Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
Tangential spitball idea here: What if Spy units gained experience for completing successful missions, and had promotions for things like "-10% chance of being caught while traveling through rival territory","-10% cost/+10% chance of success when performing [MISSION or GROUP OF RELATED MISSIONS]", "+1 vision range", and "+1 movement"
It doesn't address the original point directly, but it would allow things like creating spies that specialize in traveling through several civilizations to perform missions against distant rivals.
I think there is a modcomp somewhere on CFC for that or something very similar... In general I must say I am quite dissatisfied with the way espionage is implemented in Civ 4 (too much micromanagement). If I were to overhaul espionage one day, I'd probably get rid of the spy units entirely and make a system closer to Civ:BE.
Do you have a code wishlist anywhere? I don't have experience with modding the Civ IV SDK, but I'm a programmer and would be willing to spend a few evenings poking around to see how to implement something simple but low-to-moderate priority if you guys have a way to receive and approve submissions from non-team members.
I wish I had. I am not so organized as to write out my code wishes; I usually just throw them at Josh (our code guy) and hope he gets to it. Anyway, contact me through a PM if you wish to help us with small code bits. I think there is always more room for that.
Unless, of course, the big component your code guy is working on (RevolutionDCM, perhaps?) means they're working in lots of files and having somebody else poking around and making different changes in those same files would just cause more problems for them.
I think it is... But that shouldn't preclude some smaller changes.
1. The unit upgrade costs are a bit messed up with the inclusion of cost increase system. You say that you are willing to solve the problem with some programming. But I can't really see immediately, how this will be possible. The unit upgrade tree is very complex. For example, an archer can be upgraded to both crossbowmen or longbowmen. On the other hand, you can upgrade a pikeman or a men-at-arms to a fusilier. But you can also upgrade the men-at-arms to a grenadier. :S Furthermore, there are special cases like the roman shortswordman (polybian legionary) can be upgraded to axeman (marian legionary) which can be upgraded to the swordsman (imperial legionary).
We are very aware of the issue, and we'll be looking at ways of fixing that.
How about a temporary solution maybe - increasing the base cost for upgrading a unit from 10 to lets say 40, but decrease the gold per hammer ratio?
I am not sure if we can specify decimal ratios, and lowering the ration from 2 to 1 would be too great a step.
2. One problem is that the units become very expensive. Well, it is not the problem itself. The problem is the buildings become so cheap compared to the units. The question whether you should build your 11th swordsman or a library becomes too easy to answer, since the swordsman costs much more and it strengthens your already strong army only a tiny bit more.
Therefore, I would slightly increase the buildings' cost and/or slightly decrease the base cost of military units.
That was already done with later buildings. We may see after additional testing if we need to increase it more.
3. I know it would be very time consuming to implement but: How about reorganizing the XML files in a different way, since we have sooo many flavour units and buildings?
For instance, you simply define a base unit spearman with 4 and lets say +100% vs cavalry. Then if arabian spearmen, it gets 10% desert strength. Then if celtic spearmen, it gets -25% vs. cavalry so that it is +75% in total. That way, if at some point you decide that all spearmen are too strong vs cavalry and they should be nerfed, you can do it by changing the attributes of the base spearmen. Wouldn't that make your work much more easier and pleasant in the long term, since it seems that you will never ever stop to improve your mod?
I personally love to alter things in games; editing stats of buildings, units, civics... optimizing the game to the best point possible! But I simply can't do it with your mod! It is so complicated, and also it is mentally exhausting if you want change things like adding +10% vs archers to every swordsmen or so.
Interestingly, I think what you are saying is actually possible. But it would require a tremendous amount of effort, and also it will have a disadvantage from a modder's point of view: currently you can see ALL the things you can do to a unit in XML. If we do this, you will constantly have to check up on schema file to see your opportunities.
a. Tech diffusion: It is a great, revolutionary feature, and it is for me the signature feature of your mod and maybe the main reason why I only play your mod! But it is too simple. Make it a bit more dependent on other factors: Distance, relationships,... I think this has been discussed several times. But I just wanted to encourage you one more time.
Maybe. Though I must say that we tend to apply the KISS prinicple to our design lately. I prefer to have systems that players find easy to understand and use. For example, right now you can always be sure what your bonus will be.
b. Trading in diplomacy: AI's evaluation of how valuable a resource is, is terrible, and should be reworked. This is something that you are definitely aware of, but once again, I just want to encourage you.
Yep, we're aware of that and trying to fix this all the time. It is already significantly better than it was. If you have any particular observations you could share with us regarding this, they may be useful.
I see that you are working on a revolutionary financial upgrade. At first sight, things are looking promising. I just want to add a few suggestions, and maybe you consider them:
It is not really revolutionary per se, not how production upgrade was, at any rate. Most bonuses are still there, just moved for logical consistency and better distributed throughout the tech tree (for example, a marketplace doesn't provide you with gold - it boosts trade; it is tax collectors who actually bring you gold). It also aims to make most buildings have a better, singular purpose and eliminate smallish bonuses like +5% that are not really useful for players and just clutter stuff up.
The biggest change is probably the lack of scaling gold from shrines.
1. A castle would provide some military presence in the region and therefore would prevent banditry. This would encourage trade. Therefore castle might give +1 or +2 to caravan house.
This is represented by you in game by physically protecting routes from barbarians. Remember that unless running Feudal Aristocracy, a castle is merely a fortification, not a seat of local authority, and its current stats reflect it. With FA, you can build several upgrades to your castles that enhance their functionality.
2. I'd like to see the merchant specialists earlier, so that one can generate a great merchant. Currently, we can generate a great merchant only after researching currency, or by building the Temple of Artemis. However, we know that the ancient Egyptians organized several great trade expeditions to the Land of Punt more than a thousand years before the invention of currency. Such an expedition would be the equivalent of a great merchant being established in a foreign city in the Civ IV game.
I have to playtest to give you an answer on this one, to get a "feel" for the issue.
3. Why does clock tower give +20%? Isn't it a bit too much? For instance, why is the impact of building a clock tower greater than the invention of printing press?
That's what you get for commenting on an ongoing multi-part upload. It doesn't.
... 4. I'm a bit skeptical about river dock.
a. I think the +1 for tiles adjacent to river is already simulates the trade along the river.
b. The benefit of river dock is identical to the normal harbor. But I think a city should benefit more from sea trade than river trade.
Historically, river trade was more important than sea trade for a very long while. Before oceangoing ships, coastlines were technically just long dangerous rivers with one bank. If you look at most big cities both historically and nowadays, you'd see them founded on rivers, most often as trade posts.
I apologise ahead of time for the long post, but this is a very complex and often misunderstood topic.
I think I will have to answer you separately on this one; anyway, we're getting mightily off-topic.
[Y];14098519 said:I started a game today. I had 5 visible resources in my capital's area, and they were all covered in jungle, meaning I couldn't make use of any of them for hundreds of turns. I regenerated the map.
I don't think that jungle is broken by design. The design is fine. The problem is that a player should have methods of utilizing the jungle. There should be improvements, techs, or civics that allow the jungles to become practical, even before they can be chopped down. In this way, jungles aren't a randomly determined handicap, but a factor on play style, which is exactly what they should be. Chopping them down should come in later as a huge infrastructure sweep, such as having to replace all slave farms for regular farms when switching to peasant servitude.
As it stands, some civilizations are currently able to thrive in jungles (Maya, Aztecs, etc). It's cool that civilizations that have actually come from jungle terrains have it easier in the game, but that isn't a reason for all other civilizations to be penalized, and forbidden from adapting to such maps. When a map loads and I see jungle everywhere, I should think "Ahh, so I'm going to have to play this way" and not think "Ahh, so this game is pretty much a lose cause...".
Hm, do you have any realistic suggestions regarding that?