Realism Invictus

[ThirdOrbital]

EDIT: Speaking of that, ThirdOrbital, were you playing back when these were added-in originally? I just chose Administration as the tech to enable them as I thought it made the most historical sense (based on Westphalia 1648 and the establishment of formal embassies thereafter). If you were, do you remember which tech they were originally tied to?

Do you mean the Permanent Alliance where two civs join the same team forever? I see that is currently enabled by Proletarian Dictatorship, which I believe was called Communism back in vanilla.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Do you mean the Permanent Alliance where two civs join the same team forever? I see that is currently enabled by Proletarian Dictatorship, which I believe was called Communism back in vanilla.

No, it's separate. It's actually a bilateral offensive alliance, with permanent alliances being distinct even within the same game (though I turned that one off after one experimental game). Back in early 3.5 (I think, maybe it was 3.4) they were either included in the official release or toyed with in the SVN before Walter ultimately decided to get rid of them, because people tended to experience the AI allying with everyone and the occurrence of war basically ending as a result. The feature is tech-enabled (like map trades) so I was just curious which tech they were originally tied to back then, if you knew. Permanent alliances are a different deal you can make if you play with that enabled.

I don't even remember if the source code comes from RI or the base game, but there's an XML file where you can define the behavior of alliances, which seems to be the "defensive pact" although doing this appears to rename it, as well. The icon is two clasped fists, which IIRC was that of DPs back in vanilla. I might go back and make them defensive-only, but am on the fence about this, because it gives them a drawback and does generally make them more interesting when you have to weigh in the factor of civs brought into the war on your team benefiting vicariously from easier conquest without having to bear the heavy lifting of the interested party. IME, it's resulted in some interesting partition scenarios, and they also don't expire after they're triggered, unlike DPs.

Quick word on that by the way, on the note of their reason for being removed in the first place. I've seen minimal AI alliance spam in probably 5 or so games involving them since I've reenabled them. Without changing anything else from the current SVN revision, the AI only seems to ally with civs it's genuinely on good terms with, and wars have still occurred frequently and oftentimes it's one alliance against another. Just reporting my experiences if that's worth anything.

 

[ThirdOrbital]

I remember defensive pacts from back in the day but I'm reasonably certain I've never played with an offensive alliance. Do you also play with vassal states? In my experience, the AI is over-eager both to submit to and take on new vassals to the point where while there may be 30 civs in the game, a full half of those will be vassals of the others. If you add alliances on top of that, seems like it would devolve into chaos pretty rapidly.

 

[AspiringScholar]

I remember defensive pacts from back in the day but I'm reasonably certain I've never played with an offensive alliance. Do you also play with vassal states? In my experience, the AI is over-eager both to submit to and take on new vassals to the point where while there may be 30 civs in the game, a full half of those will be vassals of the others. If you add alliances on top of that, seems like it would devolve into chaos pretty rapidly.

Yes, I do play with vassals on. It's fun.

IME, while it does result in some balkanization, I think most of that has had to do with what I perceive to be the instability of the revolution mechanic from WW, which I expect will be all but fixed with the change to global separatism Walter just made in the current revision. I also see vassals breaking free (and in some cases superseding) from their old masters more than I do maps where the political geography becomes kaleidoscopic. I also find it very fun how you get some kind of a soft modeling of imperialism in competing for vassals' allegiance with the top-dogs.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Some spoilered feedback from my current game. I haven't gotten to anything with revolutions yet, but I'm eager to see how they will play out on the current revision with the most recent change:

Spoiler :

- Regarding the previously mentioned mechanic of a pagan temple only enabled for construction where no religion is already present, I had something frustrating happen. Playing as Russia, I had attempted to found Zoroastrianism, but in typical civ-fashion, I lost this by a mere few turns, at which point Hinduism was also founded shortly thereafter. Wanting my own religion, I decided to go for Judaism, which I did end up getting, I was already constructing a pagan temple in my second city, and decided to delay research so that the temple would be constructed the same turn that monotheism was researched on the chance that the second city ended up being the holy city... well, it did. And all of the hammers invested in that pagan temple evaporated because the religion entered the city on the same turn that the construction was complete. Is there a way to weight that check in favor of the building construction? If not, that's fine, and I should have just gambled one more turn to be sure I got the building instead.

- The new expanded menus are great, in particular, being able to see the full entry for a civic within the menu which previously wasn't possible unless you selected it (which was only an option if said civic was already available to be selected), though I have to say that it's going to take some getting used to since my eyes are already calibrated to the smaller menus lol; however, the relations tab of foreign advisor is just slightly out of alignment. The rightmost side cuts off the leader portrait slightly, so it looks like it needs to be scaled down just a little bit or left-adjusted, if possible.

- I've noticed this for a while now, but the sound balancing on the ancient era music is out of sync with the classical era. The ancient era music is always quite loud (and I must have all this time just reduced the music volume for the era without thinking much about it) but I've gotten a new display and peripherals, and since I'm still playing on my laptop, there's no way for me to adjust the main volume without tabbing the game and going to desktop. So, once I had done that and adjusted the ancient era music to a normal volume, once I hit classical, the music was much quieter. In the past, I probably would have just turned it up without thinking about it, but this made it obvious. Scaling down the volume for the ancient music might be a good idea, though maybe others haven't experienced this one.

- This is a tentative thought, which might make diplomacy a bit spicier: how about making open borders constitute a ground for "You've traded with our worst enemies!"? If you think about it, this is the prerequisite for tech-diffusion in the first place, and actual technology trades in the vanilla were a source of worst enemy trades, so it seems logical that the same essential function of a research multiplier via diplomacy should entail the same drawback as before. Likewise, demands to "cancel deals" (which are frequent as soon as OB becomes an option) means nullifying this, after all. With open borders made more sticky since 3.5 as well, this should make networks of tech diffusion to differentiate a little more naturally. I've noticed that open borders tend to form across the board too reliably often by default in the early game.

 

[PKSRoman]

Perfect moment to put scripted "Horde" unit with 10-15 barbarian units (bowmans and swordsmans) who follow them (and group who follow "Horde", destroy cities and pillage everything, just like in "Barbarian" mod for Warlords expansion)

of course it would be addiotional option from menu when you want start a new game (Enalbe "Horde" event or named whatever you wish) , i wonder how it would be work..
only how prevent them from spawning on empty island or under north pole?

 

[aantia]

In the last couple of versions I've seen a substantial reduction in barbarians. I basically just get one wave in the ancient era and then only a very slow trickle of barbarian units (and pirates). Has anybody else noticed this?
I play with raging barbarians on and barbarian unification off, and I normally have to actually defend my borders from them.

 

[AspiringScholar]

In the last couple of versions I've seen a substantial reduction in barbarians. I basically just get one wave in the ancient era and then only a very slow trickle of barbarian units (and pirates). Has anybody else noticed this?
I play with raging barbarians on and barbarian unification off, and I normally have to actually defend my borders from them.

The barb phase of my current game on monarch + raging was pretty damn tough (for some reason they spawned more cavalry than anything else! I wonder if that's random or dependent on something?). I have noticed that 3.57 official release has minimal barbarians unless you play with raging, and others have mentioned this too.

 

[Drakarska]

Also playing 3.57 OR, on emperor difficulty with RB checked. I'm currently in the MED era, and barbs are definitely having fun all over the place. What's really fun is the amount of sea attacks combined with the occasional amphib drop. Definitely keeping me busy, especially since Rags and Jao decided that my little slice of heaven looks tasty, and set up colonies there.
On the plus side, barbs are causing problems for both of them as well, and I've gotten lucky and built TGW ( doesn't help vs sea attacks of course), down side, the barb city just hit pop 4, and could switch to an AI at any time :O

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

The game gives a URL for a dedicated realism invictus site, but does that site actually exist, and why isn't it linked here?

I have feedback. The game says Technology Trading and Technology Transfer are not designed to be used together... but both are enabled by default. Can't this be switched off?
And, when Animism is enabled, the preview says it gives bonus production to jungle, but there is actually no such bonus.

edit: It's a beautiful mod, though.

 

[Luís Felipe Silva Pinto]

I have 2 coals, will I lose all of them building Brick Kiln that consumes 2 coals, and I will cant use to other buildings or units?

 

[Snowygerry]

The game gives a URL for a dedicated realism invictus site, but does that site actually exist, and why isn't it linked here?

I have feedback. The game says Technology Trading and Technology Transfer are not designed to be used together... but both are enabled by default. Can't this be switched off?
And, when Animism is enabled, the preview says it gives bonus production to jungle, but there is actually no such bonus.

edit: It's a beautiful mod, though.

The old site is no longer active - no real surprise the base mod may well be 20 years old, but we have the good Walter Hawkwood here who is one of the original devs as I understand it, and still very much active....

This is the place to be for anything RI, no doubt about it

Switching one or the other off once should be good for all subsequent games I think the game saves your settings, not sure.

Jungle gets one additional if you build either the Pet Kot improvement, or the Slash and Burn Farm, just switching to animism will not be enough...

Jungles never become great production squares though, they're actually good food and early gold sources in my experience.

 

[[Y]]

I have 2 coals, will I lose all of them building Brick Kiln that consumes 2 coals, and I will cant use to other buildings or units?

You can still use them. Converter buildings don't consume the resources, they just provide an additional resource in addition to the required resources.

But if you trade away one of those coals, the converter building will stop working, so you do want to be sure you don't accidentally trade any of them.

 

[arythm1a]

Hi! I'm really disliking how mandatory Labour Union feels. Currently, I am attempting to make use of the forced labour civic instead, and currently, with only four civs using LU, it's a difference of -10 happiness, which feels crippling to play without. Any chance the effect on other civs might be reduced to -1 per opponent using it, or something similar? For the time being, I'm trying to edit it myself in the CIV4CivicInfos XML file. However, I can't find the line which controls the happiness penalties it gives to civs not using it. Does anyone know what I need to edit?

 

[TheBirdMan]

Hi! I'm really disliking how mandatory Labour Union feels. Currently, I am attempting to make use of the forced labour civic instead, and currently, with only four civs using LU, it's a difference of -10 happiness, which feels crippling to play without. Any chance the effect on other civs might be reduced to -1 per opponent using it, or something similar? For the time being, I'm trying to edit it myself in the CIV4CivicInfos XML file. However, I can't find the line which controls the happiness penalties it gives to civs not using it. Does anyone know what I need to edit?

Sure. I have had this - my personal change - active for a couple of years by now.

This is the default value:
<iCivicPercentAnger>400</iCivicPercentAnger>

And this is the setting I'm using today:
<iCivicPercentAnger>200</iCivicPercentAnger>

This change will still give you some anger if you choose not to adapt this civic and more-or-less anyone else have choosen it. Else lower the value to 50 - that should give you 2-3 red-faces at the most - and raise it over time until you find "your own" limit. I wrote about it in a post from 2 Mar 22 here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/bug-report.185667/page-48#post-16234103 and here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/realism-invictus.411799/page-408#post-16199966


Edit: Ahhh, not a couple of years - only 15-16 months or so...............

 

[PKSRoman]

"free religion" shouldn`t require indrustal era?
i mean this technology (Critical Thought) allow build "Enlightened Absolutism" in rennesaince era, but Enlightened Absolutism appear in XVIII - XIX century

The 17th century was not a period where religious freedom was willingly allowed. The 30-year war in the German states, the threat from the Turks was resolved almost at the end of the century. The first country that legalized religious freedoms was the united states in 1776, almost two centuries later (declaration of independence including freedom of religion, correct me if I am wrong).

“All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

even scripted "Rise of nationhood" event say "Emboldened by enlightement philosophers, people are getting strange new ideas on how the state should function"
also +30% to culture in later dont allow "Culture victory" so fast to appear

The cult of personality too should have a unit that removes all religions from the city (the Bolsheviks and in modern times - China fight with religions in their country)

 

[Hafenguy]

I was curious about the New SVN and installed it.
To have textures with lower res and bigger Font i changed the folders "Art" and "res" it worked and I could play.
But Today, all savegames disappeared. Not only from RI. All civ 4 savegames are erased.
When I try to Start the SVN i only cane into the Menü but when i Start the game it crushes me to the Desktop.

Mmh. Has anyone some advise what should I do?

 

[PKSRoman]

I played this newer version of the mod and it's a freaking masterpiece

multi-polar world;
two communist countries (Mahgreb) (a couple of rounds ago Mongolia)
Imperial Indonesia
"Free and Independent" Federations of the Sahel and Germany (Me).
New one: An unwritten alliance of smaller countries that together declare war on larger countries when their existence is threatened

THAT WAS BRILIANT IDEA WALTER (if that was the intention)
an unwritten alliance of china, korea, celticia, japan (conquered), greece (defeated), arabia (defeated) and ukraine
Brazil too was in this alliance, but after join to war with indonesia and lost a two towns, with a black eye, they returned under my protection

each has ~25% of the power of the superpowers but once you declare war on ANY of the above within 10-20 turns you practically fight them all

empires like indonesia or mahgreb trying to have a new vassal and fighting in the open field with one enemy now fight SIX LESS ONE at a time while trying to hold their territories

I laughed like a madman when Mongolia, which in the renaissance was in the top4 of the world's major powers, declared war on Celtic and consequently within 30 turns got into a fight with 4 other weaker countries simultaneously

I do not know how it is possible, but this unwritten alliance practically keeps the rest of the world in check; every time more aggressive nations try to conquer new territories these countries jointly repel it

mongolia went from a rather aggressive approach in my game to a quiet mode, conquered two smaller countries (one city) and experienced a humiliating defeat against china (mongolia had a strength of 100% and china had 46% strength compared to mongolia) when it lost three cities in the north and managed to sign a peace treaty keeping the cities.

until now they have been sitting quietly, behaving like turkey in the 20th century: outdated military and technology. they even agreed to sign an opening of borders and the introduction of capitalism just to rebuild a little.

china for the same time practically almost equaled mongolia militarily and technologically with 12 cities compared to mongolia's 22 cities.

I LAUGH FROM THIS SO HARD, EVEN NOW.
THIS IS PERFECTION, 9.5/ 10 IN MY PERSONAL REALISM SCALE

ukraine and sahel behaved like badasses, but they didn't have enough strength to create empires out of their countries

the idea that countries below the top10 are defending each other and launching attacks on multiple places of aggressive countries SIMULTANEOUSLY is just GENIAL. Walter I have no idea how you accomplished this from the code side.

it adds a new layer to the game, besides revolutions of course
"If you conquer neighboring countries one by one count on the fact that at some point, regardless of religion or the relationship of neighboring countries at some point after declaring war you will be fighting ALL OF THEM AT ONE TIME"

korea and china fought each other until the threat from mongolia came. shoulder-to-shoulder, they had already short-circuited and were fighting as allies against them

apropos revolutions: damn stable game, this is how it should have been from the very beginning. i have the 20th century and not a single empire has fallen into barbarism. the only thing that revolted was the distant colonies.
Empires finally prefer protect their own lands then just attack another country and fall into barbarism.

relations with the maghreb was also a rollercoaster: antiquity / renaissance friendly later mongolian threat start so after the invention of galleons to give themselves a greater opportunity to defend themselves they attacked the northern continent, conquered a multitude of countries, began to be arrogant, declared war on the unwritten alliance and.... they conquered a little, lost a little, in general their history resembles our Spain

a little more and it will turn out that the "big bad" will be Imperialistic Indonesia, because they are fighting an unwritten alliance now and even took a little territory from them

and me? creative Frederick II Hohenstauf, trying to win culturally.
these endless wars with the alliance gave me a hell of a lot of excitement, watching them fight shoulder to shoulder with the stronger ones, I hope the idea of "unwritten alliance" will be further developed because I already love it :*.

the artwork "black rectangle" is a great thing, it gave me +15% to the economy. art-economy which is based on the art trade. all in all, the very idea of basing your economy on gold, silver and artwork is as interesting as spy-economy

another cool option is that you are slower to discover technologies because in a multi-polar world each block/alliance plays under its own and does not exchange technologies (in my game except sahel, the technological capital of the world exchanged with everyone its own. it is possible that in the modern era will be one of the main players)

I have a lot of respect for korea, during the current war with indonesia in the city next to these imperialists had a large military force and tied them by the very presence of the military
they may have 2.0 forces on paper, but I assure you they are more dangerous than you might think
This is / was awesome game.AI in this mod (if it's not a strange coincidence) is better written than in the newer versions of civilization

 

[fdelbene]

About Caravels, I noticed that scouts and explorers can board, but not velites (an upgrade of scouts): maybe the condition should be set to allow all recon units?

Also, is there somewhere a graph or list of all the upgrade paths of the units?

 

[arythm1a]

Sure. I have had this - my personal change - active for a couple of years by now.

This is the default value:
<iCivicPercentAnger>400</iCivicPercentAnger>

And this is the setting I'm using today:
<iCivicPercentAnger>200</iCivicPercentAnger>

This change will still give you some anger if you choose not to adapt this civic and more-or-less anyone else have choosen it. Else lower the value to 50 - that should give you 2-3 red-faces at the most - and raise it over time until you find "your own" limit. I wrote about it in a post from 2 Mar 22 here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/bug-report.185667/page-48#post-16234103 and here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/realism-invictus.411799/page-408#post-16199966


Edit: Ahhh, not a couple of years - only 15-16 months or so...............

Thank you so much! Thats much better. Just curious since you also seem to have thought about the late game civics, what is your opinion on a fix for welfare state? It just tanks my economy whenever i feel like trying it.