Realism Invictus

[TheBirdMan]

I'm quite sure the AI handles this better than I'm doing. At least as long it's "simple". The AI seldom makes mistakes and do as I - builds another place than "intended" because sometimes I forget what I wanted to do ....


Where I do doubt is where I "see" a places, that is perfect to make a military stronghold (producing units/good defenses) - sometimes in the future. Those places have to be builded up first and it can take quite some time before they are "as I want them to be". I doubt the AI can do that. On the other hand - the AI do not make a mistake if it turns out, that I did..........

 

[[Y]]

I thought Germany was an underpowered civ, but somehow I just started playing and everything seemed to click for me. Funny how Monarch on vanilla is a cakewalk in comparison. Played somewhat cautiously and built up a stable, medium-sized empire for most of the game, then industrialized and went on a massive conquering spree in the late industrial,

I can swear I've heard that story before

From an optimization standpoint of getting the most output from the same input, it makes the most sense to me to just "follow the leaders" and research the techs with the greatest bonus first whenever you're not in the lead and unless you really need something instantly which is next in line to research, then just accept the fact that all of your trade partners are going to get a bonus on whatever you research, since the incentive to keep trade routes (especially late game) far outweighs the tech bonus you're giving them. It makes for an interesting and historically plausible spread of technology, but it kind of dilutes the strategy behind choosing your techs. Thoughts on that?

This is an optimization that means you will rarely found the religion you want, build the wonder you want, be ahead on the military curve, explore the oceans or find and settle critical resources. It's optimizing you for overall research pace, yes, but is it optimizing you for winning? Those are two different things. Research in RI is incredibly important, but the importance comes from the techs being a means to an end, not from researching being an end in-and-of itself.

When I play, I tend to switch between times when I'm trying to be the lead in a particular field (say, getting a good 8-strength city attacker before others get longbowmen, or axemen before others get iron working and build up a lot of 4-strength bowmen), or found a religion, or hit a wonder/doctrine that will make a particular strategy viable, etc. I'll focus my research on getting to that specific tech FAST, dedicating a lot of currency to research, and then switch into a style where I'm playing catch up on less important techs with the bonus from so many other civs already having the tech. During this later time I'm more willing to dedicate currency to support wars, unit upgrades, or maintenance on new cities that still don't produce much.

In regards to the tech tree being linear, I agree, it is. But RI isn't a game about varying tech stories and research differentiation, it's a game about optimizing empire management and strategic decisions. Playing well is about deciding which key techs are most important to your game and getting there first, and being able to maintain an economy that won't collapse under your empire's weight. In this sense I feel that the linearity helps, since it makes research a race rather than a cultural differentiator.

I agree that some requirements are too strict from a flavor perspective, and would be curious to see how the game plays without them (if there even is a difference, which there might not be), but I don't think that means the status quo for tech needs improvement. It does what it needs to do well for the purposes of the game, in my opinion, at least.

 

[AspiringScholar]

I can swear I've heard that story before

Ominously, that seems vaguely familiar to me as well.

This is an optimization that means you will rarely found the religion you want, build the wonder you want, be ahead on the military curve, explore the oceans or find and settle critical resources. It's optimizing you for overall research pace, yes, but is it optimizing you for winning? Those are two different things. Research in RI is incredibly important, but the importance comes from the techs being a means to an end, not from researching being an end in-and-of itself.

When I play, I tend to switch between times when I'm trying to be the lead in a particular field (say, getting a good 8-strength city attacker before others get longbowmen, or axemen before others get iron working and build up a lot of 4-strength bowmen), or found a religion, or hit a wonder/doctrine that will make a particular strategy viable, etc. I'll focus my research on getting to that specific tech FAST, dedicating a lot of currency to research, and then switch into a style where I'm playing catch up on less important techs with the bonus from so many other civs already having the tech. During this later time I'm more willing to dedicate currency to support wars, unit upgrades, or maintenance on new cities that still don't produce much.

In regards to the tech tree being linear, I agree, it is. But RI isn't a game about varying tech stories and research differentiation, it's a game about optimizing empire management and strategic decisions. Playing well is about deciding which key techs are most important to your game and getting there first, and being able to maintain an economy that won't collapse under your empire's weight. In this sense I feel that the linearity helps, since it makes research a race rather than a cultural differentiator.

I agree that some requirements are too strict from a flavor perspective, and would be curious to see how the game plays without them (if there even is a difference, which there might not be), but I don't think that means the status quo for tech needs improvement. It does what it needs to do well for the purposes of the game, in my opinion, at least.

You know, your feedback on some of the questions I've put out there have really made me rethink my own position, this included. (The last one that comes to mind was your take on the health and happiness bonus from resources being contingent upon buildings, which after thinking about what you said I now agree with you on.)

After all, it's not that linear, but still a lot less of a free-range than vanilla Beyond the Sword. I think Aanita is right that cutting out just a few of the prerequisites might free it up a lot (and might make for some more interesting gameplay) but as it is, your point still stands that, even if it's somewhat constricted, it's still meaningful in the sense that it's a race rather than an individualization stamp. I think it ultimately is related to the difference of approach that this mod takes; that of a long game where immediate gains might not be realized for a long time, and where short-term setbacks might not exacerbate much over time, if one plays their cards right. It's more or less unintuitive from a strict 4X game standpoint, where snowballing prevails and basically all individual gains and losses continue to multiply in the same direction (the only exception in vanilla being, probably, city maintenance and its impact on expansion speed). With respect to teching in RI, this is especially apparent, since falling behind in tech for even sometimes quite a while isn't necessarily a death-sentence for your empire (indeed, sometimes not even particularly detrimental at all), but you do have to time it appropriately and in the right situational circumstance, or it certainly can be. It's taken a long time for me to be able to read that in the mod with some degree of clarity, but I think that's the hallmark of a well-made strategy game: the same approach should not be generally viable, nor any scenario have the same panacea solution from game to game.

That said, I still think something a little less linear would be more fun, even if it is ultimately a race as you say, since the actual things which you can immediately pursue in the short run fall into a narrower range of options. I wish I could remember exactly what Walter had to say about this point, since I would be willing to bet it has more to do with the game as a template for the way that actual historical technology unfolded rather than what is hypothetically plausible. Either way, this mod is perhaps too much fun, notwithstanding, if the previous balance in my life being hampered has anything to say about that...

 

[TheBirdMan]

Although there have not yet been any comments about my special "adjustments", so a little about my "thoughts" about beer, wine and alcohol (personally, I rarely drink anything with "percentages" other than beer)....

Spoiler :

First it's "funny", that we have 3 distillries, that all depend on the same technologies TECH_PHARMACY,_BOTANY TECH_GLASSBLOWING and the same build class BUILDINGCLASS_MARKET.


Well I miss "the beer". Not the kind we know of today, but an ancient "kind of beer". One like this an archaeology professor said first time he tasted beer made the way "they" did in ancient days: As long as no one died from it, it would be a successful project.

So here it is - it says "Vodka" - but that's only because of my already known lack of programming skills. It's beer! Just look at the required ressource, building and tecnologies. Available quite early.

Next is Brandy - based on wine. No changes are needed here.

Last is Rum. This is pushed back to a later era and time. As you can see, it's depended on the Merchants Adventures. At the same time, Sugar (and potatoes) becomes visible and not at any earlier time.

As you also know. Alcohol is consumed on taverns. True. But I say: In fact all places where people have meet for one-or-another-reason. I have included caravanhouses. I might include Markets too, but I'm not sure yet......

Besides I have also changed a bit of what's gives happiness from using time in a Tavern....... You can smoke there. And you can drink coffee if you like. Now we know (should know), that both tobacco and alcohol isn't that healthy, so tobacco gives -2 to the health and alcohol -1. This changes also gives somewhat more epidemics in the cities... Considering how it is today in many places those numbers could even be -3 or -4 without being too unrealistic.

Next part will be about how I use the CannedFoodFactories.

 

[TheBirdMan]

If any wonders why I have so many restarts, it's only because of changes in the prereq. of ressources I make for buildings. I'm still trying to find a good balance. What's happens is, that sometimes when I reload after a change, I get the "unable to compress" message and the game abort. Same as we are used to, when Walter made an incompatible version update.


BTW: Did I mention, that protecting against spy-actions are important???? A spy just destroyed one of my carpenters........

 

[schueler]

I concur with your idea of alcohol actually reducing health at the large scale. -4 points is definitely too hefty though game-wise.

 

[TheBirdMan]

I concur with your idea of alcohol actually reducing health at the large scale. -4 points is definitely too hefty though game-wise.

As for now it's "only" -1 - at least for the time being. Tobacco is -2 (guess you can see I do not smoke )-

 

[AspiringScholar]

Wait, previously you had one stonecutter with an input of only one limestone output six masonry materials? That seems pretty extreme! I personally like the "you need to find two limestone" limitation, since paved roads in the early game are supposed to be a rare luxury.

Although there have not yet been any comments about my special "adjustments", so a little about my "thoughts" about beer, wine and alcohol (personally, I rarely drink anything with "percentages" other than beer)....

Spoiler :

First it's "funny", that we have 3 distillries, that all depend on the same technologies TECH_PHARMACY,_BOTANY TECH_GLASSBLOWING and the same build class BUILDINGCLASS_MARKET.


Well I miss "the beer". Not the kind we know of today, but an ancient "kind of beer". One like this an archaeology professor said first time he tasted beer made the way "they" did in ancient days: As long as no one died from it, it would be a successful project.

So here it is - it says "Vodka" - but that's only because of my already known lack of programming skills. It's beer! Just look at the required ressource, building and tecnologies. Available quite early.
View attachment 657529

Next is Brandy - based on wine. No changes are needed here.
View attachment 657533

Last is Rum. This is pushed back to a later era and time. As you can see, it's depended on the Merchants Adventures. At the same time, Sugar (and potatoes) becomes visible and not at any earlier time.
View attachment 657534

As you also know. Alcohol is consumed on taverns. True. But I say: In fact all places where people have meet for one-or-another-reason. I have included caravanhouses. I might include Markets too, but I'm not sure yet......
View attachment 657536

Besides I have also changed a bit of what's gives happiness from using time in a Tavern....... You can smoke there. And you can drink coffee if you like. Now we know (should know), that both tobacco and alcohol isn't that healthy, so tobacco gives -2 to the health and alcohol -1. This changes also gives somewhat more epidemics in the cities... Considering how it is today in many places those numbers could even be -3 or -4 without being too unrealistic.
View attachment 657537

Next part will be about how I use the CannedFoodFactories.

And regarding the alcohol, there was someone earlier in the thread who asked why beer wasn't a named resource in the game, and Walter's answer was that, since it is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous beverages in the history of the world (even more so than drinking water in some cases), it is supposed to be implicitly part of the tavern building. (To me, that begs the question why the tavern doesn't provide +1 happiness on its own, but there might have been a reason for that mentioned at the time which I simply can't remember.)

And with the actual liquor-sourced alcohol resource in the game, I myself asked why it doesn't provide unhealthiness, since not only is consuming alcohol in any sizeable quantity pretty unhealthy, but the actual historical arrival of hard liquor was a massive health-crisis. I proposed making it generate -1 health and buffing the happiness bonus to +2 to compensate. He said that it actually used to work exactly that way in the past, but the problem was that the AI would never trade for it, apparently because it's coded to regard the malus as something to avoid completely (so for some reason, livestock's epidemic chance increase must not apply here), so he reduced the happiness bonus to +1 and got rid of the unhealthy malus altogether. Good point on tobacco too, but I guess the same reasoning would apply here too.

 

[Drakarska]

I'm still kind of curious as to why Rice can't be used make alcohol. Seriously? Saki? Or variations there of through out Asian cultures?
As to the Limestone. I've personally tweaked mine to 1LS-2MM, as most maps I play there is hardly more than a few spots of LS anywhere close to my starts.

Also, side tangent, why can't we build tunnels? Connecting an island or land mass via a tunnel would be awesome.
I'm looking at a couple of other mods, and seeing if the code can be used in RI. May take me awhile.

 

[TheBirdMan]

And regarding the alcohol, there was someone earlier in the thread who asked why beer wasn't a named resource in the game, and Walter's answer was that, since it is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous beverages in the history of the world (even more so than drinking water in some cases), it is supposed to be implicitly part of the tavern building. (To me, that begs the question why the tavern doesn't provide +1 happiness on its own, but there might have been a reason for that mentioned at the time which I simply can't remember.)

I actually had forgotten this - but now I remember the writings about this.

In my opinion the Tavern comes much too late to represent what Walter wrote. And that is the reason why I bring it in my personal "variant" of RI.
I also remember this (after reading it again):

And with the actual liquor-sourced alcohol resource in the game, I myself asked why it doesn't provide unhealthiness, since not only is consuming alcohol in any sizeable quantity pretty unhealthy, but the actual historical arrival of hard liquor was a massive health-crisis. I proposed making it generate -1 health and buffing the happiness bonus to +2 to compensate. He said that it actually used to work exactly that way in the past, but the problem was that the AI would never trade for it, apparently because it's coded to regard the malus as something to avoid completely (so for some reason, livestock's epidemic chance increase must not apply here), so he reduced the happiness bonus to +1 and got rid of the unhealthy malus altogether. Good point on tobacco too, but I guess the same reasoning would apply here too.

Well - that was interesting to read again. As I just recently got my 1st. Tobacco-tile cultivated and that I'm right now is 5 turns away from making my 1st. Tavern then......


So right away to the tradescreens to see...........

Spoiler :

Well - 2 nations seems to be ready to buy alcohol...

So far so good.

Let's see if any wants my tobacco - I do not need it yet......

Ok then - until proven otherwise I say: False Alarm. And I do hope it doesn't change. See, I could only find a few - very few - tobacco-tiles on the map I could see, so I loaded WB. And did notice, that I had forgotten to check that ressource. There was nearly no tobacco-tiles on the whole map (24.000 tiles). Now there are - I added 18-20 tiles in total on roughly 9-10 locations. Then I hope some trading-offers will find place.....

Edit 13 turns later (at turn 632): Looks good .

Spoiler :

 

[TheBirdMan]

I'm still kind of curious as to why Rice can't be used make alcohol. Seriously? Saki? Or variations there of through out Asian cultures?

It could - if we had more distilleries...... Or if we had a Cereal mill, that consumed Wheat, rice (and any other kind of cereal-sorts - even "dried" corn (fresh corn is considered a vegetable)) and produced a basic product called ..... Cereal (surprise). That Cereal would then be used in all distilleries, that produced Vodka, Whisky, Snaps, Saki and other alcoholproducts like these. And the Cereal could also be used in markets, supermarkets etc as a generic product giving more food to the city, while the "special" basic ressources could give health (or the opposite), happiness and/or any special what-ever-possible....

Also, side tangent, why can't we build tunnels? Connecting an island or land mass via a tunnel would be awesome.
I'm looking at a couple of other mods, and seeing if the code can be used in RI. May take me awhile.

Guess Walter could if he would..... using same concept as the ChineseCanal, that I changed to a ShipsCanal in my "variant".

 

[TheBirdMan]

Wait, previously you had one stonecutter with an input of only one limestone output six masonry materials? That seems pretty extreme! I personally like the "you need to find two limestone" limitation, since paved roads in the early game are supposed to be a rare luxury.

Correct.

That's because some buildings consumes 2-3 or even more masonry to be builded. My intention is, that not all buildings should be constructed in all cities......due to lack of the required ressources. But what would the "normal" situation be, if you "wanted" to do something, but hadn't the ressources to do it? Get them I guess - even by nasty means (in this game that is)......


Edit. By the way - I have "moved" the paved roads to the early rennaissance era. Sure paved roads were made very early in history. In the cities and special religious places that is..... If "any" should have paved roads earlier, then it could be.... the Romans. And maybe a nation or two more (see I do not mind, that unique improvements, buildings and/or units not are that unique at all).

So make long paved roads between cities is a somewhat bigger job, that need more "administration" and skill. Therefore:

 

[Hafenguy]

In my current game, play on almost realistic and with tech trade on (civs can only trade technologies they have researched themselves).
I am in the year 200 BC in the Middle Ages.
Is this due to tech trading or the speed of the game?
Technology transfer is turned off.

 

[TheBirdMan]

Is this due to tech trading or the speed of the game?
Technology transfer is turned off.

I'm at year 10AD - and have just discovered my first medieval tech - Guilds...... Don't enable Technology Brokering or Technology Trading. The RI isn't meants to be played with any of these settings on.

 

[Hafenguy]

Mhh ok in the instructions it said that you can also play with tech trade. If you turn off tech diffusion but then that is probably not more current.

 

[TheBirdMan]

You can play with what-ever combination you want to. No problem in that.

It's up to you to find the combination you like. Above screenshot is my preferred choices.

If I start with only a few nations, I often turn Revolution ON for say the first 500-1000 turns.
If I want a game with a lot of units, I turn NoUnitCostScaling to ON.
If I want to slow down expansion for all nations in the start of a game, I have Babarians ON for (again) 500-1000 turns.

 

[Hafenguy]

How can you change settings while game is running?

 

[TheBirdMan]

Enter Worldbuilder.

Spoiler :

Confirm "Enter"

Open Gameoptions (2nd line 1st row)

Choose the setting(s) you want to change (I have choosen NoTechnologyTrading here).

When finished, exit Gameoption and exit WorldBuilder (1st line, last row)

When out, restart the game. Often you can get on by reload your game from a savegame file - but I always restart the gameengine too - just in case........

 

[aantia]

The breakthrough to the mediaeval era is actual realistic earlier than seems intuitive - the Roman and Chinese empires reached that point, then turned their research right down to pay their massive maintenance costs (in Civ4 mechanical terms).

I keep coming up with ways to rework separatism (mostly by connecting it more to other systems), then realising that my plans would prevent the realistic decline of the great empires in that era.

 

[AspiringScholar]

The breakthrough to the mediaeval era is actual realistic earlier than seems intuitive - the Roman and Chinese empires reached that point, then turned their research right down to pay their massive maintenance costs (in Civ4 mechanical terms).

I keep coming up with ways to rework separatism (mostly by connecting it more to other systems), then realising that my plans would prevent the realistic decline of the great empires in that era.

What kinds of changes do you make exactly with respect to separatism?