Hey everyone, I'm back from a lengthy vacation, and I've rolled out some updates that should be affecting the game balance quite a lot. Hopefully in a good way.
Hi, several weeks ago I decided to make my own version of realism invictus by editing the xml files. I kept track of my changes, so I will write them down. If the developers like one or two ideas I've implemented, they may consider to adapt some of those changes. I'd be greatly happy.
With so many changes, you should consider releasing it as a modmod (though of course basing it off an SVN version is problematic in that respect). I admire the globality of your approach to changes, and even when not adopting those directly (though I did some, see below), reading through this and the following discussion gave me a lot of food for thought.
Firstly: I didn't like that by the medieval ages all jungles are cleared and all tiles have a road and an improvement. So, I took the following precautions:
Worker Cost 25% up for every worker
Slaves don't die
Chance of capturing a slave is halved, but they give 60
not 30.
Slave to Worker probability when changing civic from slavery to another one: It was 50%. Now it is 20%
Slave Work rate: Not 50% but 25% of an ordinary worker.
Worker Build rate is halved
Well, here one is trying to solve a very contradictory problem, from gameplay point of view:
1) Jungle is considered a "bad" tile.
2) This is a strategy game focused around a civilization developing and molding the environment around it though technologies, improvements and stuff.
3) Delaying and even taking away the ability to do that significantly reduces the strategic enjoyability of the game.
To add to that, a little known fact. In the Old World, most forestation
was indeed cleared by the medieval ages, except for the areas where people were still at tribal stages of development. People don't realize the degree of forestation (and following man-made deforestation) that pre-dated civilization. It is said that a squirrel could run from Greece to Spain never touching the ground 7000 years ago. Most areas of North Africa and Middle East were forested (those deserts - totally man-made!). If anything, Civ series downplays the extent of environmental changes due to early human activity.
Then I wanted that some strong wonders go obsolete earlier. I think I will make more changes in the future:
Great Library: Paper
Lighthouse: Rudder
Parthenon: Theology
Angkor Wat: Enlightenment, btw it now becomes available with Church architecture
Artemis: Theology
Sankore: Scientific Experiment
Gondeshapur:University
Also the Great Library will be giving free scientists now, not a science bonus. Why? Because the Great Library is my favorite wonder, and I want it to be strong, that's why
While I am intrinsically opposed to these changes (as I like the feeling of permanence provided by wonder effects), I guess this positively affects game dynamism. I will consider giving early wonders much less of a duration...
Now I played with the food a bit:
Peasant servitude tech doesn't give +1
to Farm, Aryk Farm, Communal Farm, Pancrasti Field,Kemet Farm, Timar now.
Also: South China Farm: No longer +1
from Botany; Folwark initially +1
, not +2
Also: Mechanize Farm: initially +2
, not +3
In other words: All farms give 1 less food than normal peasant servitude onwards.
Watermill: I just threw in a +1
bonus to make it more attractive.
City center gives only 2
now instead of 4. But granary and smokehouse each give +1
. So you may want to build them earlier.
The change to Peasant Servitude has already been implemented independently in SVN since.
As far as watermills are concerned, I am actually considering a different approach altogether. Usually, a river tile is too important anyway to put a watermill there, and I almost never see them built (or want to build them myself). It might instead become a city building.
I tried to balance economy civics a bit by making the following changes:
Guilds: No Gold bonus, high upkeep, +1
to industrial plantation
Merchant Princes: Low upkeep, no -25% distance upkeep, no extra trade routes, +1
to merchant, New National Wonder: Merchant Prince
The national wonder gives
bonus to your caravan houses and harbors. That means, merchant princes is an effective civic, only if you are ready to invest in your trading network.
Free Market: +1 trade routes, not +2
Yeah, I still have to find a good balance for economy civics. Getting there...
Then I looked at the specialists:
I made great specialists weaker to encourage player to use their great people for starting golden age, building great works, establishing trae route etc. So: Great Artist and Great Spy doesn't give 3+12 but 1+8; Great Merchant and Great Scientist don't give 1+6 but 1+4 resources.
Artist and great artist get no bonus from theatre and get only +1
from opera and cinema each.
Merchant Republic: +3 Merchant slots
Trade Fair: +1 Merchant slot
Trading Post: +1 Merchant slot
Siege Workshop: +1 Engineer slot
Good point about GS and nice ideas for specialist slots!
Then I made miscellaneous changes:
Gems are revealed with metal lore again.
Coffee: Revealed with Ritual, and gives only +1
Slash and Burn Farm: +1
, +1
with Trade, +1
with River
The starting location was boosted with various resources. Now it is boosted only by food resorces, i.e. Wheat etc, Cow etc, Fish, Clam, Crab, Sugar, Lemon and Banana.
+50% production rate for legislator leaders: Local Beraucracy
Central Bureaucracy gives +1
to Local Bureaucracy, +1
to Mayors Office to boost early cities in your colonial empire.
Great Works (Science) give +25%
(+50% for classical ones), but they get obsolete
Leonardo's workshop gives a free engineer now.
I didn't like the militia to be the best unit at the start against all types of barbarians: So: Archery tech no longer has a prerequisite, and Barbarian Warrior has +35% against melee. I really liked that change and I definitely recommend it because it forces you to create a well balanced archer-militia army to cope with the barbarians. Previously, I only built militia, never even bothered to reseach Archery, because militia was strong against everything.
Animals that get +50% bonus from jungles now get +100%. So the jungles are very dangerous now. Now it is not very easy to explore the world and to contact other civilizations.
The gems thing is more for AI's sake. Previously, it would leave out Aesthetics for as long as it could, therefore not getting Classical art, and therefore no following art eras as well.
Good idea with Coffee.
As for boosting the start locations, I am not sure if that's justified. Getting other resources might be as beneficial, and might result in a more varied starting strategies.
Good call on Bureaucracy.
Considering this for GWoS too (though again admittedly I love hoarding the bonuses!).
I build a mixed archer/militia army early on myself (if at least due to cost increase), but I can see your reasoning. Also, chariots should definitely be more useful early on. So, some kind of nerf for militias is coming.
I adopted your animal bonus idea in a recent update (might have forgotten to include it in the changelog, though).
And finally I changed the construction cost of ALL buildings and wonders. I will not write down all the changes I made, but the changes can be generalized as follows:
The more sophisticated the building is, the more it costs. For example, I increased the cost of aqueducts and theatres by a lot.
The earlier buildings cost slightly more, the later (industrial) buildings cost a lot less. The grocery store has the same cost with the school for instance.
Partially adopted this in a recent update, for health-related buildings. That's coupled with an increase in benefits too, though. Now building an aqueduct really feels like you're providing a major service to the city!
really pumped for the new version - is this the one that's supposed to include RevDCM? or was that just an idea someone had?
I'd settle on the fact that the more likely scenario is that RI will not include RevDCM ever. We'd love to, but unless it happens by magic, it's likely we won't manage.
I am wondering the reason for units like Machine Guns and the German special Flamethrower unit going obsolete?
Edit: Is it possible to put a mechanic in the game that caps all civs research at a certain era? Such as if I wanted to play an entire game without advancing past the medieval era?
Yeah, you're actually right. This part of the upgrade tree doesn't look logical. Will think of something here.
And no, none that I know of right now.
I just got attacked by some Mayan unit and it produced the most annoying, vuvuzela-esque sound. I quit the game immediately. Can it be removed/replaced with a sound that's more tolerable? And while I'm asking, can the same be done for the shrill noise made when completing the woodcutting building?
You can remove it, if you want. Go to AudioDefines.xml, find SND_HORNET, and replace the <Filename>Sounds/Units/Hornet</Filename> with whatever sound you want. I actually went and checked after your post, and at least on my PC, the sound isn't too loud, actually quieter than many other unit sounds (if it's different for you, please report). As for the actual sound, that's what angry hornets really sound like.
You're right on the saw sound, though. I will edit it to make it less annoying.
