Realism Invictus

My view on a late game is quite the opposite - I really like the feeling when we enter the industrial revolution and everything starts to scale up rapidly: food, production, income. The population suddenly explodes, stacks grow to solid two or three-digit numbers which leads to large-scale wars. It is indeed much more workload compared to earlier eras, but it certainly has its charm for me I would not change for anything else :P
 
I like the mid-late game, too. However I have also modded the modern age to use the Civ3 modern tracks instead of the John Adams depressionscape. I should probably upload that edit as a little modmod, it's not a file that sees a lot of change across RI versions anyway and maybe others like that too. For me, it has certainly made a huge difference in my modern era enjoyment.


I noticed a possible bug: The pistoleer variants Don Cossacks, Zaporizhian Cossacks, as well as Anishinabe, Comanche, Taino, Aniwaya, Seneca Tupi and Morochuko Mounted Braves do not need black powder, unlike other pistoleers (while still wearing pistols). Additionally, neither does the Dakota Mounted Brave, but this one is wearing a spear/lance.

And a random idea for a tiny bit of integration across unique mod components: What about some stability measures also affecting epidemic chance? For example, curfews greatly reducing it and a lenient governor slightly increasing it.
 
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Oh wow, so all those AIs got you to fight their wars, improve their territory, and returned independent when they didn't need you anymore :lol:
That's strategy!

Yeah, I'm way too nice. Should have started war on everyone that tried to escape my rule :satan:

Wouldn't be able to say for sure, but my guess would be the internal logic prioritises units with collateral damage.

Can even be a good strategy in some case. I know I did it quite a few time. But it was mostly with unique units that were cheap as hell to retrain.
Currently I'm needing ~15 turns to build a knight, I wouldn't suicide them just to increase the odds of my infantry winning...

If you get the chance, check out the new Carthaginean city the world builder, or with spies, to see what it has. AI is very good as using artists and great artists to push culture. It's very likely Elissa settled a great artist there. I usually see this happen once or twice a game.

As a matter of fact, I did ! They have nothing like that, and are pouring out a really weak amount of cultur per turn.
It's just that the whole area never loosed the carthaginian culture, so as soon as the city hits the threeshold to expand in a bigger cross, the tiles switchs en masse towards Elissa. I'm sure I will be able to take them back... but it will takes a few centuries, probably.
Could be easier to just razed the town again, but she has switched to my religion so now she's a friend. And you don't hit friends.

... Do we ?

It would certainly be nice if vassal civs considered the power ratio and threat of war when deciding whether or not to end the vassalage.

I think they kinda did. They left when I had to start yet another war to defend one of my vassal, so I'm not sure if the power ratio went into the consideration, but they didn't left as soon as their own ennemies were down.
It's just that they didn't wanted to fight another war. Fun fact : once I had finished that war, most of them came back to ask to be my vassals back.
I'm now close to control the whole sea, and that's kinda neat [pimp]

Now to bug Walter again : I noticed that the Crossbowmen don't upgrade to Arquebusiers. Is that intended ? Both looks kinda the same thing to me : ranged, not as good defenders as the archery units, but boost in attacks so good to bring on the battlefield... I'm using my first gunman as support for my stacks, just as the crossbow did it the past. I was quite surprise to see that it wasn't an upgrade option.
 
I agree with all of the above words about the modern era, but when you play a long game with a player (in my case, with my brother), when you get to a nuclear bomb, he throws it at me first:(
 
That's a good resume of my game since the start of the Middle Age : war after war after war. Usually for no real gains, as I won't have the culture to sustains it.
I have the opposite experience then, from ancient to classical (with european civs at least, as my games with Arab and Japanese have been pretty pleasant) it's a constant battle for survival. Then I reach the middle ages and if I did well enough then I'll have some technological advantage, nice trading and resources, good infrastructure between my cities to ensure the perfect defense and of course... an actual army of many men backed by a good economy. All that makes it easy to mop the floor with most neighbors but some can prove to be bothersome.

If it serves anything, target players with no much competition around them, Carthage over there looks very nice. and since you're in the middle ages make the best ouf of vassalage and beat any neighbors around your vassals, that will guarantee a good culture production. In fact when I want more territory that's my #1 strategy, use em vassals as borders.
I was updating knights for France and Germany (they look almost the same as before; the update was more technical than visual), and thought "why don't I do the English ones while I'm at it". They looked reasonably good indeed, but heraldically, that was basically the royal family taking to the field together, and the single-handed claymore-swinging was over the top.
Yep I realized germans now lack pauldrons, and the helmet looks more stylized (at least in the pedia, I didn't check them ingame). They look a bit less intimidating without them but the helmet sure compensates.
Yeah, another reason for me to dislike the World Map scenarios - many ratios are off there compared to regular balance, and it's very hard to meaningfully compensate.
Yeah playing in the world map with Brits now I kinda get why they usually lose to the Celts... it gets ouf of hands quickly for them because of the lack of balance. Only real way to beat a Celtic player in high difficulties seems to wait till medieval age where you have better options to counter their MASSIVE bonuses in that terrain (that the English lack) I had to make a damn truce and start conquering mainland Europe instead of them because my war with them was a disaster.

Like, seriously, how the hell am I supposed to fight this? And it's weird as hell, we were fighting for like 2000 years and out of sudden he reaches classical age and becomes friendly... Maybe this is the start of a longlasting friendship?
1751861790914.png


Needless to say, once you've been fighting against those woodsmen, your units have learned enough about warfare that nobody in Europe can stand a chance lol I beat the French and the Spanish really quickly even though they were much higher than me in the score (which is irrelevant, considering damned Celts were in the bottom anyway). I wanna play as the Celts so bad now :crazyeye: Are there any plans for late industrial and modern infantry flavors for them? Because it's a bit sad Ireland starts looking generic after Trench Infantry, specially considering how unique that one and the riflemen looked compared to other European infantry flavors.

also @Ahnarras have a laugh looking at these TERRIBLE borders, because if you thought yours were bad... these are something else:
1751861693908.png

I'm really considering liberating that thing back to the Germans.
Several reasons:
Expected no less, good reasons. Such a good financial position (that must come with lots of effort and a time consuming career) and yet you have the time and patience to work on this with such excellent results? Very admirable:D
You absolutely should; that's why it's there in the first place. But...
Very well, I will then.
This specific one is already fixed, in r5491. England was unable to upgrade Cataphracts to Knights due to the intentional removal of Medium Cav on my part; they have Improved Horsemen instead of Medium Cavalry now and that messed up the upgrade route for a while. But as I said, already fixed. Which also means the game you started today is not on the latest SVN revision, as that one was almost two weeks ago. Did you update SVN before starting? There were several updates since that one.
Darn it, I must have done something wrong then. Next time I'll make sure this is up to date. Do you publish any changes made to the SVN with every update in any sort of document?

Also, yeah I noticed the new Horsemen... heh, I'm gonna miss that awesome looking cavalry with it's full armour and those red and black robes... But the new unit looks very nice, and I'll certainly make the best out of it once I learn how to use it. Will the Cataphract at least receive the old Medium Cavalry graphics once reaching the medieval age? I haven't gotten there yet, but that would be very nice. Even though in the first turns of that age it surely would look out of place... which makes me question, is there a way to change an unit graphics besides era or promotions? Something like researching a certain tech.
3) I am quite good at finance, and it's easy for me to estimate how much such a project would bring in, and ultimately, it's simply nowhere near enough to be stimulating. It'd probably work for 20-something me, but at this point in my life, I am financially stable enough for the actual amounts of money that'd bring to not even serve as a meaningful positive reinforcement.
Ah just a last thing, how did you estimate such thing? :lol: I'm just curious because I don't expect there to be enough data to have a precise estimate of that, but maybe you can prove me wrong.
 
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However I have also modded the modern age to use the Civ3 modern tracks instead of the John Adams depressionscape
me too in my stable version of RI. CIV3 tracks are truly amazing (smash :mischief:), but I keep them together with John Addams works because they're very relaxing, Body Through Which the Dream Flows (and it's beautiful Oboe segment) come to my mind. I really don't share the opinion oof those who see them as depresing when they are all absolutely gorgeous to hear, "The Chairman Dances" is literally the most lighthearted track in the entire game. And I don't joke when I say these pieces feel MODERN as hell, very sophisticated.

Maybe they are indeed depresing, but under the right perspective they are inspiring to me. Really makes me keep going forward even when I know the game will be over soon... Maybe that's what most find depressing about it :lol:

Oh yeah, I also have La Rosignnol from CIV3 modded in. Very good song I'm looking forward to play with a friend because of how beautiful it sounds. Also a few from the Colonization expansion too. Still I usually just play music outside of the game if I'm playing lol.

I noticed a possible bug: The pistoleer variants Don Cossacks, Zaporizhian Cossacks, as well as Anishinabe, Comanche, Taino, Aniwaya, Seneca Tupi and Morochuko Mounted Braves do not need black powder, unlike other pistoleers (while still wearing pistols). Additionally, neither does the Dakota Mounted Brave, but this one is wearing a spear/lance.
Aside of the Cossacks (which might be too, I forgot) aren't all those from unplayable civs? I believe they're meant to NOT need black powder because players using them can't make use of it anyway.
I agree with all of the above words about the modern era, but when you play a long game with a player (in my case, with my brother), when you get to a nuclear bomb, he throws it at me first:(
You gotta roleplay it, tell him that if he uses those nukes he will be convicted for war crimes... always works for me unless it's only us two left, in that case... well good luck with the U.N. :lol:
 
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Spoiler :

No particularly thought provoking ideas. Mostly was thinking about two things:
  • More niche bonuses. Right now most bonuses are just +% STR and +X First Strike/Chances. It would be nice if spearmen and pikemen provided a bonus against mounted units, etc. This helps alleviate the "aid outdoes stack penalties" problem, since it would reduce the general STR bonuses from melee and cavalry units, which are the cause of that problem, and add more situational aid, which you might not want in that particular stack.
  • Units that provided unique bonuses. There's some of that at the moment, with national units that provide fear or inspiration, but there's a lot of room for national units or limited units that provide specific or interesting bonuses. For example, the Gulyay Gorod, instead of being a unit that defends strong itself, can be a unit that provides a defense bonus aid and immunity to first strikes aid. Helepolis, instead of having massive bonuses to city attack, can give units 5% collateral damage when attacking cities (if it's possible to limit it in that way--I don't think I've actually seen that before). I don't actually think these would be good examples to follow through on, but they're practical illustrations of what I mean.


If you get the chance, check out the new Carthaginean city the world builder, or with spies, to see what it has. AI is very good as using artists and great artists to push culture. It's very likely Elissa settled a great artist there. I usually see this happen once or twice a game.

It would certainly be nice if vassal civs considered the power ratio and threat of war when deciding whether or not to end the vassalage. Typically in my games there's a civ abandoning one master civ in favor of another every turn. Makes the whole system feel very inconsequential. But that's more a vanilla problem than RI, I think.


Funnily enough, I recently put that back in for my local RI. :) Or rather, I thought I did. But what I actually downloaded, from Christopher Tin's own website, were the "Rehearsal Instructions" for Mado. So when I started RI, the main menu soundtrack was an audio recording of Japanese rehearsal instructions :lol:



Been a busy few weeks and I haven't played RI in a bit, and I don't think I'm returning to my previous game. It was the first time I've hit the industrial era in a long time, so I thought I'd share my thoughts. Bear in mind that my impressions might change with repeated play and these are just initial impressions ("initial" in that I may have deeper impressions if I get to this stage again, which a poor bet :lol:)

My most dominant thought throughout the late renaissance and the early industrial was that it felt like I had a lot of homework. Stuff I had to do for the sake of doing, not for the sake of gameplay or enjoyment. Although accessing new resources like clothes and steel, it largely felt like I was just playing a game of upkeep. I researched Bessemer Converter! Now I get to build the Foundry, something that's a slight improvement on the blast furnace. I researched Labor Movement! Now I get to build something that's a slight improvement on the Print Shop. I researched Civil Industry! Now I get to build something that's a slight improvement over the Trading Post. None of these upgrades make for interesting gameplay. Upgrading to the new building is just a chore.

In general, it felt like this stage of the game was largely just "do more of what you've been doing". Entering into the industrial gives you more happiness resources/buildings and more food with mechanized farms, but the gameplay is still the same, you're just hitting bigger numbers. There's nothing that really changes the shape of the game or makes you feel like you're entering into a new phase of history. Just art upgrades that cost hammers.

For comparison, earlier eras all have elements that will reshape the game or open up new avenues of play. Trade opening up in the mid/late ancient era, expanding your borders in classical, chopping down jungles, discovering gems and iron, initial wars of expansion, exploring the ocean and finding new continents/islands, being able to settle and trade across the ocean... All of these have an exciting element where they shape things about your gameplay that were previously unavailable.

But there isn't much of that in the later game. New resources like oil and bauxite are revealed, but they don't have the impact of earlier resources. Iron is revealed at a time where you might only have 5 cities with 5 population each, and getting +3:hammers: hammers to a tile or two in your empire is a big difference. And if it's not in your empire, it's probabyl in a place you can settle. That's interesting and fun! Bauxite is revealed at a time where you may have 15-20 cities with 15-20 population. The production bonuses from the tile and Foundry are more fun fact than interesting and fun. And if it's not in your empire, you have to go to war for it... which means the game will slow to a crawl with all the unit management and combat animations, and those are on top of the already lengthened time between turns.

I know that a lot of that is just the nature of Civ 4, but it feels like RI's content in the late game exaggerates what Civ4 introduced. The industrial is already a very long time period with more techs than any other era, and it has the least to offer for it. If that's unavoidable, then there's a big part of me that would rather do away with all the ceremony of upgrading buildings and incremental boosts and just automatically get access to the benefits so that I can concentrate my time and energy onto the aspects of the game that are more engaging.

For the sake of not turning this into a novel, here's what else I took notes on during the game, in plain, unelaborated note form:
  • Consistent happiness too abundant
    • Every happiness early on is a win
    • Later on it’s an “oh that’s nice”
      • happiness gain outweighs growth gain
    • Buildings that provide happiness don’t obsolete until way after discontinued
      • More buildings going obsolete earlier on and requiring replacements puts more pressure on building choices and priorities
      • Feels like doing a Windows update rather than sustaining an empire
  • Could be more interesting if there were more ephemeral happiness bonuses that vanished after an era or two, and fewere consistent sources of happiness, requiring constant look out for next sources of happiness
    • Buildings like Bread and Circuses
    • Temporary tradable resource generation (eg glasswork if glasswork only lasted 200 turns)
      • Allows different civs to have the resource throughout the game
      • Encourages more trade and diplomacy connections
    • Resources that obsolete fast (like Whales, which currently aren’t worth it, but would be if there were much fewer happiness resources and knowledge that there would be more temp resource later).
Opportunity to remove the unhappiness/unhealthiness from era progression and instead obsolete baseline happiness resources as they become normalized by society through tech research.

I was excited reading this, since you'd played into the industrial era and I was eager to know your thoughts on it. :)

It seems that Takofloppa and I are seeing eye to eye here and I'm surprised you don't feel the way that machine guns, in their debut, pin down advances without armor and really exude that sense of grinding trench warfare with increasingly inhibiting degrees of modern emancipated war weariness entailed by this and expensively countered by such ostensibly cheap happiness, or how foundries (with their maximal +40%:hammers:, hardly insignificant; that's basically a wonder available to every city and I still feel that these should be limited buildings) or mechanized farms and agronomy stations absolutely explode your productivity in feeding an army of factory workers, but at such a high opportunity cost that wealth/research or unit production (often making for interesting strategic decision making) have to take a rather long back seat for a while, stirring in a new and significant "tall-wide" paradigm shift in many of my games. Oftentimes, a really carefully developed industrial core is costly to defend while building up, and is glutinous for resources and colonies in a way that is hard to manage and pull off, but palpably "vertical" if one does. You feel it more when trade dependencies can choke you off here, and wars over just a single city on another continent for a precious resource provide the feeling of competition for them strongly and immersively in this era, perhaps more than in the early game. That's to say nothing of all of the dynamic and very interesting new relationships between unit types (and their much greater economic contingencies) which take root in this era, air and naval combat especially being highlights. Also, the abundance and relative granularity of techs is conspicuous, but I believe intentional, so as to exhibit a sense of exploding scientific progress and technological advancement emblematic of the era. To me, it feels like my empire is undergoing a rich ferment of production and scale in a way somewhat comparable to the commercial and ideological leaps of the Renaissance, which otherwise largely remains confined by these.

To each their own, and I strongly appreciate the authentic feel for each era's uniqueness that this mod provides (and agree with your sketch assessments of those), I just perceive it quite strongly and pleasingly in this one, as well. From a strict gameplay standpoint, as well, the latter half of the game is when world volatility and the closure of many victory conditions come to a head, and that tension is exciting: UN is built, Gandhi is close to a culture win, 2 civs vie closely for domination, and a whole nonaligned movement of peace-vassals flip sides as cards exchange hands. One war can be caustic in only a few turns, and oh, your rival has just completed their final SS Casing! Who is closest to winning, and what are you going to do in the midst of it all?
 
geez how could I miss this post?
"do more of what you've been doing"
I agree that more new things could be to the late eras, but to say they bring nothing new is taking it too far. If the late eras are so good for me it's because it takes you back to the old days of ancient/classical were a single tech advantage over someone could turn the tables, except here you've got so many that holy **** it's really hard to foresee who has the best odds to win.

Come on, the late game IS the game, it's what you've been working hard for all this time, now you have all your cities, you have your army, you have all the good stuff you need. Now the real battle starts. For me that's good enough. So many hard choices come in the modern era as the clock keeps ticking in the advent of the great finale that, I can't help but rejoice.
Opportunity to remove the unhappiness/unhealthiness from era progression and instead obsolete baseline happiness resources as they become normalized by society through tech research.
But they already become "obsolete" as a city grows (which means many centuries gotta pass) and you must look for new resources because there aren't enough to at least eliminate unhappiness, isn't it the same thing?
Consistent happiness too abundant
Oh geez, please no, have you ever played on a high difficulty Y? Maintaining happiness is already hellish there, but even in lower difficulties like Noble I feel those resources are well balanced. I agree with some other points, there's a lot of new things I've thought for the late eras but honestly either A. They're already implemented in other ways or B. They wouldn't make much difference from what's already in the game. Maybe you just gotta play more in the industrial era till it grows on you, happens to some people. Maybe you're just too attached to the early eras because you pass so much time playing on them? It happens to me sometimes too, but I gotta tell you going from renaissance to industrial is a BIG game changer, just in the military aspect it's already a big shift, like Scholar said Air and Naval units become some serious threat.

I like the temporary tradeable resources idea, that sounds pretty fun. If anything, I'd love if you could lend lease units to other civs or conscript units from vassals, come on they're puppets let me take some young men from them! But I really don't figure how that would work in CIV4, it also sounds like a hassle to balance. Oh yeah, about those buildings that take tons of turns to build, yeah making them feels eternal, but that's how it works right? You won't see steel mills in every city you know? There's a reason for that, and that stuff takes 100 times more planning than your average cottage.

How come you say oil doesn't have as much impact as other resources? Wait till you get your hands on motorized infantry: SPEED AND POWER :lol: And yes I know you can get fuel from other sources, but it's a pain in the ass. Bauxite in the other hand is a different story, you can only build some of the best air units with that, so if that's not important then I don't know what is.
then there's a big part of me that would rather do away with all the ceremony of upgrading buildings and incremental boosts and just automatically get access to the benefits so that I can concentrate my time and energy onto the aspects of the game that are more engaging.
Ah I feel you because I know how it feels, but that's how our world works now doesn't it? You can't keep it just in the basics like in the old days, every day that passes what was once the peak of our technology is now outdated garbage, and you gotta keep your eyes open for whatever comes, covering all sides. Now it's not just the penalties that come with an era, now everything you have loses it's charm just a few months since you introduced it and you gotta replace it quickly before someone starts to complain and **** hits the fan. And the changes, those great revolutions that reshape our world, come so slowly that it drains all the little optimism you had for a proper future.

Really puts you into perspective what being the leader of a nation feels like today doesn't it?
 
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If it serves anything, target players with no much competition around them, Carthage over there looks very nice. and since you're in the middle ages make the best ouf of vassalage and beat any neighbors around your vassals, that will guarantee a good culture production. In fact when I want more territory that's my #1 strategy, use em vassals as borders.

I'm mostly doing a peaceful run, so I don't really try to force my ways on my neighbors. But yeah in the last few turns yesterday nights I managed to have Pericles come back asking for protection once again, and that resolved all my cultural troubles in Sicilia/Italia.
Now If Elissa would be nice enough to stop her stupid war with northern China, I could even have my whole empire back :lol:

Needless to say, once you've been fighting against those woodsmen, your units have learned enough about warfare that nobody in Europe can stand a chance lol

Funny that you say that, because it's exactly what happened in my game ! Elizabeth managed to survive as she could the early game, with only a single city in Ireland and another one somewhere on the coast of the North Pole.
Then during the Middle Age, she took advantage of De Gaulle's conquest and took everything he conquerred in Spain + a city in Southern France. Now Great Britain is blooming but far away from her supposed lands :confused:

also @Ahnarras have a laugh looking at these TERRIBLE borders, because if you thought yours were bad... these are something else:

Oh Lord. It's the kind of borders that makes me wanna scream. So much gold wasted in maintenance, and for what gains ? 😢

I'm really considering liberating that thing back to the Germans.

It could be cool to have a way to liberate city and make them into city-state / new empire.
So far I've only found a single way to liberate a city, in the advisor screen, and I was prevented from doing what I intended (creating a new Civ / Rezzing back the German as it was more or less near Germany) because the only options available was to gift it back to the Romans (from whom I just took that very city, so no real point to do so except for diplomatic gains...).

Perhaps I should have tinkered a bit in the Editor to do so...
 
Or perhaps the Jurassic (Triassic ?) map ? Does it have the same problem as the world map, or are the Civ starting position more spaced out (and is the map overloaded in ressources too, or normal amount ?)
Triassic map is big, so there is a bit more space, but the central region still gets quite crowded. Basically, the further you go from the centre, the more space you have, so you can pick and choose how crowded you want to be (the southern parts of the former Gondwana are a total wild west). Europe scenario is better in that regard, as civs are rather evenly spaced, with plenty of space for each.
More niche bonuses. Right now most bonuses are just +% STR and +X First Strike/Chances. It would be nice if spearmen and pikemen provided a bonus against mounted units, etc. This helps alleviate the "aid outdoes stack penalties" problem, since it would reduce the general STR bonuses from melee and cavalry units, which are the cause of that problem, and add more situational aid, which you might not want in that particular stack.
The specific suggestion doesn't feel right, as this is already handled by the respective units being the best defenders against mounted - why would they make others better defenders? But overall, I hear you.
Units that provided unique bonuses. There's some of that at the moment, with national units that provide fear or inspiration, but there's a lot of room for national units or limited units that provide specific or interesting bonuses. For example, the Gulyay Gorod, instead of being a unit that defends strong itself, can be a unit that provides a defense bonus aid and immunity to first strikes aid. Helepolis, instead of having massive bonuses to city attack, can give units 5% collateral damage when attacking cities (if it's possible to limit it in that way--I don't think I've actually seen that before). I don't actually think these would be good examples to follow through on, but they're practical illustrations of what I mean.
I'd like to try not bloating the number of different aid types, at least not until later in game. Technically adding those wouldn't be much of a problem, but I'm not sure having players keep track of a dozen different aid types would make for good gameplay.
Funnily enough, I recently put that back in for my local RI. :) Or rather, I thought I did. But what I actually downloaded, from Christopher Tin's own website, were the "Rehearsal Instructions" for Mado. So when I started RI, the main menu soundtrack was an audio recording of Japanese rehearsal instructions :lol:
:lol:
For the sake of not turning this into a novel, here's what else I took notes on during the game, in plain, unelaborated note form:
  • Consistent happiness too abundant
    • Every happiness early on is a win
    • Later on it’s an “oh that’s nice”
      • happiness gain outweighs growth gain
    • Buildings that provide happiness don’t obsolete until way after discontinued
      • More buildings going obsolete earlier on and requiring replacements puts more pressure on building choices and priorities
      • Feels like doing a Windows update rather than sustaining an empire
  • Could be more interesting if there were more ephemeral happiness bonuses that vanished after an era or two, and fewere consistent sources of happiness, requiring constant look out for next sources of happiness
    • Buildings like Bread and Circuses
    • Temporary tradable resource generation (eg glasswork if glasswork only lasted 200 turns)
      • Allows different civs to have the resource throughout the game
      • Encourages more trade and diplomacy connections
    • Resources that obsolete fast (like Whales, which currently aren’t worth it, but would be if there were much fewer happiness resources and knowledge that there would be more temp resource later).
Opportunity to remove the unhappiness/unhealthiness from era progression and instead obsolete baseline happiness resources as they become normalized by society through tech research.
As others indicated, I kind of like the "vibe" of the industrial era; it definitely is more about building and rebuilding stuff, and about numbers going up, but I guess I'm one of the people who enjoy looking at numbers going up. I hear you somewhat on the happiness bit, but I would probably rather frame it by having more unhappiness sources inherent to the later eras. Not currently high on my priority list, mind you, as my focus is on medieval for the near future, but something I'll keep thinking about for the future.
I like the mid-late game, too. However I have also modded the modern age to use the Civ3 modern tracks instead of the John Adams depressionscape. I should probably upload that edit as a little modmod, it's not a file that sees a lot of change across RI versions anyway and maybe others like that too. For me, it has certainly made a huge difference in my modern era enjoyment.
Please do! As I play with music off, having someone devote attention to it would be a godsend, or it'll probably never change at all (caveating this with the fact that I do have "revisiting leader music" on my to-do list).
I noticed a possible bug: The pistoleer variants Don Cossacks, Zaporizhian Cossacks, as well as Anishinabe, Comanche, Taino, Aniwaya, Seneca Tupi and Morochuko Mounted Braves do not need black powder, unlike other pistoleers (while still wearing pistols). Additionally, neither does the Dakota Mounted Brave, but this one is wearing a spear/lance.
Two separate groups of units here - tribals, who aren't expected to have access to gunpowder at all, and cossacks, for whom it's their gimmick (they are kind of the "bring your own gun" units).
And a random idea for a tiny bit of integration across unique mod components: What about some stability measures also affecting epidemic chance? For example, curfews greatly reducing it and a lenient governor slightly increasing it.
Hm, maybe.
Now to bug Walter again : I noticed that the Crossbowmen don't upgrade to Arquebusiers. Is that intended ? Both looks kinda the same thing to me : ranged, not as good defenders as the archery units, but boost in attacks so good to bring on the battlefield... I'm using my first gunman as support for my stacks, just as the crossbow did it the past. I was quite surprise to see that it wasn't an upgrade option.
They used to upgrade that way, as it was indeed the logical thing to have, but from the game mechanics point of view, it led to the stupid effect of them never going fully obsolete; that mean that a civ without access to powder/guns would inevitably revert to crossbowmen, and that was definitely not intended and cluttered the production lists. Having them upgrade to irregulars puts a definite end to the age of archery once those are unlocked.
I agree with all of the above words about the modern era, but when you play a long game with a player (in my case, with my brother), when you get to a nuclear bomb, he throws it at me first:(
Unless your brother is open source, I'm afraid I can't adjust his AI.
Yep I realized germans now lack pauldrons, and the helmet looks more stylized (at least in the pedia, I didn't check them ingame). They look a bit less intimidating without them but the helmet sure compensates.
As I wrote, more technical than visual. The unit used to consist of several small bits stitched together and over a dozen textures for all that (and that is one figure, so x3!) - I brought it down to just 4 textures and a much slimmer model file, bringing the number of files per figure down to 5, and the total size down by almost 50%, with no loss in visual quality. This is something I do a lot these days to older clunkier units.
Yeah playing in the world map with Brits now I kinda get why they usually lose to the Celts... it gets ouf of hands quickly for them because of the lack of balance. Only real way to beat a Celtic player in high difficulties seems to wait till medieval age where you have better options to counter their MASSIVE bonuses in that terrain (that the English lack) I had to make a damn truce and start conquering mainland Europe instead of them because my war with them was a disaster.
England on world maps is the bane of mine. If you don't pile pressure on them, they are easy mode, simply sitting there hoarding all wonders; if you pile too much pressure, they simply die, as they're not the most militarily proficient civ. I hate trying to balance England (and Japan, though to a lesser extent, as AI Japan is inevitably more adventurous and doesn't just turtle up).
Such a good financial position (that must come with lots of effort and a time consuming career) and yet you have the time and patience to work on this with such excellent results? Very admirable:D
Well, at some point it was my outlet from the effort and time-consuming career; at this point in my life it's still tough at times, but I can definitely afford myself more leisure than in my youth. Getting older has its perks if you bother getting wiser along the way! :egypt:
Darn it, I must have done something wrong then. Next time I'll make sure this is up to date. Do you publish any changes made to the SVN with every update in any sort of document?
Not specifically, but https://sourceforge.net/p/civ4mods/code/commit_browser

Also, from what I understand, you can subscribe to getting SVN notes by email. I know I used to, back when we had several people uploading. I don't recall how, though.
Also, yeah I noticed the new Horsemen... heh, I'm gonna miss that awesome looking cavalry with it's full armour and those red and black robes... But the new unit looks very nice, and I'll certainly make the best out of it once I learn how to use it. Will the Cataphract at least receive the old Medium Cavalry graphics once reaching the medieval age? I haven't gotten there yet, but that would be very nice. Even though in the first turns of that age it surely would look out of place... which makes me question, is there a way to change an unit graphics besides era or promotions? Something like researching a certain tech.
The old medium cavalry was a terribly generic "European medieval unit" with some reds thrown on. It was boring, uninspired and a placeholder, and I'm glad to be rid of it. So no, it's not coming back.
Ah just a last thing, how did you estimate such thing? :lol: I'm just curious because I don't expect there to be enough data to have a precise estimate of that, but maybe you can prove me wrong.
I have access to download statistics over the years, and I know the user base penetration stats for donation-driven monetisation (from which I can arrive at $ per user). So it's really quite a simple matter of multiplying one by the other. Obviously not very accurate and gives you one-two orders of magnitude margin of error, but even the generous upper margin gives me very underwhelming results that would at best allow me to have a pint each week.
 
Funny that you say that, because it's exactly what happened in my game ! Elizabeth managed to survive as she could the early game, with only a single city in Ireland and another one somewhere on the coast of the North Pole.
Then during the Middle Age, she took advantage of De Gaulle's conquest and took everything he conquerred in Spain + a city in Southern France. Now Great Britain is blooming but far away from her supposed lands :confused:
:lol:geez who would think a human could have the same predictable patterns as a computer? But then again there really isn't much to do in such a terrible position, if the AI couldn't beat the Celts no way I was going to. And I tried really hard I spent milleniums just fighting them, it really wasn't worth it... then I just went "AH I will simply wait for Europeans to fight themselves so I can go around scanvenging the battlefield" turns out that strategy works pretty well.

That reminds me to my Triassic game (for background, playing as French... Greeks are pretty close) where I thought I had decimated the Greeks completely, just to see them still in the scoreboard and being so confused to see they had a remote city so many tiles away from their capital that I simply went "Nah fudge you I ain't going there"

They outlived all my other enemies in that game :lol:
Oh Lord. It's the kind of borders that makes me wanna scream. So much gold wasted in maintenance, and for what gains ? 😢
Exactly, I took this one because it was so undefended I couldn't let the opportunity pass... but now I realize I should have razed it :crazyeye: and for a second I thought I could quickly take into Berlin, but things went south rather quickly and I ended up fighting Spain while the Romans enjoyed the spoils.
It could be cool to have a way to liberate city and make them into city-state / new empire.
I agree. Thing is this could be abused easily, only way I know to do so is using the world builder and raise the unhappiness as high as possible so it revolts. I've thought about a building you could only build in peace time, but I really don't know how such thing would be coded anyway. Besides, if a city placement bothers you so much you can just abandon it (I mean, getting all troops off it) and let it revolt naturally. If it doesn't then I don't see why you would want to get rid of it.

At the end of the day cities with such cultural pressure over them are completely useless unless you are willing to invest a lot of turns on them, and even then victory is not assured.
I'm mostly doing a peaceful run
I can't think of myself playing peacefully, it sounds so otherworldly to me it doesn't even make sense. What the hell do you even do? Stare at everyone killing themselves while eating popcorn or some ****? :lol:
I managed to have Pericles come back asking for protection once again
Happens to me more than anyone would expect, they come as they go, except it's always the same guy :lol: what a toxic relationship ain't it? Sadly for them vassals I eventually learned that being a dick to them has better results than being a lovable master...
 
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As others indicated, I kind of like the "vibe" of the industrial era; it definitely is more about building and rebuilding stuff, and about numbers going up, but I guess I'm one of the people who enjoy looking at numbers going up. I hear you somewhat on the happiness bit, but I would probably rather frame it by having more unhappiness sources inherent to the later eras. Not currently high on my priority list, mind you, as my focus is on medieval for the near future, but something I'll keep thinking about for the future.

:D I already mentally bookmarked a statement of yours some time ago about significant plans for the era and thought that they surely must have been satisfied by your revisiting of the Feudal Aristocracy stuff already mentioned, so I am intrigued as to what else you have in mind. I have a strong fascination with the industrial era and enjoy how RI models it, but I still think I am foremost a medievalist at heart, so this is really exciting to hear.
 
I can't think of myself playing peacefully, it sounds so otherworldly to me it doesn't even make sense. What the hell do you even do? Stare at everyone killing themselves while eating popcorn or some ****? :lol:
I mostly play peaceful myself unless provoked, and yes, :popcorn: is an apt description.

"If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by" - Sun Tzu.
:D I already mentally bookmarked a statement of yours some time ago about significant plans for the era and thought that they surely must have been satisfied by your revisiting of the Feudal Aristocracy stuff already mentioned, so I am intrigued as to what else you have in mind. I have a strong fascination with the industrial era and enjoy how RI models it, but I still think I am foremost a medievalist at heart, so this is really exciting to hear.
I'll replace a couple of medieval-specific boring wonders, including one that's everyone's favourite (and therefore has to go :devil:)
 
I can't think of myself playing peacefully, it sounds so otherworldly to me it doesn't even make sense. What the hell do you even do? Stare at everyone killing themselves while eating popcorn or some ****? :lol:

Building stuff ? I like to build stuff :lol:
Every time I see the loading tips about "don't builld everything and optimize your cities" I smile and think how Walter would pull his hair seeing me play.

"Yes... Yes... That blast furnace will only gives a +1 hammer on a single windmill, meaning that it will be a good investissement only after 290 turns... and by then the windmill will probably have been replaced by a mine. It's totally useless"
*Adds blast furnace on the city building list anyways*

That, and the fact that the World Map throw enough wars at me that I don't really had more than 10 turns of peace since the end of Ancient Era. Crazy stuff going on, everywhere, at once.

And thanks for the answers Walter ! The crossbowman thingy makes sense.

New thing I noticed : the AI was really in love with Skirmishers from their discovery up until... now (Cesar was still adding them to his stacks while he had means of building Man-at-Arms and Knight...).
But now it seems like the Explorers took their spot : I just saw a big stack of Israelis units passing by, and half of the stack were Explorers. A bit weird for an army of invasion going on a siege (again, with no siege units...).
I checked to be sure but David has access to Iron and Horse, so I really don't get the love for that kind of units. Is it because it's so cheap ? To have a big % of retreat ?
 
Two separate groups of units here - tribals, who aren't expected to have access to gunpowder at all, and cossacks, for whom it's their gimmick (they are kind of the "bring your own gun" units).
I see. In my game it was funny because I was the tech leader, nobody else was even close to gunpowder, and I had no Sulfur anywhere within my territory, so no black powder either. Yet the cossacks (randomed into Lenin this game) were available anyway, who knows how they got their guns!
Aside of the Cossacks (which might be too, I forgot) aren't all those from unplayable civs? I believe they're meant to NOT need black powder because players using them can't make use of it anyway.
All of them barring the Don Cossack, which Russia has access to, are from unplayable civs, yes. So mainly that one is an issue :)
I can't think of myself playing peacefully, it sounds so otherworldly to me it doesn't even make sense. What the hell do you even do? Stare at everyone killing themselves while eating popcorn or some ****? :lol:
Haha, my favourite victory in Civ4 is the culture one. Just smoothly sailing along building stuff watching the world unfold differently each time. However, I do also attack other civs sometimes if their land is interesting enough. But I pride myself for every game I manage to end withozt a single war :D (this requires quite a strong army to deter the AI)
 
Thanks for the replies everyone! Glad to see that I'm an outlier here, which I imagined would be the case. There were a lot of similar expressions above that I'll reply to them all at once here rather than with individual quotes.

It felt like a lot of what was said was that the bigger numbers are all necessary/impactful for bigger armies and war. Which to me isn't a good thing. Personally I find Civ 4's combat to be bland and unrewarding. RI does a great job of mitigating this and adding depth to the strategy, but there's so only so much that can be done without overhauling the system. So having the entire last two eras concentrate entirely on war just isn't for me.

To put it another way: It feels like at the end of the Renaissance the game moves from "Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate" to just "Exploit & Exterminate". Great for people who enjoy those two pillars of 4X, but my enjoyment of 4X comes from "Explore & Expand". When those pillars are obsoleted, my experience of the game becomes very hollow.

But they already become "obsolete" as a city grows (which means many centuries gotta pass) and you must look for new resources because there aren't enough to at least eliminate unhappiness, isn't it the same thing?
They aren't becoming "obsolete" as a city grows. They're still serving a purpose. There are only a few situations in the game where you have to plan in order to preserve the status quo (progressing eras), the rest is just accumulating happiness for the sake of improving numbers. What I'm suggesting was a pressure of not just failing to expand but actively regressing if you fail to regularly find new sources of happiness.
Oh geez, please no, have you ever played on a high difficulty Y?
I play on a slightly modified Immortal (AI Civs start without workers, AI Civs have less bonus against barbs, and fewer barbs spawn). The scarcity of happiness, and the challenge and reward of earning each happiness you get, are part of what makes the gameplay fun for me.

Maybe you just gotta play more in the industrial era till it grows on you, happens to some people. Maybe you're just too attached to the early eras because you pass so much time playing on them?
Maybe there's validity in what I say, at least in representation of my own experiences and enjoyments. It's fine if I'm alone in feeling the way I do, gameplay can't satisfy anyone.


As a matter of fact, I did ! They have nothing like that, and are pouring out a really weak amount of cultur per turn.
It's just that the whole area never loosed the carthaginian culture, so as soon as the city hits the threeshold to expand in a bigger cross, the tiles switchs en masse towards Elissa. I'm sure I will be able to take them back... but it will takes a few centuries, probably.
Could be easier to just razed the town again, but she has switched to my religion so now she's a friend. And you don't hit friends.

... Do we ?
You can... But the better solution is to control the buffer zones yourself. You could have founded a city to replace the one you razed. That city would have been terrible for a long, long time (unless you dedicated a great artist, which is not a bad idea), but it would have allowed Carthage to thrive.
 
You can... But the better solution is to control the buffer zones yourself. You could have founded a city to replace the one you razed. That city would have been terrible for a long, long time (unless you dedicated a great artist, which is not a bad idea), but it would have allowed Carthage to thrive.

Yeah but that only moves the problem a bit further. Carthage would have been fine, but then I would have the same trouble with the next city.
I thought about keeping Atiq for myself instead of razing it, but I hoped that razing the city would let me have the tiles. I underestimated how long the :culture: stay on tiles.

As for the Great Artist, I think I've only had one in my whole game... It was mostly Great Prophet & Inge.
So far I'm only seeing a single way of making them pop, in the theater. The next building allowing them is the Opera, and that's in the Renaissance. There is a big gap between both of those buildings.

But I should be okay. I have the first guns units (arquebusers / cuirassers ) and they are not dependant on Iron, so I should be good for now :goodjob:
 
Yeah but that only moves the problem a bit further. Carthage would have been fine, but then I would have the same trouble with the next city.
You would, but that's okay. Your goal was the iron, right? Atiq taking territory makes Carthage a bad city and takes your iron. Tebessa taking territory makes Atiq a bad city and lets you have the iron.

I underestimated how long the :culture: stay on tiles.
It doesn't go away (unless the civ in question is eradicated, I think). On top of the other buildings of the era, Carthage also had +4:culture: from the capital being generated every turn from turn 1. It takes a while to undo that.

Do you have the setting active where winning a battle transfers some culture from the loser to the winner?
 
@Ahnarras @JDCP the Huge World Map is prolific with terrible borders
 

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To put it another way: It feels like at the end of the Renaissance the game moves from "Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate" to just "Exploit & Exterminate". Great for people who enjoy those two pillars of 4X, but my enjoyment of 4X comes from "Explore & Expand". When those pillars are obsoleted, my experience of the game becomes very hollow.
Fully understand that sentiment. I think it depends heavily on the map setup, though. If you have a "new world" continent for example, the explore and expand parts stretch well into renaissance if not far beyond.
I still feel that Civ 4 does much better at the 4X gameplay even in lategame than, say, Stellaris, which two hours in is basically only "exterminate" since everything has been explored and expanded into already.

They aren't becoming "obsolete" as a city grows. They're still serving a purpose. There are only a few situations in the game where you have to plan in order to preserve the status quo (progressing eras), the rest is just accumulating happiness for the sake of improving numbers. What I'm suggesting was a pressure of not just failing to expand but actively regressing if you fail to regularly find new sources of happiness.
But if you have to constantly work on just maintaining a certain happiness level, how are you ever reaching the high population, late renaissance+ cities? Can't do that if stuck on repeating the acquisition of a lower happiness number over and over.
 
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