Realism Invictus

[Joij21]

We gonna get opium, chocolate, rubber, and tea this Christmas?

Also could use some coca plants too. HO!HO!HO!

 

[JDCP]

could be replaced with photographs or artwork of (e.g.) the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.

like a slideshow? Or just a picture? Both could be rather simple, hell even throwing up a mix of footage from the NASA should work.

Don't count me on it now though even if I had the time I'm still dogshit at this

I don't care too much about in-game years or when particular techs happen (within reason) since I don't treat Civ as a simulation of our timeline, although I kind of liked when these first techs were a bit more expensive so I could enjoy that wild world slightly longer - but it's something I will probably just somehow adjust for myself when I find these modifiers.

Yep, even if it was that important I think it's too much effort syncing it for something that really isn't worth it anyway

I personally liked the pace I had in my recent up to date SVN game, in fact for a second I was like "did I broke something?" and looked into what speed I had set (0.5) and was surprised.

It was WAYYYY too fast for what I remembered then I started to wonder if I had been tricked by my mind, having not played in so long, suddenly finding myself enjoying the game a lot that time just flew by. But just 2 hours had gone by and I was already in classical age. And I didn't trick my way into it with the oracle or anything I waited all those turns to get free of that 50% time penalty, but I found myself already at the point I couldn't research anything that wasn't ahead of time.

Maybe it's just pagan temples that are busted or something but I don't remember my monarch games being this straightfoward

I was very surprised and as I said I don't mind it at all, but I'm certainly gonna miss those extremely hard early game wars where you don't have **** but the AI suddenly got a modest army and you gotta pull some sorcery out of your pockets to sustain the invasion (a chariot to save the day lol).

Overally it's for the best I say, just a big change for me but it might make the game more fun in the long run... or maybe not Depends the player I guess.

Technically he wasn't too inaccurate, just somewhat low-quality. It was basically this guy:

I swear I've seen this guy in the game before... he looks oddly familiar and I don't mean it because of the knights.

Ever thought about mixing them? A more high quality version of the old one accompained by these heavily armoured new ones, would probably be hard to bring to life sure, but if it could be done... would you agree? knights with different armors and weapons besides some texture changes?

If there was an unit that did suffer from extreme low quality it was the celtic footknight, albeit very cool, the textures were an eyesore and even though I loved the design I just couldn't get over that. I'm really glad to see the new ones. It's not even that different. I think this is what makes me like these units a bit more than the old ones, the "soul" is still there just presented in a well deserved facelift.

Side question, but what prompted the redesign of the spanish knights? They used to have a more unique design but now they use the same model as the hungarians with some texture work. Yes I do feel this is more fitting, historically correct and certainly more pleasant to look at, but I wonder why. I assume they got the Celtic treatment too? would be interested in seeing a picture of the inspiration for this one please.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Just checked the farm situation in the latest SVN, they look really good now, especially on grasslands - well visible and not too "watery".

Just got home from celebrating the holiday with my family and got a chance to update and take a look, and I've got to echo this! No tree line, oh-well, but the separated fields as irrigation look quite good, I have to agree.

Not to harp, but what about a tree line for industrial farms, then, since their absence is what caused catastrophes like the Dust Bowl (where they were otherwise normative), and irrigation at this point didn't necessarily have to separate fields in networks of ditches flowing by gravity, but increasingly began to take the form of mechanical sprinklers, all the importance of a barrier to the wind from eroding topsoil notwithstanding? Again, just following the invocation on aesthetic matters as implored.

Pretty far from default settings, but at least it's not a custom 100500x100500 size, so I could actually run a hands-off and test myself replicating your exact settings. I don't generally measure tech progress through Islam (as it's very dependent on particular leaders' favourites), but here's from my first hands-off test:

Spoiler big screenshot :

View attachment 748860

Pretty reasonable I'd say. By my own metrics, the tech progress at turns 1000, 1250 and 1500 was almost ideal. Of course it's n=1, as giant maps take freaking forever to autorun. Also, as I previously mentioned, I am not quite sure if AI autoplay doesn't skew the results one way or the other, but I don't really have any other way of generating a decent number of runs with different options.

A fully serious question, since I always reset this from the default value from each new official install back to 50: do you yourself really play on such a high FOV value? While I like the expansiveness of the screen, I feel that this angle makes granular detail "farther away" and therefore harder to see, and the game a little less easily played for that reason.

EDIT: Also, this was something mentioned a while back (I believe on the eve of 3.7's official release last year) but several of the leaders' in-game music is synced to the wrong culture still (one of Hungary's is still that of Malis/Sahelians, for instance). Correcting all of these in a short span of time may be too much of an ask, but I am also reiterating that as a cosmetic feature of previously stated importance in case it's any matter of priority for 3.8, and could spare some time to help sort that out if desired.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Are there ways to change the text sharpness? Sometimes it looks a bit blurry around the edges.

All in-game text uses system fonts, so there is really no way to affect text sharpness. Given you are on Linux my bet would be on system-side changes to rendering.

We gonna get opium, chocolate, rubber, and tea this Christmas?

Also could use some coca plants too. HO!HO!HO!

No.

I personally liked the pace I had in my recent up to date SVN game, in fact for a second I was like "did I broke something?" and looked into what speed I had set (0.5) and was surprised.

Which is why we have different speeds! To each their own.

I swear I've seen this guy in the game before... he looks oddly familiar and I don't mean it because of the knights.

Celtic medieval swordsman, AKA the unit that had 3 variants for 10 years, yet 2 of those were never properly referenced in XML.

Ever thought about mixing them? A more high quality version of the old one accompained by these heavily armoured new ones, would probably be hard to bring to life sure, but if it could be done... would you agree? knights with different armors and weapons besides some texture changes?

In an ideal world where I have infinite time to do that to every unit? Of course. In reality, I have lots of other sub-par units to work on still.

Side question, but what prompted the redesign of the spanish knights? They used to have a more unique design but now they use the same model as the hungarians with some texture work. Yes I do feel this is more fitting, historically correct and certainly more pleasant to look at, but I wonder why. I assume they got the Celtic treatment too? would be interested in seeing a picture of the inspiration for this one please.

Looking up actual sources on how they're supposed to look.

The previous ones were abstractly thrown a long time ago and frankly did not resemble anything Iberian. There are some more specifically Iberian armour variants that I could have used, and maybe will, but there was nothing ready-made for that so this is for the future when I have more time, and will likely go to foot knights instead.

Many knights were among the first units to be added to RI, and were not only lower quality but also poorer researched. With recent Polish knights, I am now finally satisfied with all. Some European civs, as mentioned above, may get more unique foot knights in future, but overall I am happy with where we are now.

Not to harp, but what about a tree line for industrial farms

You are harping, my friend. We've discussed that already a couple of times; I don't feel like doing those, as I feel the scale difference required with regular forests (at least 3x) would be far too jarring.

A fully serious question, since I always reset this from the default value from each new official install back to 50: do you yourself really play on such a high FOV value? While I like the expansiveness of the screen, I feel that this angle makes granular detail "farther away" and therefore harder to see, and the game a little less easily played for that reason.

I have a really big monitor at home. If I play on a laptop, I keep it much closer to default.

 

[[Y]]

Pretty far from default settings, but at least it's not a custom 100500x100500 size, so I could actually run a hands-off and test myself replicating your exact settings

I do modify my map script to add more land tile, but probably not enough to be a big impact.

I don't generally measure tech progress through Islam (as it's very dependent on particular leaders' favourites), but here's from my first hands-off test

I typically use Islam because there's a global announcement when someone founds the religion. Other medieval techs might be reached first, but I wouldn't know. When someone founds Isalm, I get to say "what? already!?"

Your situation looks much more normal than mine, at least as far as religion founding dates... But Hungary still being in the classical era in 1442 AD caught me off guard. Was it a recently settled barb city?

Pretty reasonable I'd say. By my own metrics, the tech progress at turns 1000, 1250 and 1500 was almost ideal. Of course it's n=1, as giant maps take freaking forever to autorun. Also, as I previously mentioned, I am not quite sure if AI autoplay doesn't skew the results one way or the other, but I don't really have any other way of generating a decent number of runs with different options.

I'll play a few more games until medieval era on my settings to see if my results are consistent, and then play a few games on the normal settings to compare and see if my local setup is consistently drifted. What settings do you normally test on?

Given how I relatively recently made early techs cheaper, I'd say it's pretty par the course. Definitely not something to balance other techs against, as they will all be relatively more expensive.

For what it's worth, I was very happy with the previous ancient era research rates, with 10ish turns for tier 1 techs and the later shift date for classical techs decreased costs. I'm not sure the +100% cost for classical era techs has an effect anymore. If you beeline for a classical tech from turn 1, would the research even complete before the tech rate changes? If not, then the tech rate changes while the tech is being researched, and the researcher effectively gets refunded the extra science invested. I'll give this a test and see what happens.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Your situation looks much more normal than mine, at least as far as religion founding dates... But Hungary still being in the classical era in 1442 AD caught me off guard. Was it a recently settled barb city?

Nah, just the worst start on the whole map, and very early on reduced to one city, which wasn't even their capital.

I'll play a few more games until medieval era on my settings to see if my results are consistent, and then play a few games on the normal settings to compare and see if my local setup is consistently drifted. What settings do you normally test on?

See, I don't even start looking at the tech pacing until late medieval era. I find the first 1000 turns far too variable and dependent on lots of factors to draw conclusions from. From 1000 onwards, the general pace is usually much more even between different games.

The "default" setup for testing is a bit different from what I normally play. It's no separatism, no barbarian civs, large fractal map. When I actually play (doesn't happen very often) I usually go for a Totestra or a Planet Generator, and I may or may not turn barbarian civs on.

For what it's worth, I was very happy with the previous ancient era research rates, with 10ish turns for tier 1 techs and the later shift date for classical techs decreased costs. I'm not sure the +100% cost for classical era techs has an effect anymore. If you beeline for a classical tech from turn 1, would the research even complete before the tech rate changes? If not, then the tech rate changes while the tech is being researched, and the researcher effectively gets refunded the extra science invested. I'll give this a test and see what happens.

Ultimately, it's a matter of personal taste; I believe I laid out the general considerations for shortening the ancient era already.

 

[[Y]]

Ultimately, it's a matter of personal taste; I believe I laid out the general considerations for shortening the ancient era already.

I believed you did too, but actually going back and looking at the last 10 or so pages, and trying to find it with the search, I haven't found much of an overarching philosophy. Not requesting a rehash, just providing an explanation as to why I might be clueless about those generalizations.

and yeah, it's personal taste. But now it also often feels like I'm playing with an advanced start but with more tedium involved, and I'm tempted to say that if the ancient era is so uninteresting to people, they probably should play with an advanced start, and leave the ancient era experience as it was for those of us that enjoyed it was it was.

 

[Joij21]

No

Why is there only coffee for plantation? Why no chocolate for Aztecs?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Why is there only coffee for plantation? Why no chocolate for Aztecs?

Because there are enough resources as it is. It's a game, not a simulator of everything in the world.

 

[AspiringScholar]

You are harping, my friend. We've discussed that already a couple of times; I don't feel like doing those, as I feel the scale difference required with regular forests (at least 3x) would be far too jarring.

Ok, understood. I didn't recall the specific reason off-hand from before, but don't want to be annoying and won't bring it up again.

On the note of another topic that I have also mentioned before and which doesn't fit your vision, is it even possible to move the Foundry to a limited buildings line, since it upgrades from the Blast Furnace which is a regular building? The Potter's Workshop, for instance, requires a Granary and is a limited building, but also doesn't directly upgrade from one. While I of course respect your interests to prevail on whatever makes it into the official mod, if this is something that can be done, I would like to modify my own install locally to achieve this. I really like where they are right now effect-wise in being mightily potent, but don't like how you are incentivized to build them in every city without a meaningful drawback, and it feels less authentic to reality that more than only a few cities in one's native empire could feasibly have one. I'm assuming it wouldn't be as simple as moving the building to another directory and would require some extra coding, but if it's as easy as that, I thought I would ask.

Also, bumping the addendum to my previous post in case it was missed, since your reply was before I had added this:

EDIT: Also, this was something mentioned a while back (I believe on the eve of 3.7's official release last year) but several of the leaders' in-game music is synced to the wrong culture still (one of Hungary's is still that of Malis/Sahelians, for instance). Correcting all of these in a short span of time may be too much of an ask, but I am also reiterating that as a cosmetic feature of previously stated importance in case it's any matter of priority for 3.8, and could spare some time to help sort that out if desired.

Why is there only coffee for plantation? Why no chocolate for Aztecs?

While I agree with the above and am in any case also not the one curating the mod, wouldn't this technically be something you'd ascribe to Maya rather than Aztecs anyway?

 

[AspiringScholar]

I believed you did too, but actually going back and looking at the last 10 or so pages, and trying to find it with the search, I haven't found much of an overarching philosophy. Not requesting a rehash, just providing an explanation as to why I might be clueless about those generalizations.

and yeah, it's personal taste. But now it also often feels like I'm playing with an advanced start but with more tedium involved, and I'm tempted to say that if the ancient era is so uninteresting to people, they probably should play with an advanced start, and leave the ancient era experience as it was for those of us that enjoyed it was it was.

Also (and at the expense of a double-post, having not seen this until a double-take), I would say that I am one who actually does specifically like the ancient era and didn't feel it too short, either. I find it highly interesting, even if my own interest in the game finds a zenith towards its final third. That loneliness and bareness, and all of the flavor imputed into a world full of dangerous wild animals and all of the power commanded by any minute advantage over nature, and what kind of desirable unclaimed land you can stake your flag into and hope to defend with only slightly sharper and more durable weapons, feels very authentic to ancient history and is repeatably fun to play. I just don't know what you fail to find fun or satisfying in the era: should it simply last longer, so that more ancient cities exist before other complications interrupt this paradigm, or is there some fundamental disturbance to the balance of the era as it was otherwise excellent in RI? If the former, then I'd beg the question as to why or how the calendar date itself is that important, but as the recent tests seem to indicate, proximity to our history seems pretty well-tethered to the very same, all contention for that just being a guideline aside.

 

[sazhdapec]

A couple of bugs (SVN 5545).
1) Navigation tech costs less than its counterparts.
2) Emplaced cannon civilopedia entry is broken.
3) Some of newly introduced motorized infantry variants in civilopedia have hollow wheels: USA, Korea, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Middle East, Scandinavia, Spain. USA, for example:

4) Strategy entries of light horsemen state incorrectly that they provide mobility aid.
5) Not a bug but due to my OCD drives me crazy: Feudal Monarchy provides one of everything (or 10%) but 2!!!

One another thing.
Let's imagine a situation: a wonder enabled a civic and a player switched to it. Then this wonder is lost. The next turn the player is automatically "moved" to a default civic.
I have a strong feeling that some time ago the behaviour was different. The civic stayed.
So I have a question: was something changed in this regard semi-recently or am I just delusional?

Are there ways to change the text sharpness? Sometimes it looks a bit blurry around the edges.

Choose Proton-GE as a runner in Bottles preferences.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

1) Navigation tech costs less than its counterparts.

Thanks, fixed.

2) Emplaced cannon civilopedia entry is broken.

Already found and fixed, but not uploaded yet. Still, thanks.

3) Some of newly introduced motorized infantry variants in civilopedia have hollow wheels: USA, Korea, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Middle East, Scandinavia, Spain. USA, for example:

Most of them (including the example you show) are actually old and were always like that - but since they are now up for closer scrutiny, I'll fix that.

4) Strategy entries of light horsemen state incorrectly that they provide mobility aid.

Thanks, more comments on strategy entries always welcome, as those need to be updated by hand for any changes.

5) Not a bug but due to my OCD drives me crazy: Feudal Monarchy provides one of everything (or 10%) but 2!!!

OK, I'll change this one!

One another thing.
Let's imagine a situation: a wonder enabled a civic and a player switched to it. Then this wonder is lost. The next turn the player is automatically "moved" to a default civic.
I have a strong feeling that some time ago the behaviour was different. The civic stayed.
So I have a question: was something changed in this regard semi-recently or am I just delusional?

There were no changes specific to that. But I have a suspicion of what's going on. The old behaviour might have been a bug, but mechanically it's actually preferential.

 

[Alekseyev_]

Yes, thank you, that'll make my life a bit easier.

Just as an update, I'm working on it, but I haven't found as much time as I hoped, so it's a WIP. I'll upload the file here once I'm done - I take it I'm at very little risk of any updates of yours colliding with those particular entries until then. If you need me to hurry up, just say so however, I'm sure I can rearrange some plans and get a focused session in.

By the way, when I hit that SVN update button and see this massive, massive list of entries that are updated, added, deleted... I'm so impressed how you manage to do this all by yourself. The amount of work that goes into this really isn't seen as much when you just use the installer and have it all done behind the scenes, but seeing each of the files and knowing the work that goes into not only updating the very models/graphics, but also fixing/adjusting all the file paths in the data... daunting. I've done my fair share of Civ3 modding back in the day, and I always loathed setting up the unit animations and PediaIcons txt file, and the work there is dwarfed by most SVN commits alone. Can't put it into words very well, but thanks for your continuous work! It means a lot. And the game has come so far. I remember playing RI the first time in the 2010s (I guess) and then ditching it for a while since the AI seemed to not work very well, but since re-discovering it in 2022, it's probably been my most played mod, alongside the "Expanding Fronts" mod for the RTS game "Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds", which I played in multiplayer a ton. But that is a very different game.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Ok, this is one of those cases where I actually feel dumb for not knowing this, but even more angry at the person who did that originally, as there is literally zero communication on this vanilla feature from the UI. Apparently, you get a 20% bonus towards research speed for every "or" prerequisite for a tech you have. This is at least somewhat well known, and I was like "ok, we literally only have a couple of those techs with alternative prerequisites in RI, so this barely concerns us". Wrong. Apparently, if a tech has one "or" prerequisite, it still counts, as the "or" tech is used to draw the freaking arrow in the tech tree. So when you are researching almost any given tech (except for the very first ones), you are getting a 20% bonus that is not communicated in any way shape or form by the game. It's simply that you generate 10 and research a 120-cost tech in 10 turns.

After testing the fix for that (see below), I also found another gem of vanilla code - apparently, the amount of research you generate per turn also always gets an invisible +1. So if you have a 9 city at the start and research a 100 tech without any modifiers active, it'll take you exactly 10 turns, and each of those turns you'll generate 10, with no indication anywhere in the UI of why that happens.

Amazing work, vanilla UI guys.

What was done now is that every "or" prerequisite past the first will provide the bonus. And the invisible +1 research is obviously gone (or rather gone in all the cases where any research is being generated; I don't want to accidentally cause a divide by zero anywhere).

And of course, this means more tech speed rebalancing. Yaaaaaay.

Thanks @RezerCuid for helping me pinpoint the original issue.

Just as an update, I'm working on it, but I haven't found as much time as I hoped, so it's a WIP. I'll upload the file here once I'm done - I take it I'm at very little risk of any updates of yours colliding with those particular entries until then. If you need me to hurry up, just say so however, I'm sure I can rearrange some plans and get a focused session in.

Would be great to have sometime next week, preferably earlier rather than later, as I'd like to have the test installer version out by the next weekend.

By the way, when I hit that SVN update button and see this massive, massive list of entries that are updated, added, deleted... I'm so impressed how you manage to do this all by yourself. The amount of work that goes into this really isn't seen as much when you just use the installer and have it all done behind the scenes, but seeing each of the files and knowing the work that goes into not only updating the very models/graphics, but also fixing/adjusting all the file paths in the data... daunting.

This should tell you how boring a person I am in real life - with how much of my spare time I pour into RI.

 

[RezerCuid]

This should tell you how boring a person I am in real life - with how much of my spare time I pour into RI.

Your mod is so well-designed that it could be bought by Ubisoft or another major game company.

What do you think about it?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Your mod is so well-designed that it could be bought by Ubisoft or another major game company.

And ruined!

 

[Joij21]

While I agree with the above and am in any case also not the one curating the mod, wouldn't this technically be something you'd ascribe to Maya rather than Aztecs anyway?

Aztecs were the one's who made cocoa a sacred drink that was only to be consumed by those considered gods (mainly royalty/high priests).

 

[tebriz]

Ok, this is one of those cases where I actually feel dumb for not knowing this, but even more angry at the person who did that originally, as there is literally zero communication on this vanilla feature from the UI. Apparently, you get a 20% bonus towards research speed for every "or" prerequisite for a tech you have. This is at least somewhat well known, and I was like "ok, we literally only have a couple of those techs with alternative prerequisites in RI, so this barely concerns us". Wrong. Apparently, if a tech has one "or" prerequisite, it still counts, as the "or" tech is used to draw the freaking arrow in the tech tree. So when you are researching almost any given tech (except for the very first ones), you are getting a 20% bonus that is not communicated in any way shape or form by the game. It's simply that you generate 10 and research a 120-cost tech in 10 turns.

After testing the fix for that (see below), I also found another gem of vanilla code - apparently, the amount of research you generate per turn also always gets an invisible +1. So if you have a 9 city at the start and research a 100 tech without any modifiers active, it'll take you exactly 10 turns, and each of those turns you'll generate 10, with no indication anywhere in the UI of why that happens.

Amazing work, vanilla UI guys.

What was done now is that every "or" prerequisite past the first will provide the bonus. And the invisible +1 research is obviously gone (or rather gone in all the cases where any research is being generated; I don't want to accidentally cause a divide by zero anywhere).

And of course, this means more tech speed rebalancing. Yaaaaaay.

Thanks @RezerCuid for helping me pinpoint the original issue.

Would be great to have sometime next week, preferably earlier rather than later, as I'd like to have the test installer version out by the next weekend.

This should tell you how boring a person I am in real life - with how much of my spare time I pour into RI.

OMG! This is mind blowing !
By the way, in vanilla Civ4, when you conquer a city you also get partial research progress toward a technology that rival civilization knows, but you haven’t discovered yet. Does RI also “inherit” this mechanic? And if so, do you think it should?

 

[tebriz]

So it means that we should reduce base technology cost by approximately 20% in order to get the same research pace?