Realism Invictus

[TheBirdMan]

The main factor here is HDD vs SSD. So yes, if you're switching from a HDD, you'll see a major load time decrease.

I wouldn't say it's a major factor. A better CPU has much more of an impact.

Ok - this new 'puter surely make the game much faster.

Load time for the normal version from desktop to the startmenu <1 min. And less than another minute for loading my last turn. Load time for the SVN-version: Only 2-2½ minutes for the game to load to the startmenu. All with the highest graphic settings. That's fast - really fast - I say.

Also tried to make a gigantic testmap using SmartMap_mst (my preferred map-engine). 4 minutes to create a "raw" map size 208*144 (wrapped both on X and Y axis) with 18 nations. That's just "beautiful". It used to take at least 15 min.

But now time has come for the real test - how is it working in daily use.

I have by now "only" smaller 2 issues:

1. Screenshots: I wanted to show a few screenshot - but it seems like this new windows-version places them somewhere else than usual.......
2. Editing the xml-files:. WordPad, which I used to modify xml-files with, is completely gone. Really gone. This 'puter is using windows ver. 24H2 - so there is nothing left to "repair" on - at least not from what I have read until now. I have already tried with Notebook (Notesblok in danish) - it works, but..... Don't know if there - somewhere - is a more useful little program available. Else I guess I have to get used to that Notebook.

Edit: And all those pesky adds, that pops up here and there. I need to find a way to get rid of them.

Edit-edit 11.oct 2025:

Spoiler Screenshots found :

A Filipino city shown with highest graphic choice.

Screenshot as the map "is" when created by the map-engine (Smartmap_mst.py). Global.

Not even a good graphic-card can hide where the left and right "edge" is meeting. I hoped it did - but...

Here is the "center" of the map. As you can see, we have no visible "edge" between the upper and lower rows meet.

Same as above - just zoomed out a little.
Next step is to save this turn 0 to a worldbuilder file. And then use 8-10-12-14 days to change it to a nice useful map and make it playable as a scenario.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

OK, so some logistical stuff first. I realised that I will be away for a long time in December, so the traditional Christmas release will actually move to the first half of the month. Which means we have just a couple of months left, and I will try wrapping up all the stuff with major balance implications within the next week, so as to leave you all some time to playtest and comment on it, and will concentrate on release preparation, bugfixes and non-game-altering content (such as continuing to upscale and redo flags) from then on.

In other news, I'm still pondering the branding question, and I'd like to focus-group-test a variant with you all: "Humanitas Invicta". To remind everyone, my goals here are:

1. Get rid of English/Latin mix
2. Get rid of "Realism" in the name, as it send a wrong message about the core focus of the mod
3. Retain at least some brand continuity
4. Keep the name simple enough so that people don't truncate it too often (so no 3+ words)
5. Keep the name easily searchable - so it is not shared by anything else prominently featured on the Internet

Awesome! I guess this affects paper/scientific experiment as well.

Yeah, should work for the modifier regardless of where it's from.

And yet one more thing. I think the main menu music is very loud. I typically have my music volume at 100% so I can hear the music well ingame, but with the current music track I have to turn it down to 50% or less while in the main menu to not get my ears blasted - using voice chat as a reference, at 100% ingame I can communicate well, but 100% in main menu I cannot understand my conversational partner (hope that's the right term) anymore.

I'm lowering the volume in the next SVN update, but I'll trust you to give me feedback - as I have it off all the time, I am not able to gauge an adequate level myself.

Playing on a SVN old enough to be before the change that made cities under 4 Pop unable to revolt, I have encountered this same bug many, many times.
It's always when a dead Civ come back to life : the alert pannel will spamm many alerts, telling the name of every Civ that were in war with the Coming-Back-Civ and saying that they are now in peace with (empty space where the name of the CBC should be). It makes little sense since they are by default at peace when the CBC is rez, so it's not really a necessary information I think.

It will also announce which Civ is declaring war on the CBC, which is useful, but again it will only tell the name of the Civ declaring war, and the place where the name of the CBC is will be empty. For the named and non-buggy Civ, it's always the name of the "parent" civilisation, the one from where the revolting cities are going out (and, I think but not 100% certain, the vassals of this parent Civ).

Thanks, that was some very useful feedback that allowed me to hunt down and resolve all the issues described.

Screenshots: I wanted to show a few screenshot - but it seems like this new windows-version places them somewhere else than usual.......

No idea, as I'm still on Windows 10.

Editing the xml-files:. WordPad, which I used to modify xml-files with, is completely gone. Really gone. This 'puter is using windows ver. 24H2 - so there is nothing left to "repair" on - at least not from what I have read until now. I have already tried with Notebook (Notesblok in danish) - it works, but..... Don't know if there - somewhere - is a more useful little program available. Else I guess I have to get used to that Notebook.

I use Notepad++ for all my XML (and Python and C++) editing needs - it's free, powerful and convenient.

Edit: And all those pesky adds, that pops up here and there. I need to find a way to get rid of them.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-remove-most-annoying-ads-from-windows# maybe this will help?

 

[AspiringScholar]

OK, so some logistical stuff first. I realised that I will be away for a long time in December, so the traditional Christmas release will actually move to the first half of the month. Which means we have just a couple of months left, and I will try wrapping up all the stuff with major balance implications within the next week, so as to leave you all some time to playtest and comment on it, and will concentrate on release preparation, bugfixes and non-game-altering content (such as continuing to upscale and redo flags) from then on.

In other news, I'm still pondering the branding question, and I'd like to focus-group-test a variant with you all: "Humanitas Invicta". To remind everyone, my goals here are:

1. Get rid of English/Latin mix
2. Get rid of "Realism" in the name, as it send a wrong message about the core focus of the mod
3. Retain at least some brand continuity
4. Keep the name simple enough so that people don't truncate it too often (so no 3+ words)
5. Keep the name easily searchable - so it is not shared by anything else prominently featured on the Internet

Interesting, though I think that retaining the masculine gender for "Invictus" would chime a little better and also help facilitate brand continuity, but then we have the problem of needing a masculine noun, which (from my limited Latin vocabulary, at least) doesn't readily come to mind along the lines of this concept.

Alternatively, I might suggest keeping the feminine and going with something like "Historia Invicta," which sounds somewhat more epic in my opinion, highlighting the grand story of mankind rather than simply our existence itself.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Yeah, I'm really struggling with appropriate masculine nouns. "Orbis" or "Mundus" maybe. "Orbis" makes this slightly cross-contaminated with Aurelian ("Restitutor Orbis" who was also very much into "Sol Invictus"), and both are a bit nonsensical ("Unconquered world" - but then again, it's a nice wordplay with Alexander's famous lament - there are still worlds to conquer!)

 

[AspiringScholar]

Yeah, I'm really struggling with appropriate masculine nouns. "Orbis" or "Mundus" maybe. "Orbis" makes this slightly cross-contaminated with Aurelian ("Restitutor Orbis" who was also very much into "Sol Invictus"), and both are a bit nonsensical ("Unconquered world" - but then again, it's a nice wordplay with Alexander's famous lament - there are still worlds to conquer!)

That fits nicely! However, I can't bring myself to say that I'm going to play "MI" - somehow, an RI acronym preservation would be ideal.

It's a little off base, but something like Rancor Invictus might accomplish this (and, has the added advantage of retaining Latin-English all in one language, since we simply imported that one anyway. )

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I don't mind changing the acronym myself, though, of course, sharing it with the Royal Institution is an honour.

 

[AspiringScholar]

A nice coincidence!

If one goes full-Latin, a new title still couldn't be more of a mouthful than Mihi Est Imperare Orbo Universo, which is my second favorite mod, and one along similar lines.

Should they be welcome to you, here are a handful more sketch ideas:
- Universus Invictus (fits Alexander's dream, and also poignantly relates the end of the game's timeline with humanity's spacefaring achievement to apply it elsewhere; but then, "UI" would make for a rather confusing acronym)
- Vanitas Aeterna (given your previously stated affection for the artistic motif as the visual backdrop for each rendition of the mod, I thought you might appreciate working it into the title itself)
- Laude Gentibus (doesn't quite feel right poetically, but puts the theme of praising human history front and center, and making the first word in the title an imperative feels strong)
- Sub Sole, Invictus (an homage to the proverb of Solomon blended with consonance to the more familiar reference, and though it violates the three word title parameter, it keeps continuity with the previous title and sets the stage of the game's setting nicely, I think; gets around needing a word for Earth indirectly)

 

[Noyyau]

Regnum Invictum to maintain the beloved acronym.
Imperium Invictum has more gravitas as a title, I feel.

 

[tebriz]

Regnum Invictum to maintain the beloved acronym.
Imperium Invictum has more gravitas as a title, I feel.

I like the name, as it captures the essence of the game — enduring through the ages and preserving your civilization from conquest.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Regnum Invictum to maintain the beloved acronym.
Imperium Invictum has more gravitas as a title, I feel.

Both are quite non-unique, especially Imperium Invictum, yielding lots of results. I'd prefer something more distinct.

 

[tebriz]

What about Regnum Inexstinctum?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

That's a mouthful and there's no continuity with the current name. I know, naming is hard!

 

[[Y]]

Weird situation I had this morning: I had an army stationed next to a barb city with walls and, I think, a pagan temple. The city had a total 70% defense, and each of my three battering rams was reducing the city defense by a mere 1%, for a total 3% per turn. After a bunch of turns I got it down to 49% defense, and on my next turn it healed back up to 52%. Which is not how it's supposed to work, as far as I know. Is there anything that would let a city's defense heal back up on the same turn it was reduced via bombardment? This was in immediate succession, there wasn't a turn in between without a bombardment.

Related to that, having battering rams reduced to just 1% bombard damage per turn so early in the game is a very low efficiency, especially with the national unit limit count on them.

In other news, I'm still pondering the branding question, and I'd like to focus-group-test a variant with you all: "Humanitas Invicta". To remind everyone, my goals here are:

1. Get rid of English/Latin mix
2. Get rid of "Realism" in the name, as it send a wrong message about the core focus of the mod
3. Retain at least some brand continuity
4. Keep the name simple enough so that people don't truncate it too often (so no 3+ words)
5. Keep the name easily searchable - so it is not shared by anything else prominently featured on the Internet

Not quite unique, but have you considered dropping Realism and just sticking to Invictus? As it is, searching for "Civ 4 Invictus" returns RI, so it could be a fairly easy transition.

Invictus Profunditas (Invincible Depth, and you can officially refer to it as your "IP" )

The thing is, though, that distance is a much, much smaller effect in actual gameplay, and can be nullified entirely with the right civics (which are good in their own right). Number of cities on the other hand is what really bites into the treasury and you can only reduce it by 25% with a good government, or 50% if you're willing to run confederacy.

Forgot to respond to this last week. Interestingly, for me it's the other way around, with distance tending to be the worse upkeep. Probably varies with playstyle, since I tend to go wide early and can stretch pretty far. That said, I think what you said about civics is also true for number of cities (Despotism, Monarchy). Though I guess you can double up on distance with Merchant Families and, if I remember right, Democracy?

In either case, I think being true to the idea of imperialism would encourage it to reduce distance costs. Empirical figures are usually pushing their civ boundaries, not increasing the settlement density in their existing borders.

Unrelated question, but how do you all feel about reloading saves to salvage a mistake? I absolutely cannot do it... I rolled an excellent map in a new game, and DoWd Arabia for a second city location that they were about to take, but I hadn't seen that they had an archer two tiles away from my capital just after moving my garrison one tempo away, so that I would have effectively lost the game without a reload. I reloaded it, and everything else was fine and the war otherwise was sensible, but now I just feel like that game is ruined and I can't go back to it with proper enjoyment anymore. The only time I ever reload is when there is a crash outside of my control, or for a legitimate misclick, but never from a deliberate decision I made. Does anyone else feel this way?

Been meaning to answer this for ages! Sorry for the belated reply. In short: yes, all the time.

• Reloading isn't hurting anyone or cheating. It's not like you're playing a poker game and reloading after seeing what cards are in the other player's hands. If someone is reloading with different seeds in order to get different combat outcomes, than that's more towards cheating, but still no harm, and the important thing is that they are enjoying their experience.
• Civ is a game that can take a lot of time investment, and it's a shame to have that time gone to waste because of an accidental detail. It's an investment in terms of both time spent playing the game and satisfying maps/empires being a relative rarity. So I'll happily reload an oopsie (such as a few days ago, when Mansa Musa declared war and moved a stack of troops next to a border city. After I went through all the turn's pop ups my hand instinctively clicked "Next Turn", without reinforcing the city, bombarding his units, or attacking his stack first. No hesitation to load the last autosave there). I'll also reload in the early game if my scouting warrior gets assaulted by multiple animals in succession, or get other RNG setbacks that aren't improving the satisfaction of my game. Losing one of my first two militia in an attack with 97% odds isn't fun and imposes a handicap, so yeah, I'll load it. 97% chance of winning combat doesn't mean that 3% of my games should be subpar and unfair experiences.
• Repetition is a key factor in learning, so it's hard to improve in things that require you to play 6+ hours before you have the opportunity to repeat the situation. There's no shame in loading after a bad play in order to build up the muscle memory and brain power around making a good play instead. It can be nice to occasionally play a game that's a real test of our skill and count any mess up as a failure that can cost of the game, and play with that pressure, but applying that mentality to every game isn't healthy or practical. In the past I've even loaded up saves to play out a battle differently, even if I considered the canonical game a loss and didn't continue playing it past that battle.
• For all the factors that go into Civ's handicap levels, the amount of RNG in the game, and the way in which difficulty is expressed as bonuses to AI civs makes for a very uneven play experience. It can be good to ackowledge that sometimes the game plays out in a way that isn't true to the target difficulty level and mediate our experiences by selectively loading and doing something differently. That can work in both directions, too. I've had moments that felt unfairly fortunate in my favor, and I loaded to bring about a more balanced outcome, or deleted my own unit so that it feels more right. I neither want to win nor lose unfairly, so I'll make adujstments in extreme situations to bring the game back to balance.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I feel you're all misinterpreting the naming situation; I am not really looking for more ideas from anyone, I just wanted to shop around the ones I had! After all, even if someone else comes up with an excellent name, at this point it wouldn't feel right to me to adopt it.

 

[[Y]]

D'oh, sorry. I intentionally didn't respond right away so that I can give it time to sink in, then totally forgot about it when I came back to the thread and read the other replies.

I'd like to focus-group-test a variant with you all: "Humanitas Invicta"

To be honest, I'm not crazy about the latin name. One thing that works well with "Realism Invictus" is that it rolls off the tongue pretty well. It's intuitive to be read, heard, written, and spoken. The pure latin names all give me a sense of "wait, what did I just read?". I'm not likely to remember them, let alone how to spell them. If we look at games that have done something similar (primarily Europa Universalis), a prominent part of the title's success is that both words are commonly heard and used in English and easy to pick up on and reiterate, even to those that have never before heard of the game.

 

[PKSRoman]

Ah, that was hard one

One of the more interesting things is that at higher difficulty levels, the main, top civilizations are those that originated from barbarians (I have raging barbarians mode turn on).
I had austria with ~35 cities in medival era one time.I Like when in ancient era number of barbarians are so critical that civilization fall one after one and "some day" you will be next in line possibly so you start preparing to inevitable.

It was only at the emperor difficulty level that I had problems with . It would be nice if with future release a woulkd be a slight reduced (there is +1 or +2 too much in my opinion)

Interesting. What settings do you play at? I barely see any AI cultural victories ever in my hands-off test games.

no, sometimes on higher difflucty they can quite easy do cultural victory - i personally, have requirements set 10% higher than the standard cultural level requirements (45 instead of 40 for the city to grow culturally, etc. on every level of cultural develop).
I say "Cultural win in 1900 by AI" is not a standard but 1-2 games on 30-40 it possible to see it

Keep the name easily searchable - so it is not shared by anything else prominently featured on the Internet

After so much years, now rebrand? nah RI is well known name for this mod.

Edit: Ah, i almost forgot
in my last game (On emperor as i printscreen) half of the continent turn into barbarians and swap from 30 standard population in city to 5-8. Maybe do something with "modern barbarians" to be real threat to neghbour countries if "Fall of empire" happen?
Communists almost won military - if AI were a bit smarter, who know how my game would end..
Anyway i like this AI - it give some sense of unpredictability in the game - it show how empires, mighty - after several decades of turbulence, sliding into chaos.
But still it will be nice to see when barbarians after ancient era still could bite, produce units etc not only defend.

 

[Ahnarras]

The gameplay is much more interesting after this change since big civs don’t get distracted by war with 1 pop 1 city rebel civilizations.

I would bet. I'm really curious to know how my game could have turned out with Shaka taking the whole south of Africa and having my empire being the next in line to his bloodthirst.
Or if I would have been able to keep up with a Tokugawa controlling all of Asia.

But I have spent too many hours in that game to let it go now. I will finish it, one day or another

No idea, as I'm still on Windows 10.

On that topic, with the end of Windows 10 nearing, did anyone tried to upgrade to Windows 11 while having a game in progress ?
As far as I know, it shouldn't touch the files so I'm guessing it's not dangerous to switch to W11 but I would rather be certain of it.

Or perhaps should I take my save and R:I files and put them on a flash drive ?

To be honest, I'm not crazy about the latin name. One thing that works well with "Realism Invictus" is that it rolls off the tongue pretty well. It's intuitive to be read, heard, written, and spoken. The pure latin names all give me a sense of "wait, what did I just read?". I'm not likely to remember them, let alone how to spell them. If we look at games that have done something similar (primarily Europa Universalis), a prominent part of the title's success is that both words are commonly heard and used in English and easy to pick up on and reiterate, even to those that have never before heard of the game.

I'm on the same boat. The name is etablished by now, and, having never studied latin, I would hate to have my favorite mod's name be something I can't even understand.
I will add that rebranding is often done to product that have a good chance to grow in popularity, to make it easier to introduce them to new customers. Not sure it can apply here, as I don't see Civ IV being popular on mainstream gaming media again anytime soon.
Is there a reason for that rebranding ? Copyright issue, perhaps ?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

with the end of Windows 10 nearing

As a PSA to everyone reading this who, like me, hates W11, you can sign up for another year of Windows 10 updates. Go to Settings->Update and Security->Windows Update, and you should see an option to enrol into Extended Security Updates. Should be free of charge too.

Is there a reason for that rebranding ?

I feel like I shared those several times already.
1) Mix of English and Latin
2) I feel the word "Realism" gives a wrong spotlight to the mod
3) I wanted to mark a major milestone (20 years)

As this is not a commercial product, I don't really care about its popularity all that much. But interestingly enough, there seem to be those "new customers", as each release version experiences a major surge of downloads, and those numbers have been growing over the last several years, meaning there's a constant influx of new people.

 

[civ4-advciv-oracle-bug]

As a PSA to everyone reading this who, like me, hates W11, you can sign up for another year of Windows 10 updates. Go to Settings->Update and Security->Windows Update, and you should see an option to enrol into Extended Security Updates. Should be free of charge too.

I can confirm windows 11 is **** xd, if i may intrude on this topic xd, it would hang for several minutes just to open explorer or any/some exe file(s), and had many weird issues and was simply unreliable, even after clean reinstalling the os from scratch, changing hardware, etc. I thought my hardware was faulty but it was (maybe still is?) (or some combinaiton or hardware/software or such who knows) just the os that was the issue it seems all along but anyways etc.

I didn't know we could update i mean, glad to know i can have another year, although i would not have updated anyway even if security updates were to expectedly end anytime soon (although i can't recommend it of course, but it makes jsut more sense, and is perhaps good time to share my experience about windows 11 xd. Hopefully they'll fix it by then, but i can't be too hopeful, still windows 10 works nice, so glad i can safely keep it longer if i may say anyways etc)

As this is not a commercial product, I don't really care about its popularity all that much. But interestingly enough, there seem to be those "new customers", as each release version experiences a major surge of downloads, and those numbers have been growing over the last several years, meaning there's a constant influx of new people.

Since i commented i might as well comment on this one although i like/prefer to focus on my mod xd only (generally not like it's too strict xd but anyways etc), yes generally it does seem like not too many players play civ4 recently, but the number is not 0, some who don't play may be interested generally for some reaosn it seems as well possibly. But what matters most to me i'd say indeed is that i'd "do it for myself" whatever it means and not sure it is intellectually too honest as feedback is nice, but it is also fun to mod (although tedious at times but fun but anyways etc). So i like the idea of being aware of this while i mod at least xd if i may say but anyways etc. Beyond that i don't have too much to say xd but wanted to react on that thanks xd. And if you're curious you can see my mod as well (shameless advertising xd but since i posted this might as well do some publicity, find link in my description (i said it at last (now i'm like a famous youtuber xd or not but anyways etc) although was not planned xd but anyways etc) in ressources tab or wherever it is xd thanks but anyways etc.

 

[TheBirdMan]

On that topic, with the end of Windows 10 nearing, did anyone tried to upgrade to Windows 11 while having a game in progress ?
As far as I know, it shouldn't touch the files so I'm guessing it's not dangerous to switch to W11 but I would rather be certain of it.

I just installed BtS again with the patch. Installed RI (and later also the SVN version, which I couldn't play on my old 'puter) and copied the latest 10 played turns from my running game from my old 'puter to the new 'puter. The turn from my "old" game worked as they should. No problems with the game - the problems came with/from Windows11 itself - guess I didn't read all that with small (hidden) letters first .Luckily most is solved by now.


Where the screenshots from the game are placed: Still an open question - I have not yet had time to work with this, so I'm not sure if it's my fault or a hidden Windows 11 "feature".

I use Notepad++ for all my XML (and Python and C++) editing needs - it's free, powerful and convenient.

Downloaded, installed and tested (I changed the feature growthfactor in GlobalDefines.xml (I want the forests and savannas to spread faster) and the DistanceBetweenCites in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml (I need a bigger distance between cities due to my big maps). Thanks.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-remove-most-annoying-ads-from-windows# maybe this will help?

It surely did. I still get a few, but it's now on a level I easily can live with. At least until I find a way to "kill" those too.