Realism Invictus

[fnsnad]

Are you actually able to modify anything as it is though? The actual separatism mechanics are python as far as I know, so that goes well beyond the pale of just tweaking XML values (which is the only thing I know how to do).

Speaking of that, does anyone know what the "extra welfare help" reference was about in my spoilered post on the last page in TechDiffision_GlobalDefines.xml? By default it has a value of 88, but I'm not sure if this is a vanilla thing or part of RI's tech diffusion. I don't think it's the tech transfer rate itself, because that appears to be valued underneath, but it doesn't look like a regular BtS mechanic since that file doesn't exist in the regular game's directory as far as I know. I also tried modifying the tech transfer rate itself in that file but it appears not to have worked, as I still got the default "+40%, then 60%, 80%, etc." after changing the value.

I've been tinkering with TechDiffusion_GlobalDefines and I dug up a little bit from this old thread. https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/on-tech-diffusion.516923/. Pretty much from what I've gathered, it's actually defaulted to off in Realism Invictus and is a completely separate thing from its built in border tech transfer system. I figure that the RI team tinkered with this at first a little, but turned it off at some point or another and its now just a dormant feature. If you want to turn it on, the top line should be set to 1 as seen here:

<DefineName>TECH_DIFFUSION_ENABLE</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>

Recently, I've turned it on myself and have been messing with the parameters to try and find a balance I like. I find that it seems to work well in keeping crappy CIV's from falling too far behind. If you skim through the thread I linked, it highlights some of the inner workings of it. Although I wasn't able to get a rigorous grasp of how it worked, here is what I have gathered so far:

The mod works by implementing two things. The first is similar to RI's where tech is boosted when other known civs already have the tech (however, this is w/o respect to open borders). The second feature they call 'diffusion welfare' which is the more powerful feature and the feature you probably want IMO. it's where when a civ gets behind in tech score by a certain amount, then they get bonus beakers per turn to catch up. I will elaborate on the parameters below, though keep in mind while I think what I am saying is true, it may not be 100% true as I have only gathered all this from testing it on my own and reading the forum post I linked. For simplicity I will refer to 'you' as the one behind in tech, but in reality this mod component applies to all AIs and players.

-TECH_DIFFUSION_ENABLE is what you would expect: turning the component on or off (default off)

-TECH_DIFFUSION_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER makes it so that CIVs get a bonus to a particular tech if other they have met other civs that already know the tech, in my testing, it seems to not care about open borders, only contact

-TECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_THRESHOLD is the the aforementioned threshold where welfare kicks in. *I'm almost certain* that its the raw percentage of your tech (score) compared to the highest one in the game that you know, IE: this threshold is your tech percentage compared to the most technologically advanced civ you met. So if its at 90, then if you're at or below 90% of the tech score of the most technologically advanced civ you met, then the modifier kicks in. But the threshold transition is abrupt, as in, if you're even at 91%, then you get no welfare bonus.

-TECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_MODIFIER is the actual modifier that determines how strong it is. I haven't been able to find exactly how much this alters things by, though in the thread I linked it seems the developers have posted a bit of the algorithm involved. But I'm not sure if that's the algorithm being used in the script today, as the thread was a playtesting thread and from a long while ago. Nevertheless I will suggest a range of values below.

The last three I don't touch mainly because it seems to be inconsequential to what I am trying to change. As far as what values to use in practice, before I go over what values I've been trying out, I wanted to first explain to you the overall philosophy that underlies the changes I made. I play on huge maps (though I modified the huge maps so that research was slower, to offset immortal difficulty games from progressing too fast, the parameter is: <iResearchPercent>105</iResearchPercent>. I changed it from 80 -> 105, this is in CIV4WorldInfo), starting 15 civs (though it almost always balloons to 26 ish civs by the medieval era), totestra map script with 'some' continents and a custom difficulty on the level of immortal ish. My two main goals with tech is to A) keep it so that weak civs never fall too behind in the late renaissance/industrial era; I don't mind them falling behind before meeting everyone, as I figure it simulates the sort of tech gap when the Europeans IRL started to colonize new continents in the Americas and Africa, but I definitely want them to catch up fast by the time they meet everyone and when the world is in industrial era. My second main goal is to B) stop any one lone civ from pulsing too far ahead; admittedly, this tech diffusion system doesn't really handle that and it only handles (A), so I need another way to handle (B). However, one has to be a little careful because going too far the other way will make it so that investing in tech is useless as one could exploit these features. I personally am trying to strike a balance where heavily investing in tech will make it so that one is able to enjoy the benefits of reaching certain techs earlier (such as doctrines, wonders, etc) but keeping it so that everyone is relatively close to each other when it comes to war so that even smaller civs can put up a reasonable fight. In essence, original research should be hard, but researching things already known throughout the world should be relatively easy. Anyway, here are the settings I've been toying with:

-TECH_DIFFUSION_ENABLE = 1 (duh)

-TECH_DIFFUSION_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER = 0, I did this because I also keep tech transfer on, so having both effects is too much.
Strictly speaking, TECH_DIFFUSION_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER kicks in even when open borders is not signed, but I turned this off instead of RI's built in tech transfer because I figure that retaining the RI system will retain the importance of choice of open borders. Also, while the tech welfare system in general will keep anyone from being obsolete and give everyone the "goodies" in a reasonable timeframe, the RI tech transfer system will make it so that having good relations with tech superior civs rewards you by giving you a boost so that you can enjoy those techs just a little bit earlier than everyone else. Perhaps a way to justify this as more than a balancing mechanic would be to think that only the closest of allies to a technologically advanced civ will learn about the particular tech the fastest, and only after more time when that tech is more widespread do other peoples have more exposure to it and get to develop it on their own quickly. As an example, I think towards WW2 where Britain in the Tizard mission was able to gift the US key technological innovations such as an advanced radio. Of course, other nations caught on soon enough and probably didn't need to develop the thing from complete scratch - but it was the closest allies to Britain that was able to get it first (I know that technically, in game terms, this would be an example of tech trading rather than tech transfer, but you get the idea).

-TECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_THRESHOLD = 90, I essentially see this setting as "what tech percentage are you comfortable with the majority of the civs hanging around at", because I find in practice, usually it will be me and maybe 4 other civs at the frontier of tech, with everyone else behind by varying degrees. I set this percentage to be this because I want even small AIs to put up a fight, while still maintaining the inherent advantage that one gets from investing in technology.

-TECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_MODIFIER = 1500, I know at first this seems like a large number, but from my (limited) testing, it seems to strike a good balance. If you do decide to tinker around with these settings, I figure that this is the setting you will be tweaking the most. Remember, only civs behind the threshold will even get this boost at all, so it will never boost AIs too much (or you, for that matter) to the point where they can exploit it to get ahead with otherwise weaker tech.

Some final notes:
-Though I don't know the values and how much things affect things, I know that the welfare boost is not a simple yes or no calculation depending on threshold. It's a scaling boost where the further behind in tech you are, the more of a boost you get, and the more others know a certain tech, the more boost you get. IE: two civs that get the welfare tech boost from being under the threshold do not get the same boost. The one that has a lower tech score will get a larger boost than one that has a higher tech score. Moreover, if multiple civs are ahead of you - provided youre under the welfare threshold - you will get a larger boost compared to if only one civ had a dominant tech lead.
-RI tech transfer system has it so that the tech bar turns blue when RI's tech transfer is on so that you know you have the boost. Tech diffusion does not have this graphical feature and is just there. It also doesn't affect the amount of beakers you produce, it just somehow makes the turns to complete research shorter.

 

[fnsnad]

Two questions for you guys:

Is there a way to better identify what kind of units are in a stack? If it's a big stack the list will fill the entire screen from top to bottom, and therefore some of it will be blocked by the interface.
Also the way untis are listed does not seem very intuitive or informative. You'd think you're facing a stack with let's say 12 units, until you discover the little (25) behind one units name and realize there are 25+ units of just that type in there, next to all the others!!

Connected to that is my second question: Do you guys still see the A.I. (or even yourself) deploy huge doomstacks? I thought that the logistics penalties should discourage anyone from doing so, but then I read an older post here when searching about that issue where someone stated that if you combine the net positives you would get from all the bonuses in a huge diverse stack (say recon bonus III, siege bonus III, etc) it would still be more than the penalties you'd get from the max logistic problems number. So ironically the system which was designed to discourage the use of doomstacks actually encourages them after all. Is that still the case?
Because in my recent game I had the A.I. steamroll into my lands with an enormous doomstack (must have been around 50+ units) in the renaissance era. When meeting my troops of the same unit types in much smaller stacks they had no problem crushing them, taking only a 2:1 loss rate when attacking entrenched cities, not even bothering to reduce the city's defenses before attacking it. What gives??

1) I'm not sure, one way I guess would be to put a spy troop on the tile. I can't think of any other way though.
2) Yeah, AI does that unfortunately. I don't personally deploy doomstacks though. 50+ units? jeez. Do you have unit cost scaling on or off?

 

[fnsnad]

I used to be rather good in matematic (and I still do remember something ....) - I'm able to seek, find and even try what's obvious - sometimes also what's not so obvious - in the XML. As for the Python - I have only had success with 2 changes of my own: The CvEventManager.py (changed the TechInfo.setAheadOfTime section (for singleplayers only)) and a little in the Revolutions.py (the self.i_______ and self.civics values in the top of the file). Else: No programming from my side .

Could you elaborate on how you modified the TechInfo? I tried but it seems to not be working seamlessly.

 

[JohnCarterOfMars]

Regarding tech transfer, I do think it helps create blocs of nations, too. In my game with 40 civs, once we start accumulating vassals, they tend to trade mostly amongst themselves, which I like. It makes it less likely that a vassal will abandon its master for another. If one does, I will close borders to that nation as punishment, until they come crawling back.

The way I see it, if Civ A has open borders with B, B will get some tech transfer from A. Now, if Civ C is closed to A but has open borders with B, some of B's tech boost from A will leak over to C. If Civ B eventually becomes a vassal of A, it might be advantageous for A to open borders with C, given how friendly C is to B. Now A is the leader of a bloc of nations.

 

[DN_sith]

Hi. Re-installed RI from 3.55 (uninstall) to 3.6 and got pink icons of units in civilopedia's unit upgrade chart. Default units icons are Ok. What my problem and what I'm doing wrong?

 

[PKSRoman]

Hi. Re-installed RI from 3.55 (uninstall) to 3.6 and got pink icons of units in civilopedia's unit upgrade chart. Default units icons are Ok. What my problem and what I'm doing wrong?

your instalator was corrupted. download the file once again, uinstall previous instalation and install again using new instalator who you download

 

[TheBirdMan]

Could you elaborate on how you modified the TechInfo? I tried but it seems to not be working seamlessly.

I didn't change (much) in the TechInfo file itself. Most was done elsewhere.


You can see an example (Excel), attached to my post from 28th. Aug 2022.

But I have changed my mind a bit on when to do this. For most games I now change this value <iResearchPercent>xxx</iResearchPercent> in the CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml for GAMESPEED_EPIC (each gamespeed-section has it's own settings). The default here is <iResearchPercent>465</iResearchPercent>, but I have it much higher now <iResearchPercent>725</iResearchPercent>. It's actually much easier, than the way I started with. And most often you do not need more changes here.

However in certain special situations, my 1st "solution" would be the best solution. And that is when/if I want to focus on a specific era or end the game latest at era XXXX. I have done so a few times last year.


Anyway: What-ever you choose to do if you want to "follow" my way of playing - remember to take a full copy of your R:I installation and place that somewhere else - it's much easier to make a fall-back that way if something goes completely wrong.

 

[Sinocpm]

1) I'm not sure, one way I guess would be to put a spy troop on the tile. I can't think of any other way though.
2) Yeah, AI does that unfortunately. I don't personally deploy doomstacks though. 50+ units? jeez. Do you have unit cost scaling on or off?

1) This is more of an interface problem than a gameplay mechanics one, which either makes it easier or harder to fix, not sure Do you guys have the same issue though or am I overlooking some interface option which I could activate? The issue being not being able to see the first unit in a large stack, because it's hidden underneath the interface (the tech/culture/spy sliders and everything that is in the top left corner).

Also would it be possible to rearrange the way units are shown in stacks (especially large ones)? So for example that all units of one type are grouped together and shown with a number behind their name once there are two or more of that type in there?
So for example instead of looking somewhat like this:

Grenadier
(+25% City attack
+25% against
etc
etc)
Cuirassier
Grenadier (6)
Horse Archer
etc etc

it would look like this:

Grenadier (7)
(+25 % etc
etc)
Cuirassier
Horse Archer
etc etc

I would even argue to remove all the little promotion icons, because 1. they add more to an already overloaded list, and 2. from a realism standpoint kind of view I don't think it makes much sense that you are able to tell the specialization/training of a unit just by looking at it. If you want to know that before you do battle with a particular unit/stack you would have to send a spy on that field to find out.
I'm not sure if these changes are even possible or if it's a hardcoded kind of thing, just my two cents


2) I do have unit cost scaling on! Unless that only applies to the player and not the A.I., which I doubt. They just like to put a lot of units in one spot...
So I looked a little bit into the detriments vs. aid bonuses and I can see why the A.I. would still consider huge stacks to be useful:

Lets say we have a huge, diverse city attack stack in the late renaissance, so we would get the following bonuses:
Siege Aid III: +2 First strikes, +12% City attack
Recon Aid III: +2 First strikes, +12% Withdrawal Chances
Ranged Aid III: +2 First strike chances, +12% city and hills defense
Mobility Aid III: +12% Strength, +12% Withdrawal Chances
Assault Aid III: +12% Strength
That makes for a net positive (when attacking a city) of +36% strength, plus 4 first strikes and 2 more chances, and +24% withdrawal chances.
Logistic problems V next to the healing penalties would give us -25% strength and -25% withraw chances. So we would still have a net bonus of 11% strength and only a minimaly reduced withrawal chance of -1%.
Even the final and highest Logistiv problems VI would only give us -35% strength and withdraw chances, so we would still have a tiny net positive strength of +1% and only a reduced withraw chance of -11%! Not to forget all the extra first strikes we still keep!
These last two logistics problems also add +1/+2 terrain movement costs respectively. However what does that even do to units who only have 1 anyways? The stack is still able to move one square every turn, no? At least that's how it seemed in my game.

So in conclusion imho I think the logistics problems penalties should be harsher, especially reducing first strikes and maybe overall strength even more.
What do you guys think?

 

[DN_sith]

your instalator was corrupted. download the file once again, uinstall previous instalation and install again using new instalator who you download

Re-downloaded from moddb, same here. =\

 

[fnsnad]

I didn't change (much) in the TechInfo file itself. Most was done elsewhere.


You can see an example (Excel), attached to my post from 28th. Aug 2022.

But I have changed my mind a bit on when to do this. For most games I now change this value <iResearchPercent>xxx</iResearchPercent> in the CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml for GAMESPEED_EPIC (each gamespeed-section has it's own settings). The default here is <iResearchPercent>465</iResearchPercent>, but I have it much higher now <iResearchPercent>725</iResearchPercent>. It's actually much easier, than the way I started with. And most often you do not need more changes here.

However in certain special situations, my 1st "solution" would be the best solution. And that is when/if I want to focus on a specific era or end the game latest at era XXXX. I have done so a few times last year.


Anyway: What-ever you choose to do if you want to "follow" my way of playing - remember to take a full copy of your R:I installation and place that somewhere else - it's much easier to make a fall-back that way if something goes completely wrong.

I think we both have different approaches to how we want to balance our own games. Regardless, we both changed the CvEventManager.py for the tech ahead setting. I was wondering, I had managed to gotten mine to work (I essentially just doubled all ahead of tech penalties) but for some reason, whenever the game goes to a new tech era, the changes reset back to the default. I can get around this by simply restarting my game and then it applies my changes again, but I was wondering if you had this problem and if you managed to fix it. I'm also wondering if you ever got around to changing the text that shows all the tech ahead penalties whenever you hover over that little button thing next to the tech slider to match your own changes, because I find that whenever I hover over it, the text only shows the default techahead penalty percentages.

 

[TheBirdMan]

Remember there are 3 different sections in the .py file, that covers this issue. I changed next section too (the one for teams). I forgot this in my post.

1st starting with this:
if not gc.getGame().isOption(GameOptionTypes.GAMEOPTION_NO_AHEAD):
CyGame().setAheadOfTimeEra(0)
if (gc.getGame().getGameTurnYear() < -2000):
for iTech in xrange(gc.getNumTechInfos()):

2nd with this:
def onGameStart(self, argsList):
'Called at the start of the game'
iTeamCount = 0
for iTeam in range(gc.getMAX_TEAMS()):
team = gc.getTeam(iTeam)
if team.isAlive(): iTeamCount += 1
CyGame().setInitialNumPlayers(iTeamCount) ## Stores the starting number of teams which is later compared when calculating global modifiers; doesn't change within a given game
if not gc.getGame().isOption(GameOptionTypes.GAMEOPTION_NO_AHEAD):

and 3rd with this:
def onEndGameTurn(self, argsList):
'Called at the end of the end of each turn'
iGameTurn = argsList[0]
## Barbarian Civ ##
if not gc.getGame().isOption(GameOptionTypes.GAMEOPTION_NO_BARBARIAN_CIV):
BarbCiv.BarbCiv().checkBarb()
## Barbarian Civ ##

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some "features" in one of those 3 sections, that somehow change something in another.


And to make it a little more fluffy - there is a text-section too in xlm....... most is text - but there are some variables.

Starting here in Misc2:
<TEXT>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_MISC_HELP_WIDGET_AHEAD_OF_TIME_CLAS_AT_100</Tag>
<English>[TAB]Classical tech:[TAB][TAB]+100%
Medieval tech:[TAB][TAB]+200%
Renaissance tech: [TAB][TAB]+300%
Industrial tech:[TAB][TAB]+400%
Modern tech:[TAB][TAB][TAB]+500%
=======================

 

[fnsnad]

Remember there are 3 different sections in the .py file, that covers this issue. I changed next section too (the one for teams). I forgot this in my post.

1st starting with this:
if not gc.getGame().isOption(GameOptionTypes.GAMEOPTION_NO_AHEAD):
CyGame().setAheadOfTimeEra(0)
if (gc.getGame().getGameTurnYear() < -2000):
for iTech in xrange(gc.getNumTechInfos()):

2nd with this:
def onGameStart(self, argsList):
'Called at the start of the game'
iTeamCount = 0
for iTeam in range(gc.getMAX_TEAMS()):
team = gc.getTeam(iTeam)
if team.isAlive(): iTeamCount += 1
CyGame().setInitialNumPlayers(iTeamCount) ## Stores the starting number of teams which is later compared when calculating global modifiers; doesn't change within a given game
if not gc.getGame().isOption(GameOptionTypes.GAMEOPTION_NO_AHEAD):

and 3rd with this:
def onEndGameTurn(self, argsList):
'Called at the end of the end of each turn'
iGameTurn = argsList[0]
## Barbarian Civ ##
if not gc.getGame().isOption(GameOptionTypes.GAMEOPTION_NO_BARBARIAN_CIV):
BarbCiv.BarbCiv().checkBarb()
## Barbarian Civ ##

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some "features" in one of those 3 sections, that somehow change something in another.


And to make it a little more fluffy - there is a text-section too in xlm....... most is text - but there are some variables.

Starting here in Misc2:
<TEXT>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_MISC_HELP_WIDGET_AHEAD_OF_TIME_CLAS_AT_100</Tag>
<English>[TAB]Classical tech:[TAB][TAB]+100%
Medieval tech:[TAB][TAB]+200%
Renaissance tech: [TAB][TAB]+300%
Industrial tech:[TAB][TAB]+400%
Modern tech:[TAB][TAB][TAB]+500%
=======================

Yep! The text changes worked in Misc2. In the CvEventManger.py I realized that I had only made changes to the first two sections and not the third so that was probably it. Thanks for the response!

 

[Knight3]

Hi all,
sorry for bad english (not my native language!)
I'd like to know if is it possible to find some advanced save game files for Realism Invictus 3.601 mod, to test stability of my laptop in later game.
Sorry in case is not a reasonable request and thanks.

 

[Sykriss]

1) This is more of an interface problem than a gameplay mechanics one, which either makes it easier or harder to fix, not sure Do you guys have the same issue though or am I overlooking some interface option which I could activate? The issue being not being able to see the first unit in a large stack, because it's hidden underneath the interface (the tech/culture/spy sliders and everything that is in the top left corner).

Also would it be possible to rearrange the way units are shown in stacks (especially large ones)? So for example that all units of one type are grouped together and shown with a number behind their name once there are two or more of that type in there?
So for example instead of looking somewhat like this:

Grenadier
(+25% City attack
+25% against
etc
etc)
Cuirassier
Grenadier (6)
Horse Archer
etc etc

it would look like this:

Grenadier (7)
(+25 % etc
etc)
Cuirassier
Horse Archer
etc etc

I would even argue to remove all the little promotion icons, because 1. they add more to an already overloaded list, and 2. from a realism standpoint kind of view I don't think it makes much sense that you are able to tell the specialization/training of a unit just by looking at it. If you want to know that before you do battle with a particular unit/stack you would have to send a spy on that field to find out.
I'm not sure if these changes are even possible or if it's a hardcoded kind of thing, just my two cents


2) I do have unit cost scaling on! Unless that only applies to the player and not the A.I., which I doubt. They just like to put a lot of units in one spot...
So I looked a little bit into the detriments vs. aid bonuses and I can see why the A.I. would still consider huge stacks to be useful:

Lets say we have a huge, diverse city attack stack in the late renaissance, so we would get the following bonuses:
Siege Aid III: +2 First strikes, +12% City attack
Recon Aid III: +2 First strikes, +12% Withdrawal Chances
Ranged Aid III: +2 First strike chances, +12% city and hills defense
Mobility Aid III: +12% Strength, +12% Withdrawal Chances
Assault Aid III: +12% Strength
That makes for a net positive (when attacking a city) of +36% strength, plus 4 first strikes and 2 more chances, and +24% withdrawal chances.
Logistic problems V next to the healing penalties would give us -25% strength and -25% withraw chances. So we would still have a net bonus of 11% strength and only a minimaly reduced withrawal chance of -1%.
Even the final and highest Logistiv problems VI would only give us -35% strength and withdraw chances, so we would still have a tiny net positive strength of +1% and only a reduced withraw chance of -11%! Not to forget all the extra first strikes we still keep!
These last two logistics problems also add +1/+2 terrain movement costs respectively. However what does that even do to units who only have 1 anyways? The stack is still able to move one square every turn, no? At least that's how it seemed in my game.

So in conclusion imho I think the logistics problems penalties should be harsher, especially reducing first strikes and maybe overall strength even more.
What do you guys think?

Agreed. I haven't made it to the point where I encounter stacks of doom yet, but just reading this made me want to make a change for my own (still vanilla up until now) install. So, I modified the "promotion_congested_<terrain>#" entries in Civ4PromotionInfos.xml to make the strength debuff scale up to 55%, over the vanilla 35%. I also modified the appropriate lines in the same file to add a scaling penalty to first strikes for penalty levels 3 and above, with -4 first strikes at VI logistics penalty. This should result in a net -19% strength for a massive doomstack at max penalty, as well as -4 first strikes and the other vanilla debuffs.


Since I'm here, I might as well share my experiences with this mod so far, as a returning player who hasn't played IV in years, but did recently play a fair bit of Vox Populi and a little Civ VI (I cannot get into VI for the life of me, districts are too much for my brain to calculate, among other issues). For reference, I'm playing on Noble, warlord is much too easy but Nobile is putting up a fight. It is mostly excellent, but I do have a few complaints, probably due to my own ineptitude. I was originally playing Massanissa(berbers) but am now playing Syngman Rhee(Korea) for the better farm output and decent archer NU.

1. It seems like every single time I start getting even a little bit of a point lead, half of the world declares war on me and I'm suddenly facing a multiple front war against multiple civs that all seem to have been preparing for war when I haven't been, though I garrison at least three archers/comp bowman due to their OP defensive ability in all of my border cities. In the latest iteration of this occurrence, I have managed to hold the lines, and even took an enemy city on a counter-attack. However, this leads me to my next observed issue.

2. Taking cities defended by archers seems much too difficult, particularly when they are on a hill and/or the city has walls. I understand, that they hold an advantageous defensive position, but three composite bowmen and couple warbands in a city with 0% defense should not be able to hold off 30+ attackers, mostly spearmen with a bonus against archers, all with city attack II and fierce warriors. This would not be much of an issue if there existed an actual counter to ranged units, but there isn't. The only unit with a bonus against archers seems to be the aforementioned spearmen, but they still get absolutely demolished. I know the Helepolis exists, but it is prohibitive to move in most cases, and is only good for one city before it has to spend ten turns healing. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong here, or if I should make an adjustment to my personal game. If I do make an adjustment, I'm somewhat leaning towards buffing the bonus spearmen get against archers, maybe up to 40 or 50%, but I'm open to ideas (assuming there isn't an existing counter I'm not aware of). Some of you may suggest just sending more units, but the more units you lose, the enemy archers eventual promotions make it *utterly impossible* no matter your unit count. Like, literal 0% calculated chance. This led me to abandon the siege and pillage the enemies countryside. Plus, when you field an army of respectable size, it seems your economy completely shuts down no matter what you do anyways, leading me to my third issue.

3. I'm constantly running out of coin the minute inflation starts creeping in. I think this is more of an issue with my own play, though. Even with tax offices/toll houses/etc in every city I struggle to pay for an army without my research plummeting. I try to have at least one cottage per city, with some having a couple, but I don't really make dedicated commerce cities. Trading never seems to net me much profit, either; even with open borders I rarely if ever see a trade route made with a foreign civ. I will admit, though, that I'm pretty sure I figured this out, as I didn't know it depended on connecting your roads with foreign civ roads.

4. Struggling to figure out and utilize unit counters effectively. Idk, some of the bonuses seem a bit weak, in that they're less of a hard counter and more of a gentle push in your favor. I generally feel like I'm the one being countered, versus countering, if that makes sense, even though I try to field regiments of mixed units.

I attached a save of my current game, which I feel like was going pretty well 'till three civs declared war on me in short order. Those fights put me behind a good bit and now the world leader (one of the three unfriendly neighbors) has a tech lead and longbows while I'm trying to get my civ back into a good state. We'll see, I guess. Regardless, thank you to the mod team and the community for all of your hard work! It's obvious this has been a project of passion for many years, and it feels very, very polished. Does not have a "mod" feel to it at all, more like an official expansion.

 

[fnsnad]

Agreed. I haven't made it to the point where I encounter stacks of doom yet, but just reading this made me want to make a change for my own (still vanilla up until now) install. So, I modified the "promotion_congested_<terrain>#" entries in Civ4PromotionInfos.xml to make the strength debuff scale up to 55%, over the vanilla 35%. I also modified the appropriate lines in the same file to add a scaling penalty to first strikes for penalty levels 3 and above, with -4 first strikes at VI logistics penalty. This should result in a net -19% strength for a massive doomstack at max penalty, as well as -4 first strikes and the other vanilla debuffs.


Since I'm here, I might as well share my experiences with this mod so far, as a returning player who hasn't played IV in years, but did recently play a fair bit of Vox Populi and a little Civ VI (I cannot get into VI for the life of me, districts are too much for my brain to calculate, among other issues). For reference, I'm playing on Noble, warlord is much too easy but Nobile is putting up a fight. It is mostly excellent, but I do have a few complaints, probably due to my own ineptitude. I was originally playing Massanissa(berbers) but am now playing Syngman Rhee(Korea) for the better farm output and decent archer NU.

1. It seems like every single time I start getting even a little bit of a point lead, half of the world declares war on me and I'm suddenly facing a multiple front war against multiple civs that all seem to have been preparing for war when I haven't been, though I garrison at least three archers/comp bowman due to their OP defensive ability in all of my border cities. In the latest iteration of this occurrence, I have managed to hold the lines, and even took an enemy city on a counter-attack. However, this leads me to my next observed issue.

2. Taking cities defended by archers seems much too difficult, particularly when they are on a hill and/or the city has walls. I understand, that they hold an advantageous defensive position, but three composite bowmen and couple warbands in a city with 0% defense should not be able to hold off 30+ attackers, mostly spearmen with a bonus against archers, all with city attack II and fierce warriors. This would not be much of an issue if there existed an actual counter to ranged units, but there isn't. The only unit with a bonus against archers seems to be the aforementioned spearmen, but they still get absolutely demolished. I know the Helepolis exists, but it is prohibitive to move in most cases, and is only good for one city before it has to spend ten turns healing. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong here, or if I should make an adjustment to my personal game. If I do make an adjustment, I'm somewhat leaning towards buffing the bonus spearmen get against archers, maybe up to 40 or 50%, but I'm open to ideas (assuming there isn't an existing counter I'm not aware of). Some of you may suggest just sending more units, but the more units you lose, the enemy archers eventual promotions make it *utterly impossible* no matter your unit count. Like, literal 0% calculated chance. This led me to abandon the siege and pillage the enemies countryside. Plus, when you field an army of respectable size, it seems your economy completely shuts down no matter what you do anyways, leading me to my third issue.

3. I'm constantly running out of coin the minute inflation starts creeping in. I think this is more of an issue with my own play, though. Even with tax offices/toll houses/etc in every city I struggle to pay for an army without my research plummeting. I try to have at least one cottage per city, with some having a couple, but I don't really make dedicated commerce cities. Trading never seems to net me much profit, either; even with open borders I rarely if ever see a trade route made with a foreign civ. I will admit, though, that I'm pretty sure I figured this out, as I didn't know it depended on connecting your roads with foreign civ roads.

4. Struggling to figure out and utilize unit counters effectively. Idk, some of the bonuses seem a bit weak, in that they're less of a hard counter and more of a gentle push in your favor. I generally feel like I'm the one being countered, versus countering, if that makes sense, even though I try to field regiments of mixed units.

I attached a save of my current game, which I feel like was going pretty well 'till three civs declared war on me in short order. Those fights put me behind a good bit and now the world leader (one of the three unfriendly neighbors) has a tech lead and longbows while I'm trying to get my civ back into a good state. We'll see, I guess. Regardless, thank you to the mod team and the community for all of your hard work! It's obvious this has been a project of passion for many years, and it feels very, very polished. Does not have a "mod" feel to it at all, more like an official expansion.

1) What settings are you playing on? Furthermore, make sure your power ratio is good, because even the civs marked "Very unlikely to declare war" can declare war if you're weak enough/stand enough to gain. Whenever you meet a new civ, in the civilopedia in the leaders section under society tab, make sure to check their warring preference. Particularly, pay attention to their "Wars usually motivated by..." part (some civs have this, others don't).

2) Again, perhaps settings matter here but I find that archers are fairly easily overrun. Personally, after taking the city defenses down to 0, I usually attack with a stack of irregulars like warbands and then use my professional army of axeman to sweep in. Usually most of the warbands will die, but the archers will have taken very serious damage to the point where my main army sweeps them easily.

3) Inflation definitely is a huge price to pay, but I think you're making a big mistake by not making dedicated commerce cities. You really want to be specializing cities in civ, especially here in RI. Again, this depends on map size and how many cities you have, but you want to make sure you have a healthy number of commerce cities to balance out production cities. Furthermore, I personally like having one scientist city (usually my capital) that has a lot of food resources. Later in the game when the amount of cities I have balloons and I have room to expand in the new world do I add a few more science cities.
I find that trade routes are a huge source of income, especially ocean route trades, and especially wealthy civs. Of course, you want to make sure that you are building all the trade buildings if you haven't been. And as a side consideration, if you are in the tech lead, perhaps think twice of opening borders with that supremely wealthy civ, because though it will benefit both of you with income, s/he will also get your tech boost. It's also worth a mention that trading actual resources - while fairly useless in BTS civ4 - I find is extremely important in RI. Not only does it help you raise your population cap with happiness and health, leading to more prosperous cities, but it will become vital later that you have a healthy supply of strategic resources in order to build those industrial buildings so that your production cities can hire a lot of craftsmen, as that's where the real boost of production comes from later in the game.

 

[Hafenguy]

I often have problems getting open borders with the other civs. When tech trading is off, the diplomatic benefit of sharing techs with other civs is often missing.

 

[yurv3]

Spoiler :

Agreed. I haven't made it to the point where I encounter stacks of doom yet, but just reading this made me want to make a change for my own (still vanilla up until now) install. So, I modified the "promotion_congested_<terrain>#" entries in Civ4PromotionInfos.xml to make the strength debuff scale up to 55%, over the vanilla 35%. I also modified the appropriate lines in the same file to add a scaling penalty to first strikes for penalty levels 3 and above, with -4 first strikes at VI logistics penalty. This should result in a net -19% strength for a massive doomstack at max penalty, as well as -4 first strikes and the other vanilla debuffs.


Since I'm here, I might as well share my experiences with this mod so far, as a returning player who hasn't played IV in years, but did recently play a fair bit of Vox Populi and a little Civ VI (I cannot get into VI for the life of me, districts are too much for my brain to calculate, among other issues). For reference, I'm playing on Noble, warlord is much too easy but Nobile is putting up a fight. It is mostly excellent, but I do have a few complaints, probably due to my own ineptitude. I was originally playing Massanissa(berbers) but am now playing Syngman Rhee(Korea) for the better farm output and decent archer NU.

1. It seems like every single time I start getting even a little bit of a point lead, half of the world declares war on me and I'm suddenly facing a multiple front war against multiple civs that all seem to have been preparing for war when I haven't been, though I garrison at least three archers/comp bowman due to their OP defensive ability in all of my border cities. In the latest iteration of this occurrence, I have managed to hold the lines, and even took an enemy city on a counter-attack. However, this leads me to my next observed issue.

2. Taking cities defended by archers seems much too difficult, particularly when they are on a hill and/or the city has walls. I understand, that they hold an advantageous defensive position, but three composite bowmen and couple warbands in a city with 0% defense should not be able to hold off 30+ attackers, mostly spearmen with a bonus against archers, all with city attack II and fierce warriors. This would not be much of an issue if there existed an actual counter to ranged units, but there isn't. The only unit with a bonus against archers seems to be the aforementioned spearmen, but they still get absolutely demolished. I know the Helepolis exists, but it is prohibitive to move in most cases, and is only good for one city before it has to spend ten turns healing. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong here, or if I should make an adjustment to my personal game. If I do make an adjustment, I'm somewhat leaning towards buffing the bonus spearmen get against archers, maybe up to 40 or 50%, but I'm open to ideas (assuming there isn't an existing counter I'm not aware of). Some of you may suggest just sending more units, but the more units you lose, the enemy archers eventual promotions make it *utterly impossible* no matter your unit count. Like, literal 0% calculated chance. This led me to abandon the siege and pillage the enemies countryside. Plus, when you field an army of respectable size, it seems your economy completely shuts down no matter what you do anyways, leading me to my third issue.

3. I'm constantly running out of coin the minute inflation starts creeping in. I think this is more of an issue with my own play, though. Even with tax offices/toll houses/etc in every city I struggle to pay for an army without my research plummeting. I try to have at least one cottage per city, with some having a couple, but I don't really make dedicated commerce cities. Trading never seems to net me much profit, either; even with open borders I rarely if ever see a trade route made with a foreign civ. I will admit, though, that I'm pretty sure I figured this out, as I didn't know it depended on connecting your roads with foreign civ roads.

4. Struggling to figure out and utilize unit counters effectively. Idk, some of the bonuses seem a bit weak, in that they're less of a hard counter and more of a gentle push in your favor. I generally feel like I'm the one being countered, versus countering, if that makes sense, even though I try to field regiments of mixed units.

I attached a save of my current game, which I feel like was going pretty well 'till three civs declared war on me in short order. Those fights put me behind a good bit and now the world leader (one of the three unfriendly neighbors) has a tech lead and longbows while I'm trying to get my civ back into a good state. We'll see, I guess. Regardless, thank you to the mod team and the community for all of your hard work! It's obvious this has been a project of passion for many years, and it feels very, very polished. Does not have a "mod" feel to it at all,

more like an official expansion.

You have built so many cities for nothing at this stage. They are killing your economy. And they are too far from each other, it will be difficult to transfer troops to help. Then you still haven't studied monasticism. You have a holy city and a religion, you need to quickly spread it to the whole country. Look carefully at your government priorities - it may be worth changing. And upgrade your units. Then everything will be fine

 

[Anonymous2]

Hi, dumb request but can the old 0AD "menu_track" be brought back when starting a new game (After "the sun rises on..." screen)?

 

[TheBirdMan]

When you open the Civilopedia and choose Leaders under the Society-tab, you can find info in the lower-right corner, Diplomacy under AILeaderPersonality about each and every leaders, wheater they hates OpenBorders, just dislike them - or even loves OpenBorders.

But remember, above is "just" their "native" attitude. The AILeaderPersonality is so complex, that the actual situation on the map, yours and theirs internal "rank" in the "power-game", religion, common friends and foes - nearly everything - makes a difference. Still - once you have played a number of games with/against the same leaders, you will "learn", that each leader actually do have certain good and bad personality traits, which often - often, not always - "shine" through in different situations.

Ohhh, and please: Do not forget, that your own playstyle also affects an AI's attitude towards you..... Fx - it's completely crazy to make deals with an enemy of the one AI, you need most to be your "friend".



P.s.: "One" could write a book about this issue - and when finished, it would still be incomplete.

 

[AspiringScholar]

I've been tinkering with TechDiffusion_GlobalDefines and I dug up a little bit from this old thread. https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/on-tech-diffusion.516923/. Pretty much from what I've gathered, it's actually defaulted to off in Realism Invictus and is a completely separate thing from its built in border tech transfer system. I figure that the RI team tinkered with this at first a little, but turned it off at some point or another and its now just a dormant feature. If you want to turn it on, the top line should be set to 1 as seen here:

Spoiler :

<DefineName>TECH_DIFFUSION_ENABLE</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>

Recently, I've turned it on myself and have been messing with the parameters to try and find a balance I like. I find that it seems to work well in keeping crappy CIV's from falling too far behind. If you skim through the thread I linked, it highlights some of the inner workings of it. Although I wasn't able to get a rigorous grasp of how it worked, here is what I have gathered so far:

The mod works by implementing two things. The first is similar to RI's where tech is boosted when other known civs already have the tech (however, this is w/o respect to open borders). The second feature they call 'diffusion welfare' which is the more powerful feature and the feature you probably want IMO. it's where when a civ gets behind in tech score by a certain amount, then they get bonus beakers per turn to catch up. I will elaborate on the parameters below, though keep in mind while I think what I am saying is true, it may not be 100% true as I have only gathered all this from testing it on my own and reading the forum post I linked. For simplicity I will refer to 'you' as the one behind in tech, but in reality this mod component applies to all AIs and players.

-TECH_DIFFUSION_ENABLE is what you would expect: turning the component on or off (default off)

-TECH_DIFFUSION_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER makes it so that CIVs get a bonus to a particular tech if other they have met other civs that already know the tech, in my testing, it seems to not care about open borders, only contact

-TECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_THRESHOLD is the the aforementioned threshold where welfare kicks in. *I'm almost certain* that its the raw percentage of your tech (score) compared to the highest one in the game that you know, IE: this threshold is your tech percentage compared to the most technologically advanced civ you met. So if its at 90, then if you're at or below 90% of the tech score of the most technologically advanced civ you met, then the modifier kicks in. But the threshold transition is abrupt, as in, if you're even at 91%, then you get no welfare bonus.

-TECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_MODIFIER is the actual modifier that determines how strong it is. I haven't been able to find exactly how much this alters things by, though in the thread I linked it seems the developers have posted a bit of the algorithm involved. But I'm not sure if that's the algorithm being used in the script today, as the thread was a playtesting thread and from a long while ago. Nevertheless I will suggest a range of values below.

The last three I don't touch mainly because it seems to be inconsequential to what I am trying to change. As far as what values to use in practice, before I go over what values I've been trying out, I wanted to first explain to you the overall philosophy that underlies the changes I made. I play on huge maps (though I modified the huge maps so that research was slower, to offset immortal difficulty games from progressing too fast, the parameter is: <iResearchPercent>105</iResearchPercent>. I changed it from 80 -> 105, this is in CIV4WorldInfo), starting 15 civs (though it almost always balloons to 26 ish civs by the medieval era), totestra map script with 'some' continents and a custom difficulty on the level of immortal ish. My two main goals with tech is to A) keep it so that weak civs never fall too behind in the late renaissance/industrial era; I don't mind them falling behind before meeting everyone, as I figure it simulates the sort of tech gap when the Europeans IRL started to colonize new continents in the Americas and Africa, but I definitely want them to catch up fast by the time they meet everyone and when the world is in industrial era. My second main goal is to B) stop any one lone civ from pulsing too far ahead; admittedly, this tech diffusion system doesn't really handle that and it only handles (A), so I need another way to handle (B). However, one has to be a little careful because going too far the other way will make it so that investing in tech is useless as one could exploit these features. I personally am trying to strike a balance where heavily investing in tech will make it so that one is able to enjoy the benefits of reaching certain techs earlier (such as doctrines, wonders, etc) but keeping it so that everyone is relatively close to each other when it comes to war so that even smaller civs can put up a reasonable fight. In essence, original research should be hard, but researching things already known throughout the world should be relatively easy. Anyway, here are the settings I've been toying with:

-TECH_DIFFUSION_ENABLE = 1 (duh)

-TECH_DIFFUSION_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER = 0, I did this because I also keep tech transfer on, so having both effects is too much.
Strictly speaking, TECH_DIFFUSION_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER kicks in even when open borders is not signed, but I turned this off instead of RI's built in tech transfer because I figure that retaining the RI system will retain the importance of choice of open borders. Also, while the tech welfare system in general will keep anyone from being obsolete and give everyone the "goodies" in a reasonable timeframe, the RI tech transfer system will make it so that having good relations with tech superior civs rewards you by giving you a boost so that you can enjoy those techs just a little bit earlier than everyone else. Perhaps a way to justify this as more than a balancing mechanic would be to think that only the closest of allies to a technologically advanced civ will learn about the particular tech the fastest, and only after more time when that tech is more widespread do other peoples have more exposure to it and get to develop it on their own quickly. As an example, I think towards WW2 where Britain in the Tizard mission was able to gift the US key technological innovations such as an advanced radio. Of course, other nations caught on soon enough and probably didn't need to develop the thing from complete scratch - but it was the closest allies to Britain that was able to get it first (I know that technically, in game terms, this would be an example of tech trading rather than tech transfer, but you get the idea).

-TECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_THRESHOLD = 90, I essentially see this setting as "what tech percentage are you comfortable with the majority of the civs hanging around at", because I find in practice, usually it will be me and maybe 4 other civs at the frontier of tech, with everyone else behind by varying degrees. I set this percentage to be this because I want even small AIs to put up a fight, while still maintaining the inherent advantage that one gets from investing in technology.

-TECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_MODIFIER = 1500, I know at first this seems like a large number, but from my (limited) testing, it seems to strike a good balance. If you do decide to tinker around with these settings, I figure that this is the setting you will be tweaking the most. Remember, only civs behind the threshold will even get this boost at all, so it will never boost AIs too much (or you, for that matter) to the point where they can exploit it to get ahead with otherwise weaker tech.

Some final notes:
-Though I don't know the values and how much things affect things, I know that the welfare boost is not a simple yes or no calculation depending on threshold. It's a scaling boost where the further behind in tech you are, the more of a boost you get, and the more others know a certain tech, the more boost you get. IE: two civs that get the welfare tech boost from being under the threshold do not get the same boost. The one that has a lower tech score will get a larger boost than one that has a higher tech score. Moreover, if multiple civs are ahead of you - provided youre under the welfare threshold - you will get a larger boost compared to if only one civ had a dominant tech lead.
-RI tech transfer system has it so that the tech bar turns blue when RI's tech transfer is on so that you know you have the boost. Tech diffusion does not have this graphical feature and is just there. It also doesn't affect the amount of beakers you produce, it just somehow makes the turns to complete research shorter.

This is such a helpful post, thank you very much for going to all of the trouble to research this and explain these individual values! I personally want to turn the merely "known" modifier back on, but I'd also like to reduce the formal tech transfer from open borders without totally turning it off (+40% for only one civ feels like overkill, and as I mentioned before, you already indirectly get a research boost from open borders due to commerce in trade routes with them), and I can't find where that feature is located. (I looked through all of the XML and Python folders, and it didn't seem to be there.) Do you know where this can be found?

Agreed. I haven't made it to the point where I encounter stacks of doom yet, but just reading this made me want to make a change for my own (still vanilla up until now) install. So, I modified the "promotion_congested_<terrain>#" entries in Civ4PromotionInfos.xml to make the strength debuff scale up to 55%, over the vanilla 35%. I also modified the appropriate lines in the same file to add a scaling penalty to first strikes for penalty levels 3 and above, with -4 first strikes at VI logistics penalty. This should result in a net -19% strength for a massive doomstack at max penalty, as well as -4 first strikes and the other vanilla debuffs.

Spoiler :

Since I'm here, I might as well share my experiences with this mod so far, as a returning player who hasn't played IV in years, but did recently play a fair bit of Vox Populi and a little Civ VI (I cannot get into VI for the life of me, districts are too much for my brain to calculate, among other issues). For reference, I'm playing on Noble, warlord is much too easy but Nobile is putting up a fight. It is mostly excellent, but I do have a few complaints, probably due to my own ineptitude. I was originally playing Massanissa(berbers) but am now playing Syngman Rhee(Korea) for the better farm output and decent archer NU.

1. It seems like every single time I start getting even a little bit of a point lead, half of the world declares war on me and I'm suddenly facing a multiple front war against multiple civs that all seem to have been preparing for war when I haven't been, though I garrison at least three archers/comp bowman due to their OP defensive ability in all of my border cities. In the latest iteration of this occurrence, I have managed to hold the lines, and even took an enemy city on a counter-attack. However, this leads me to my next observed issue.

2. Taking cities defended by archers seems much too difficult, particularly when they are on a hill and/or the city has walls. I understand, that they hold an advantageous defensive position, but three composite bowmen and couple warbands in a city with 0% defense should not be able to hold off 30+ attackers, mostly spearmen with a bonus against archers, all with city attack II and fierce warriors. This would not be much of an issue if there existed an actual counter to ranged units, but there isn't. The only unit with a bonus against archers seems to be the aforementioned spearmen, but they still get absolutely demolished. I know the Helepolis exists, but it is prohibitive to move in most cases, and is only good for one city before it has to spend ten turns healing. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong here, or if I should make an adjustment to my personal game. If I do make an adjustment, I'm somewhat leaning towards buffing the bonus spearmen get against archers, maybe up to 40 or 50%, but I'm open to ideas (assuming there isn't an existing counter I'm not aware of). Some of you may suggest just sending more units, but the more units you lose, the enemy archers eventual promotions make it *utterly impossible* no matter your unit count. Like, literal 0% calculated chance. This led me to abandon the siege and pillage the enemies countryside. Plus, when you field an army of respectable size, it seems your economy completely shuts down no matter what you do anyways, leading me to my third issue.

3. I'm constantly running out of coin the minute inflation starts creeping in. I think this is more of an issue with my own play, though. Even with tax offices/toll houses/etc in every city I struggle to pay for an army without my research plummeting. I try to have at least one cottage per city, with some having a couple, but I don't really make dedicated commerce cities. Trading never seems to net me much profit, either; even with open borders I rarely if ever see a trade route made with a foreign civ. I will admit, though, that I'm pretty sure I figured this out, as I didn't know it depended on connecting your roads with foreign civ roads.

4. Struggling to figure out and utilize unit counters effectively. Idk, some of the bonuses seem a bit weak, in that they're less of a hard counter and more of a gentle push in your favor. I generally feel like I'm the one being countered, versus countering, if that makes sense, even though I try to field regiments of mixed units.

I attached a save of my current game, which I feel like was going pretty well 'till three civs declared war on me in short order. Those fights put me behind a good bit and now the world leader (one of the three unfriendly neighbors) has a tech lead and longbows while I'm trying to get my civ back into a good state. We'll see, I guess. Regardless, thank you to the mod team and the community for all of your hard work! It's obvious this has been a project of passion for many years, and it feels very, very polished. Does not have a "mod" feel to it at all, more like an official expansion.

Excellent idea making the logistics penalties really steep. I've made that suggestion before but simply didn't know where to modify the values. While it wasn't game-breaking per se that SoDs were still net positives with their various aid bonuses, it did seem counterintuitive to what the mod was aiming to do by implementing them in the first place. I've gone ahead and made the same changes you describe (and I slightly increased the strength penalty on the lower penalties too), and now will start a new game. I'm a bit doubtful that it's going to stop the AI from doing death stacks (which, if true, will benefit the human player massively), but we'll see. Karadoc AI is smart and it's a psychopath, so maybe it will be able to recognize the reduced strength and avoid doing that. We'll see!