would be very tough to adequately support AI-wise.

AI foils again! How does it engage with AI? I assumed that trade route was once of those AI-proof aspects since it's kind of its own system, there aren't really any toggles based on it. Were you thinking in terms of settling and expanding borders onto those tiles?

 

[Alekseyev_]

Constitution is not the only form a monarchy could be anything else than absolute. You're right on autocracy, and Monarchy represents other forms of limited monarchies that existed in history, even before the constitutional era - elective monarchies (such as HRE post-Golden Bull), strong feudal monarchies (such as medieval France before consolidating into French absolutism), parliamentary monarchies (such as England; the UK technically doesn't have a constitution even to this very day).

Makes sense, thanks.

I generally don't add stuff that I won't be using, unless it's really simple. This isn't.

I was hoping it would be simple, since similar functionality exists with buildings, but of course I don't know the engine internals. Oh well, too bad.

Hm, it seems like it isn't working as intended. I wanted it to have +2 with state religion (any state religion), but it seems like one needs to specify a specific one for it to work. I'll see whether I'll fix this or just go for a different effect.

Ah I see! That seems suitable and unique.

The English one is a typical example of something that is better than it looks - its additional ability can save you a lot of gold if placed somewhere relatively remote. And given that the other abilities aren't that sensitive to the actual quality of the city it's in, that's exactly what is recommended to do with it.

It makes sense to put it in a far-away city, but at the same time, in my experience, stacking more bonuses onto existing, well-developed cities often leads to the best results. And those tend to be rather close, so it's mainly number of cities maintenance.

Both Incan and Mongol ones have fairly limited bonuses compared to the generic ones they replace, and both only get 4 to choose from rather than 5 with everyone else. It's meant to be a "sidegrade" rather than an "upgrade", a system that's different rather than strictly better.

I'm not sure I understand - Incans have 4 instead of 5 to choose from (and can build up to 3): Ruthless Taskmasters, Military Masterminds, Affluent Landowners and Loyal Administrators. Each has the same effects as the generic one*, but with +1 happy and -10% maintenance on top. Comparing it to England above, this is the same -30% maintenance, but regardless of noble family choices and with an additional +3 happiness on top. *and relative +1 hammer from workshop in case of ruthless taskmaster
In case of Mongols, you have Ruthless Taskmasters with +1 happy, Peerless Equestrians with +1 happy and +2 XP for ranged mounted units, Loyal Administrators with +100% foreign trade and Enlightened Scholars with +1 happy.
All four also have a yield bonus to grazing grounds of +1 hammer, +1 food/+1 hammer, +1 food, +1 commerce respectively. That part is nice and unique though.

So the way I understand it, Incans and Mongols have a reduced set of choices (4 instead of 5), but can build the same number of fiefs as anyone else (3), at which point they gain a bit of an advantage compared to a normal civ going for their unique + 2 generics. (And far more than going for 3 generics which might be desirable in some rare cases.)

-------

To the rest: Thanks for considering/noting.

Another thing I saw in the SVN changelog, you changed the large world map's size from "don't use" to "large" - what is the effect of this on maintenance?

 

[tebriz]

Another thing I saw in the SVN changelog, you changed the large world map's size from "don't use" to "large" - what is the effect of this on maintenance?

You can check it in Civilopedia (if I am not wrong in Map Size section).

 

[Alekseyev_]

Sorry if these have been reported already or are known:

- After researching Paper, every tech now states that it doubles the research transfer.
- Heraldry states +1 noble family in the tech tree, but not when opening the tech itself in the civilopedia.
- USMC and Gatling guns both increase cost of "second national"
- Same for Berber Farfanes and Black guards.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I have a simple question. When are you planning to release the new patch?

I have a simple answer: around Christmas, as always.

and noticed that these files seem to be much larger than most other art files

That's because there's so damn many of them! Almost 2000!

AI foils again! How does it engage with AI? I assumed that trade route was once of those AI-proof aspects since it's kind of its own system, there aren't really any toggles based on it. Were you thinking in terms of settling and expanding borders onto those tiles?

Well yeah, obviously, if that becomes a limiting factor for trade, AI will be at a severe disadvantage if it doesn't take it into account when founding cities - which means all-new kinds of evaluation where AI considers coastlines as routes and sees interruptions that need to be bridged by settled territory.

I was hoping it would be simple, since similar functionality exists with buildings, but of course I don't know the engine internals. Oh well, too bad.

Nah, and it is anything but simple for buildings too - I wouldn't have implemented it from scratch if it wasn't already done before I started touching code.

I'm not sure I understand - Incans have 4 instead of 5 to choose from (and can build up to 3): Ruthless Taskmasters, Military Masterminds, Affluent Landowners and Loyal Administrators. Each has the same effects as the generic one*, but with +1 happy and -10% maintenance on top. Comparing it to England above, this is the same -30% maintenance, but regardless of noble family choices and with an additional +3 happiness on top. *and relative +1 hammer from workshop in case of ruthless taskmaster
In case of Mongols, you have Ruthless Taskmasters with +1 happy, Peerless Equestrians with +1 happy and +2 XP for ranged mounted units, Loyal Administrators with +100% foreign trade and Enlightened Scholars with +1 happy.
All four also have a yield bonus to grazing grounds of +1 hammer, +1 food/+1 hammer, +1 food, +1 commerce respectively. That part is nice and unique though.

So the way I understand it, Incans and Mongols have a reduced set of choices (4 instead of 5), but can build the same number of fiefs as anyone else (3), at which point they gain a bit of an advantage compared to a normal civ going for their unique + 2 generics. (And far more than going for 3 generics which might be desirable in some rare cases.)

When you put it that way, the English one indeed feels underpowered! I'll think of some new effects for it.

Another thing I saw in the SVN changelog, you changed the large world map's size from "don't use" to "large" - what is the effect of this on maintenance?

Not much on maintenance specifically, as the special map size is quite similar to large in this regard. More on research speeds.

After researching Paper, every tech now states that it doubles the research transfer.

Thanks for reporting, I'll check.

Heraldry states +1 noble family in the tech tree, but not when opening the tech itself in the civilopedia.

This one's easy to fix. Will do.

 

[[Y]]

That's because there's so damn many of them! Almost 2000!

I meant individually. Each great person dds file is 256k while each leaderhead dds file is 171k. Except for hideyoshi, who breaks the trend with a leader file that is 341k. I would have thought the leaderheads would be much larger, but I guess there's more going on in there than I'd think.

Well yeah, obviously, if that becomes a limiting factor for trade, AI will be at a severe disadvantage if it doesn't take it into account when founding cities - which means all-new kinds of evaluation where AI considers coastlines as routes and sees interruptions that need to be bridged by settled territory.

True. I guess in my head it wasn't too big a deal as roads will connect anything soon anyway, and this just helps delay the universal trade network, but it's certainly gives the players room to get an advantage.