Realism Invictus

[pecheneg]

By the way, I forgot to write. The same Iranian transport ("Delvar") is now part of the "sinister division" (c) of drone carriers, including strike ones. Large drones, apparently, are disposable – starting (from a catapult) is not a problem even in the case of a very compact ship, but parachute landing on water is difficult to implement.
That is, theoretically, there is a funny opportunity to get a drone carrier using ХML

 

[Hafenguy]

Hi in my current game i met a Barbar "
National guard trained abroad" strength: 28 in turn 74 at 2520 bc.
Maybe thats a Bug?

And I have a question. Is there a reason why it is recommend to play with tech trade off. Can the AI handle it?

 

[fdelbene]

(...) when do barbarians start spawning? Is it on a specific turn? I know it's some time in the early 3rd millennium BC, but I think I'd like to optimise a little more finely.

I researched this recently and found this: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Barbarian_(Civ4) and this: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/difficulty-levels-spreadsheet.158130/#post-10629596
You can find the variable iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed in the XML \steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv beyond the sword\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

 

[Docbonzai]

From the bits and scraps I learned about the problem over time, it seems to be somehow related to the way Steam caches codecs. To anyone having the black terrain issue, please try the following fixes in order (one by one so we can learn if any particular helps):

1) If you haven't done so yet, switch to the original BtS release under Steam betas
2) Disable Steam overlay for BtS
3) In Steam settings, disable shader pre-caching.

Also, it would be good to know what your GPU is

None of these fixes have worked either, unfortunately. My GPU is a Radeon 6700XT, and the drivers are up to date. I've also turned off AMD's special graphics things (e.g. "Image Sharpening" and whatnot).

 

[aantia]

I researched this recently and found this: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Barbarian_(Civ4) and this: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/difficulty-levels-spreadsheet.158130/#post-10629596
You can find the variable iBarbarianCreationTurnsElapsed in the XML \steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv beyond the sword\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

Ahh, that explains everything. I increased my difficulty level a few months ago and didn't realise the barbarians would show up earlier. Thanks!

 

[Rosie McCattail]

Just a quick bit of bug/feature reports after playing another game (partly, not finished yet).

1) Heavy Privateers are AMAZING. One of my Privateers managed to get to 700+ xp, taking ALL promotions save for the last two "pirate hunter" ones. Ironic a pirate vessel would have a pirate hunter promo. The second Privateer is lagging behind because the stack attack favors the first ship.
2) Managed to found two religions with one tech. Choose Religion option was on and I somehow ended up with two prompts about founding a religion. Not sure how on Earth that happened, but it might be because I've clicked the pop-up windows a bunch of times with RMB to go to civilopedia, thus discarding the window and going to the next one (like game cycling through "what do you want to build next" and "choose a religion to found" windows).
3) This happened. Radio with no radio? That's some cutting edge burger company.

 

[Silica_Pathways]

The previous bug I mentioned seems to be gone, likely caused by corrupted main game files.

Some other feedback:
- Those bricks that are produced from limestone and whatnot - a resource that you can produce and which does absolutely nothing at all ? At least that's how it looks from the Civilopedia entry.
- When opening Civilopedia from main menu the Civic section is empty... Not too serious bug, but it's there.
* The improved (winning) AI is fierce, but still do weird stuff. Like running away with last city's last defender to the woods... Sure, the "complete kills" was on, but giving up last city just to hide out last unit in the woods is a bit faulty long term thinking

 

[aantia]

The previous bug I mentioned seems to be gone, likely caused by corrupted main game files.

Some other feedback:
- Those bricks that are produced from limestone and whatnot - a resource that you can produce and which does absolutely nothing at all ? At least that's how it looks from the Civilopedia entry.
- When opening Civilopedia from main menu the Civic section is empty... Not too serious bug, but it's there.
* The improved (winning) AI is fierce, but still do weird stuff. Like running away with last city's last defender to the woods... Sure, the "complete kills" was on, but giving up last city just to hide out last unit in the woods is a bit faulty long term thinking

Masonry Materials are required for paved roads and give a substantial bonus to producing lots of wonders and some buildings.

 

[Rosie McCattail]

What on Earth... Masonry Materials is one of the most sought after resources of the ancient era, after wonder enhancing limestone and marble and strategics like copper, iron and bronze... It literally makes your units go 50% faster

The improved (winning) AI is fierce, but still do weird stuff.

I am seriously asking the author to do SOMETHING about the AI putting its units on Explore (Automated) order until the end of the game. First of all, the units do nothing useful - they don't take part in warfare, they don't defend cities, they don't counterattack, etc. Second of all, there's nothing to explore so the units end up doing circles somewhere between the AI's core cities, so it's completely pointless. Third of all, if it's a quick unit like a Light Cavalry, and the AI has railroads, and your "show enemy moves" option is on, and you have recently flown an airplane over your rival's territory or just have ships near his 5 tile island, you're in the world of pain. In the absence of any place to actually explore (no unexplored tiles or no way to get to those) units are stuck in a continuous loop of moving one tile at a time until they run out of moves, so you'll be looking at all these moves for a long time.
I've had a submarine blockading my rival recently and it just so happened that another nearby rebel civ located on a TWO tile island DOW'd me and every single turn I've had to watch a bunch of his irregulars walk into the woodland tile and back into the city, into the woods and back into the city, into the woods and - you get the point.
Also, honestly, I don't want to see worker moves either. When you're raiding the enemy coast in hopes of finding free exp and are forced to look how his 20 workers are building stuff - it gets old fast.

 

[aantia]

What on Earth... Masonry Materials is one of the most sought after resources of the ancient era, after wonder enhancing limestone and marble and strategics like copper, iron and bronze... It literally makes your units go 50% faster



I am seriously asking the author to do SOMETHING about the AI putting its units on Explore (Automated) order until the end of the game. First of all, the units do nothing useful - they don't take part in warfare, they don't defend cities, they don't counterattack, etc. Second of all, there's nothing to explore so the units end up doing circles somewhere between the AI's core cities, so it's completely pointless. Third of all, if it's a quick unit like a Light Cavalry, and the AI has railroads, and your "show enemy moves" option is on, and you have recently flown an airplane over your rival's territory or just have ships near his 5 tile island, you're in the world of pain. In the absence of any place to actually explore (no unexplored tiles or no way to get to those) units are stuck in a continuous loop of moving one tile at a time until they run out of moves, so you'll be looking at all these moves for a long time.
I've had a submarine blockading my rival recently and it just so happened that another nearby rebel civ located on a TWO tile island DOW'd me and every single turn I've had to watch a bunch of his irregulars walk into the woodland tile and back into the city, into the woods and back into the city, into the woods and - you get the point.
Also, honestly, I don't want to see worker moves either. When you're raiding the enemy coast in hopes of finding free exp and are forced to look how his 20 workers are building stuff - it gets old fast.

You'd want to see his workers move if you were running slavery and invading him, though.

 

[Rosie McCattail]

Usually when workers are in strike range, the AI tries to hide them. Valid point, perhaps, but that could be addressed by just adding a "don't show civilian unit moves" option.

On the topic of AI misbehaving - there's this finland rebel guy sitting on an island and he's at war with me and I'm trying to bait him to attack me with his ships (I need ship xp). And sometimes he does attack my stack of old Ship of the Line units i'm keping in his waters - but rarely. But any time my newer Dreadnoughts are passing by, this lad feels compelled to throw a sloop to die into them. It's amazing. I've seen this before with Man'o'Wars vs anything else - the AI felt it absolutely had to throw stuff into my Man'o'Wars, even against abysmal odds, but he would barely ever attack anything else.

 

[Hafenguy]

Need some advice about the separatism Window. The "2" by culture means the City needs more culture right?
And what is the meaning of the black Icon with "-6"?

 

[Snowygerry]

It is the defence rating of your city I think.

 

[ThirdOrbital]

The culture icon means you have separatism from the existence of a foreign culture. Building your own culture will decrease the impact but it never goes away entirely.

The defense icon probably means you have a unit stationed in the city, which is decreasing separatism.

 

[Hafenguy]

Ahh that makes sense, thank you

 

[Silica_Pathways]

I think I have to give up on this mod. I really don't understand it's combat mechanics. Doomstacks are quite useless. Those support promos also barely do a thing. I don't think I can outrace AI. Not because it's good, but because I don't know how. Bet there's nothing on Civilopedia either about all that nonsense logistics system. Too bad there's no game option to switch to vanilla combat. Feeling stupid having wasted all this time on this mod.

 

[ThirdOrbital]

What specifically about combat is giving you trouble? Army composition? Unit roles? Specific counters? There's advice all over this thread, most recently on page 452.

 

[TheBirdMan]

I think I have to give up on this mod. I really don't understand it's combat mechanics. Doomstacks are quite useless. Those support promos also barely do a thing. I don't think I can outrace AI. Not because it's good, but because I don't know how. Bet there's nothing on Civilopedia either about all that nonsense logistics system. Too bad there's no game option to switch to vanilla combat. Feeling stupid having wasted all this time on this mod.

Now this is difficult for me to explain. But I'll give it a try.

1st: Try to "understand" the the rock-paper-scissors principle. That is, that every unit do have a kind of "nemesis", that can defeat it more easy than any others. Every unit can be defeated - somehow. And sometimes the price is more than just one unit of your own. But it can be done.
2nd: Check the "stats" of your units (each and every type of units) in your army. And if possible, do the same for your enemy's army. It have something to do with above - if you attack an enemy "mixed" army with only one kind of troops, then you probably will loose. You need to "find" a combination, that kind of is able to match the enemy. And if you have units, that kind-of is worthless in the attack - don't attach them to your army. The game-engine will probably "sacrifice" them first to prepare "the road" for your better troops. You might use them much better later in the battle, when the enemy is more vulnerable. And if you think, that you do not have a chance - withdraw. That is valid for a city too. If you believe, that you can't defend it.... leave it. Save your troops.
3rd. When upgrading (the promotions). Don't upgrade troops, that you can train to same level. Meaning: Do not upgrade fx. spears with 1 promotion to pikes if you can train new pikes with one promotion. Disband the spear - it's not worth your gold. Besides you upkeep might be a little lower until your new unit is ready. Simply save your gold for some really usefull promotions (edit: not promotions - upgrades of course).

4th: Patience. Be patience. Always be patient. Take the time it takes and don't attack with your "head" under your arm. It usually goes wrong.

Now this is the best I can come up with right now here in the late afternoon (danish time).

 

[Silica_Pathways]

What specifically about combat is giving you trouble? Army composition? Unit roles? Specific counters? There's advice all over this thread, most recently on page 452.

Logistics system the most, since I have no idea how it is supposed to work and by the sound of it (tooltips above those numbers in the corner) it sounds like it might be giving me huge debuffs, which in turn makes doomstack rather inefficient.

if you attack an enemy "mixed" army with only one kind of troops, then you probably will loose. You need to "find" a combination, that kind of is able to match the enemy

That sounds... far from fun. Sounds like savescum chore of epic proportions. I mean, I play Civ4 for fun, so...

3rd.

Money isn't much of an issue in this mod. I have a hefty doomstack due to large budget surplus. Else I could barely field siege weapons, if I would have to rely on free units.

Anyhow, maybe I'll manage to take out other opponent... though not being able to deal much with the top of the crop is quite dangerous. I hope maybe RI has WMD's like Civ3 with total wipe ability, instead of the sh*tty Civ4 vanilla ones.

 

[TheBirdMan]

That sounds... far from fun

I like the challenge.

But well, so we're all different. And peace be with it.