Realism Invictus

[JeremyHussell]

On the city screen, the bars at the top have tooltips which will show you which buildings will increase production, health, and happiness. But there's no tooltip for food.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I'm curious about Justinian's ambitions...like did his generals tell him that it wouldn't be a good idea to conquer Italy? Or did everyone overestimate how easy it would be? It reminds me how Putin thought it would take 3 days to take Kiev and yet look where we are now.

I guess it wasn't hard to be overconfident when ruling from contemporary Constantinople, which was by far the most impressive city in the known world (known to Romans, that is). But from what I understand, at the very least Belisarius was always rather sceptical about the whole Roman restoration plan and reluctant to carry it out (which must have additionally exacerbated already high tensions between him and Justinian). Narses, OTOH, was, from my understanding, a big fan of the "Roman project", but whether from genuine belief in its feasibility or simply to further his own goals, we will probably never tell at this point.

Potential solution, what if it was just by movement points from one city to the next? Two checks, one by land movement and one by water movement points; it takes both (if applicable) to meet colony threshold. So, a coastal city that may be considered a colony based on land movement points but is not considered one by water movement points will be considered not a colony. The number of movement points considered to be a colony would increase as the eras advanced? Normal city settling should generally not cause your cities to be colonies but if you do faraway cities (like the classic taking a good chokepoint) then likely it'll be considered a colony. Hopefully, this may be more doable of a solution?

Getting movement points is executing the route calculation routine, already the biggest processor time hog in Civ 4, and exactly what I am trying to avoid. I actually ran a profiling benchmark a couple of days ago, and it confirmed that pathing routines take the biggest share of calculation time.

Hmmm, I think it depends on how you view Western style of warfare? I see symmetrical vs asymmetrical as the broad defining line, less than static vs mobility. Western style is more about having openly declared wars, soldiers in uniform, professional and disciplined, and fighting for clear military objectives to ensure a quick military victory as according to Matthew White's The Great Big Book of Horrible Things (which I have read probably a half a dozen times, is that a good thing?). What I foresee with drones, is that drones are a lot less dependent on having standing militaries, no need for soldiers when you can have ordinary civilian. Also, it'll be increasingly hard to determine whose drones attacked who. A drone swarm out of Iraq striking Turkey doesn't mean the Iraqi government did it, it could have been the Kurds. Drone strikes allow the use of sudden attacks, undeclared wars, more room for ambiguity.

A Mongolian horse archer (a typical nomad taking care of horse) has a lot more in common with a gamer turned drone operator than he does with a knight. A knight would be more akin to a tank crew-professional, high level of training. Mongolian horse archer and gamer drone operator is more like the war is an extension of their skills, not professionally trained in the sense of a knight or a tank crew.

In this sense, this is what I mean with the Western way of war is ending. WWI would be the prime example of the Western way of war. And certainly no doubt that post WWII that it was under attack given all the guerilla wars, like the man pads you mentioned, but I think that drones are going to accelerate this trend beyond what nations may be able to cope. Any seperatist/terrorist group getting supplied with drones can now wage asymmetrical warfare on a scale not previously seen. The age of industrialized asymmetrical warfare is here. Consider this, symmetrical warfare was industrialized during the 1800s and look at the horrors of WWI and WWII it brought. Are we ready what horrors industrialized asymmetrical warfare would bring? Everyone's infrastructure was not built with this in mind.
-Best current example is the Houthis and we just entered the age of the drones and the Houthis I have heard been described as one of the most incompetent terrorist group ever-yet look at how they can shut down maritime traffic. 5,10, 20 years from now?
-Sudan War also a good example where frontlines don't matter as much anymore, both sides are lobbying drones at each other's infrastructure

With that interpretation, I feel the Eastern/Western line is far blurrier, as Persia, Arabs and later Ottomans would seem to embody the "Western" style by that definition. Of course, "Eastern/Western" is already very Eurocentric, as it throws China, Japan and India completely out of the window either way.

An idea for the world scenario: I created a faction representing two canals, the Suez and Panama, plus Istanbul to ensure the Black Sea doesn't remain a lake. These three cities can only change owners, they can't be destroyed, they don't generate culture, and their borders are always open. They have a port guard, which not only defends them but also ensures their stability. This is the only way to ensure a canal that the AI interprets well, so it can see it as both a route for land and sea troops. then to make sure that the AI actually sees the oases as a place to found a city, I created a modification, without modifying any realism files, for the oases as you can see in image 2 and 3

While an early form of Suez canal existed even back in the Ancient Egyptian times, neither canals were really a thing until the XIXth century, so while I applaud the technical solution, it doesn't feel warranted from the realism point of view to have those pre-placed.

On the same topic : I see that the Colosseum becomes obsolete with Social Contract.
But the Gladiator School, one of the main perk of this wonder, does not.
Is it intended, or an oversight ?

Intended; the building's effect is permanent, provided one sticks to Slavery (which is rather suboptimal in most cases post-Social Contract).

Finally got to play the latest SVN and I must say aesthetically this is the best unit (or should I say units? whatever) I've seen so far in the mod. I wonder, what is the source for this design? It's amusing to look at, really beautiful with a very pleasant color scheme. For just some "technical rather than visual" change this is quite a game changer to me . Walter, will you also update the foot knights to look like this? And do you have plans for the Roman knights?

As I said, it's a technical update of a rather old unit, and unlike the newer ones that I do from scratch and try basing on specific sources, this is a very generic design, simply using Brittany and Dauphiné for two, and generic Capetian motifs for the third one (and the shield on that one is especially lazy, as it's County of Blois with two fleur-de-lys slapped onto it). Same with German knights.

As for whether I'll be updating more, it's a definite maybe. I am updating older units all the time when I feel like it, the latest SVN including new Celtic foot knights (and the next one will probably include mounted ones). So yes, Roman ones are definitely somewhere on the list. French foot knights, though, I am already rather satisfied with.

I was very fond of the models we had before, but this is in a completely different level even if it's just a bit of retexturing with some tweaks! Excellent work, haven't checked the Germans yet, but hopefully I get to see them in action soon I am glad to carry the same opinion about the new French cataphract model and the Cuirassiers! The first looks amazing with that cloak and the later has an surprisingly high quality model. The old cataphract model wasn't any bad, just a bit too bareboness so to speak, this one has so many details I could stare at it for quite a long time!

The new early cuirassiers aren't specifically French, but rather a generic European model (I may add retextures to it to make civ-specific ones). But yes, I like this model a lot too - and it's not even "heavier" than the previous one.

I loved seeing the origin of the new english knight graphics, would love to see more about these too because it's very interesting yet I didn't knew anything about these gendarmes until know (besides the modern Gendarmerie, which I believe doesn't have much to do with knights anyway... but I might be wrong )

Our friend @Ahnarras absolutely correctly pointed out that the literal translation is "Man-at-Arms", but Gens d'Armes in medieval France had a slightly different meaning than the word "man-at-arms" in English. It's more specifically a shorthand for "gendarmes d'ordonnance", which were a French attempt of phasing out traditional feudal knights with an early form of permanent professional army. If you'd like to read in-depth, here's a wiki article on them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendarme_(historical)

In practice, these were both the most professional and best-equipped contemporary cavalrymen, the best heavy cavalry (and the heaviest good cavalry) in Europe, probably the "tankiest" cavalry ever fielded by European armies. The specific design draws on both contemporary and modern depictions:

Note specifically the extra armouring elements - reinforced collars and bases ("skirts", in contemporary depiction covered with cloth but that'd be over a metal base). I decided against plating any of them in gold, though from contemporary depictions, that seems to have also been a practice.

On the city screen, the bars at the top have tooltips which will show you which buildings will increase production, health, and happiness. But there's no tooltip for food.

There is generally no assumption that buildings do that, aside from a couple. But I can take a look into implementing that tooltip too, at some point.

 

[Ahnarras]

Intended; the building's effect is permanent, provided one sticks to Slavery (which is rather suboptimal in most cases post-Social Contract).

Thanks, but now I'm curious : what makes it suboptimal at that point ? I have currently nothing to build so all my cities are doing Research and I'm focusing my doctrine on generating as much gold as possible. Slavery is ahead of Free Commoners in that regard, and everything leads me to believe more time will just increase the gap (as slave market / gladiator school are a % of , so growing with time and new tech, whereas the +2 per town is already hardcap on my game as I don't have anymore tiles where I could build new cottage).

The only thing I see with Social Contract is the new Representation doctrine, but that's a whole other branch of doctrine and don't prevent me from running slavery. I can also see the slave farm being nerfed a little later in the tech tree, but as they already are equal to a standard farm I didn't bother to remplace my farm this time.

Is it the pressure from rebels ? They are still S6 for me but I'm not sure I wanna deal with S10 rebels once I will have the new gun unlocked
But I will probably switch out of Slavery and focus back on Production once I'm at that point, as I will have to modernize my whole army and that will probably take a few dozen turns, even with all my cities training recruits.

(Or perhaps it's just the "Huge" factor of the maps : Research seems to be slower on big map and perhaps I was never intended to have "nothing" to build ? And when I say nothing, I mean it : every single city of my empire has build every little building that could gives a bonus, and I've enough military to be n°1 in power despite being a bit behind (again ) in military techs.)

 

[globosud]

While an early form of Suez canal existed even back in the Ancient Egyptian times, neither canals were really a thing until the XIXth century, so while I applaud the technical solution, it doesn't feel warranted from the realism point of view to have those pre-placed.

Let’s say that through certain events, the history of the passage can be retraced. Even considering that around 2000 BCE the passage existed, we could also imagine that — since the scenario starts in 4000 BCE — if one assumes that America could be discovered even by the Ethiopian civilization, either a couple of centuries before or after the actual discovery, then it’s plausible that, in this parallel world, the canal or the passage might never have been closed. That would be consistent with the game’s mechanics.Realism is essential at the start, but unless we're dealing with a strictly historical scenario, in the Earth scenario we can probably allow ourselves some liberties with realism. After all, if we think of Civ 4 as a world where we are the ones creating history and the future, then to stay within a certain realism, we should include plausible things and plausible events — but just as we can't force the fall of Rome, we also can't force the closure of the first passage between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Add that the passage was open until the 8th century AD, and from the 1800s BCE — so for about 2,600 years, even if intermittently — compared to just over 160 years of the modern era. From this point of view, the history is also better represented if you consider a time span of 6,000 years.
The closure could only happen if, by chance, the same historical events that caused it at various times in reality were to unfold again.For me, it is much more plausible, for example, that the passage exists rather than that it doesn’t, in a playthrough.Obviously, if this applies to the passage, it applies even more so to the Black Sea, which in fact should be a sea and not a lake, as it is shown on the current map.The attached image is a summary of all the historical moments related to the passage.
This is my current game, and I have attached two images. The cities guarantee the passage; at most, even if the exit is blocked by the culture of other civilizations, by declaring war you can still pass. Let's say these mini cities in a slot represent the customs control on a bridge that allows the passage of both land and naval troops, as well as serving as a good refuge in case of war — obviously if you are friends with the civilization that owns them. But it’s quite easy to be friends, unless the city becomes a protectorate of one of your enemies.The cities do not occupy more than one plot.The flag is that of Suez, but I need to make a more generic one. The civilization is called Canal Company. l took the leader's image from online, but I made the Suez flag myself."

 

[LeanArcticWolf]

An idea for the world scenario: I created a faction representing two canals, the Suez and Panama, plus Istanbul to ensure the Black Sea doesn't remain a lake. These three cities can only change owners, they can't be destroyed, they don't generate culture, and their borders are always open. They have a port guard, which not only defends them but also ensures their stability. This is the only way to ensure a canal that the AI interprets well, so it can see it as both a route for land and sea troops. then to make sure that the AI actually sees the oases as a place to found a city, I created a modification, without modifying any realism files, for the oases as you can see in image 2 and 3

I like the idea a lot!

While an early form of Suez canal existed even back in the Ancient Egyptian times, neither canals were really a thing until the XIXth century, so while I applaud the technical solution, it doesn't feel warranted from the realism point of view to have those pre-placed.

Weren't ships transported over the land during Roman times in the Suez area?

the very least Belisarius was always rather sceptical about the whole Roman restoration plan and reluctant to carry it out

Sigh, Justinian should've listened to Belisarius, a general who knew what he was doing. A typical problem with leaders...

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Is it the pressure from rebels ? They are still S6 for me but I'm not sure I wanna deal with S10 rebels once I will have the new gun unlocked

Bingo.

The closure could only happen if, by chance, the same historical events that caused it at various times in reality were to unfold again.For me, it is much more plausible, for example, that the passage exists rather than that it doesn’t, in a playthrough.Obviously, if this applies to the passage, it applies even more so to the Black Sea, which in fact should be a sea and not a lake, as it is shown on the current map.The attached image is a summary of all the historical moments related to the passage.

I'd rather have a city there than something artificial and free for all. Bosphorus was famously blocked to enemies of the Eastern Romans, for instance. What I could (reluctantly, as is everything I do for scenario purposes only) supply those particular tiles with a very heavy additional weight for a city spot, ensuring someone always has a city there in all games. Then it becomes a matter of being friends with whoever that is. I can't imagine one would be able to freely traverse from the Med to the Red Sea while enemies with the pharohs either...

Sigh, Justinian should've listened to Belisarius, a general who knew what he was doing. A typical problem with leaders...

Well, to be fair to Justinian again, his original optimism might have been more warranted. One should not underestimate the absolutely catastrophic effect of Justinian's Plague. Had it not happened by some miracle, the final outcome might have been completely different - and this was a factor both outside of anyone's control and completely unpredictable beforehand. And while obviously it hit everyone, not just territories under Roman control at the time, it had a disproportionate effect based on social and economic complexity and urban density, which means it shifted the relative power balance by a lot from the Byzantines and the Sassanids. One could even say that it was a major factor in the success of the Islamic conquests almost a century later, as neither of the "great powers" of the age had completely recovered by that time.

 

[Ahnarras]

I'd rather have a city there than something artificial and free for all. Bosphorus was famously blocked to enemies of the Eastern Romans, for instance. What I could (reluctantly, as is everything I do for scenario purposes only) supply those particular tiles with a very heavy additional weight for a city spot, ensuring someone always has a city there in all games. Then it becomes a matter of being friends with whoever that is. I can't imagine one would be able to freely traverse from the Med to the Red Sea while enemies with the pharohs either...

Please don't
I already find it weird enough to be able to safely go to China in -2K, or seeing war between the Celt and the Japanese before 0AD, and I'm fighting hard to make sure that no ones put a city there (at least not until the industrial era).
I would rather leave it to the player to colonize/build a city there if he really wants it, without having even more "under the table" mechanism in the HWM.

Bingo.

Hmmmm...
20% in every city + often as much from plantation/quarry than I would have from Free Commoners in Town + a shitload of free with captured slaves + military XP for my new rifleman (as that Tech will "reset" my whole army, most of my units being upgraded to irregulars and probably being replaced by rifleman as much as possible)...

Seeing the 10-15+ size stack of rebels slaves popping every few turns hits hard, but with a good army I may still be tempted to try it. If I'm not at war, obviously.
But the combat % bonus from playing a lower difficulty is probably screwing my judgement here.

Walter, why are you tempting me so much to re-run a game on a RNG map with higher diff !

 

[globosud]

Bingo.

I'd rather have a city there than something artificial and free for all. Bosphorus was famously blocked to enemies of the Eastern Romans, for instance. What I could (reluctantly, as is everything I do for scenario purposes only) supply those particular tiles with a very heavy additional weight for a city spot, ensuring someone always has a city there in all games. Then it becomes a matter of being friends with whoever that is. I can't imagine one would be able to freely traverse from the Med to the Red Sea while enemies with the pharohs either...

In fact, that's exactly what I did myself, just using Python — making any city at those coordinates only replaceable and not raziable. I had also thought of your idea; in fact, at Panama I placed a barbarian city. The civilization I added, let's say, can be conquered but not pillaged, so it will definitely disappear before the Middle Ages. I didn’t trust the specific weight, so I preferred to lock those coordinates, because in some tests I ended up with the Black Sea as a lake, and Suez and Panama closed.But with the same Python script, it’s enough to place a barbarian city at those points at the start, and the job is done.The specific weight can cause small issues,The specific weight can cause small issues, like another civilization building a city one tile away or killing the settler that was supposed to build it. On the other hand, protecting the coordinates with a starting barbarian city ensures that there will always be a city in that exact spot.

 

[PKSRoman]

Separatism may not be the most balanced feature for a small game or if you intend for the IA to be a real threat to you, but for the roleplaying part of the world ? It's glorious

This

Separatism shouldn't be tied to distance or any other parameter other than lack of food, health, and religious intolerance, at least until the Renaissance. Until then, populations valued only that; there was too much illiteracy to consider other aspects. The greatest danger should be the spread of religions other than the state ones. Corruption phenomena could only generate small, easily suppressed insurrections. Furthermore, a true split from a central state could not occur without a defeat on the battlefield, so in practice, when a nation is ready to separate, it should generate a mega army capable of defeating the state army. This goes back to the pre-industrial era, although even today, if you think about it, it is difficult to separate from a central state without war and without being recognized as a nation by the rest of the world

In medival, rennesaice era main factor was religion, later sense of cultural otherness.
The pursuit of separateness most often stemmed from the need to preserve or regain cultural, political and economic identity in the face of domination, marginalization or injustice by the actual government.
Resistance of conquered peoples aganist the current ruler - regardless of time and place.

 

[[Y]]

I think the Moai Statues could stand to be better. At 500 , it's on the more expensive side of contemporary wonders. This is odd since the purpose of the wonder is to get more in the first place. Right now, if you get 2/turn from it (most likely), it takes 250 turns before you see an actual gain. If you're lucky and get 3/turn, it's 166 turns of hammer deficit. So for all the investment you have to make into it in the early game, you have to wait a long time before you see any real value from it.

I think it could stand to have one of three treatments:

• Cost reduced to 300.
• Effect improved to +2 on water tiles. Obsolete with Compass or Rudder.
• Effect extends to all cities. Obsolete with Compass or Rudder.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Weren't ships transported over the land during Roman times in the Suez area?

Portages were generally a rather typical practice in ancient times.

+ a shitload of free with captured slaves

That does remind me to nerf the rate of slave capture; it currently feels rather excessive.

Please don't
I already find it weird enough to be able to safely go to China in -2K, or seeing war between the Celt and the Japanese before 0AD, and I'm fighting hard to make sure that no ones put a city there (at least not until the industrial era).
I would rather leave it to the player to colonize/build a city there if he really wants it, without having even more "under the table" mechanism in the HWM.

I ultimately went with a different and a more universal solution of teaching AI to appreciate a city spot offering access to two different sea areas. In a couple of test games, both Suez and Bosphorus end up always being settled now. Whether the civ in question will grant you access is a different question...

Cost reduced to 300.

Went with this.

 

[RezerCuid]

Feudal clans take a long time to build, so maybe we should reduce their price to 500 (250 in the code)

 

[Sathar]

Missing texture on, I think Indian Warband?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Missing texture on, I think Indian Warband?

Yeah, noticed that one too yesterday, and I thought I fixed in yesterday's revision, but apparently not. Will be fixed in the next one.

 

[Ahnarras]

That does remind me to nerf the rate of slave capture; it currently feels rather excessive.

Agree, as cool as it is, having slaves as the main production factor felt a bit OP.
That, and the fact that I had so much colyseum champion that I was running out of cities to build gladiator school.

I ultimately went with a different and a more universal solution of teaching AI to appreciate a city spot offering access to two different sea areas. In a couple of test games, both Suez and Bosphorus end up always being settled now. Whether the civ in question will grant you access is a different question...

Sounds good !

 

[globosud]

I ultimately went with a different and a more universal solution of teaching AI to appreciate a city spot offering access to two different sea areas. In a couple of test games, both Suez and Bosphorus end up always being settled now. Whether the civ in question will grant you access is a different question...

if you’ve tested that it works, then it’s an excellent solution.Moreover, your modification works perfectly not only in scenarios but also on random maps

 

[Alekseyev_]

That would just exacerbate the snowballing one would get when capturing in Europe. Remember, any map tweak that makes it easier to have just a few cities also makes it easier for a big empire that captures those cities.

That is true, but if I am honest, not even a bad thing to me. Just consider the power a nation that would control the entirety of Europe would have IRL! Another possible idea from Civ3 mods that could be transferred here maybe is to have such yield buffing resources that are only visible/available to one civ next to their home area, so that another nation conquering the same area would not get the same benefit as the "native" civ from there.

That would be a computational nightmare, unfortunately. Pathfinding is the largest performance hog in Civ 4 engine.

I can imagine. I wonder how often it would have to be updated - probably once per tile changing culture, for all cities of both the previous (if any) and new owner of the tile? I'm sure there are some crazy optimisations possible, but I'm not good enough of a programmer for that.

There is all kind of weirdness that happens in Civ 4 along the "seam" in the map. So it was chosen to have it go across the Atlantic, where there's the least amount of land around it.

Oh that is interesting, is there some place to read more about this?

And that, unlike the above, I am quite open to. I cannot guarantee it, but I will try adding more leaders for the next version. I can clearly see why one would want that, and it's not nearly as onerous.

I've had a thought here recently. I think the Sahel civilisation could also be extended to represent the Kanem(-Bornu) people, since they're from within the Sahel zone as well. Here I would suggest the leader Dunama Dibbalemi since he was the one to greatly expand their empire. Matching traits would be Conqueror, Expansionist, Fanatical, I believe (the first due to the large expansion, the latter due to the treatment of the pre-islamic culture in the region). However, Mehmed II already has this exact combination - maybe there'd be another good trait combo for either of the two if the repetition is unwanted. Now of course with the gold panning, mint building and all, this civ is quite strongly related to the Malian and Songhai empires, but maybe it's worth trying to expand the civ to also cover the more eastern Sahel zone.

can see how one would think that; will bump the upgrade to cavalry instead. But in any case, nobody is forcing an upgrade - if one feels like it, one can stick with the NU and never upgrade at all (for an aid bonus, for instance).

It's not that you're not forced to upgrade your existing units, but rather that you can't replace any losses at that point, only being able to now make cuirassiers, despite being very different in use. Cavalry as an upgrade sounds a lot better!

It depends on your RAM!

I believe Civ4 caps out at 4 GB RAM use. So sadly that doesn't help.

I think the Moai Statues could stand to be better. At 500 , it's on the more expensive side of contemporary wonders. This is odd since the purpose of the wonder is to get more in the first place. Right now, if you get 2/turn from it (most likely), it takes 250 turns before you see an actual gain. If you're lucky and get 3/turn, it's 166 turns of hammer deficit. So for all the investment you have to make into it in the early game, you have to wait a long time before you see any real value from it.

I think they are actually quite great. You can get them reasonably early, and they will last you many hundreds of turns.

I made my own huge world map with Europe 1/3 larger and noth africa, removed all the minor American civilizations and the African and Pacific ones, now they are all barbarian cities, and added only Ukraine, now there are 39 civilizations, the map is slightly larger 218 x 95, compared to 210x 90 of the current one, if Walter wants to insert it into the r.i. version I would be happy to share it, compatible with the latest svn. It might seem out of scale, but it is much closer to reality than it may seem, especially if you compare the former Soviet Union, with Europe as it is in reality, I have included a map that shows the correct proportions

I think your Europe actually looks strangely oversized now. Italy also looks a bit disfigured :/ And Scandinavia closing off the north of the map is a bit sad too Do you know if it is possible to cut & paste areas on a Civ4 map? Could maybe shift stuff around south by like 2 tiles and then add those to Europe across the board (based on the RI version)

If only we could have an entire world map based on the Europe map, that one is actually amazing. (I had not tried it before recently.) While I don't know what the technical max dimensions of a Civ4 map are, I am sure the game would totally die on such a large map.

1) I know it's vanilla behaviour, but isn't the current delay between 2 doctrines changes a bit too small ? Switching back and forth doctrines every 5 turns always make me a bit uneasy, would it make sense to bump it to the same delay as the trade deals (15 turns, I believe ?).

I think it's fine. You have to consider the cost, you gain 1-2 turns of anarchy per civic you change unless you are spiritual (and being able to make frequent civic changes is the entire point of spiritual). Also, each turn represents many years, so having certain parts of the government change after over a decade doesn't seem that outlandish when you look at history.

I prefer to look at Separatism in a "post-event way" : the reduction that garrisonned units grants to Separatism ? It's your army fighting the rebels in the streets.
The micro-event where you can bribe or otherwise influence the rebels ? It means the city has already shifted, at least a big part of it.

Fully agree!

Side note : I'm slowly progressing into the Renaissance and, as my military is finally modernized and upgraded/rebuild, I'm seeing myself lacking in stuff to build. It's great, that means I can switch towards more economic/research.

I often also have nearly all my cities build science (since money buildings have the better % for commerce conversion at this point) near the end of the middle ages and onwards.

Is it the pressure from rebels ? They are still S6 for me but I'm not sure I wanna deal with S10 rebels once I will have the new gun unlocked
But I will probably switch out of Slavery and focus back on Production once I'm at that point, as I will have to modernize my whole army and that will probably take a few dozen turns, even with all my cities training recruits.

Enabling Irregulars is usually the point where I switch from Slavery or Serfdom at the latest. The difference the 10 strength rebels make is massive!

----------------------------------

Now, after the quote wall, some reports:
- Many separatism event options misspell it as "sepratism"
- Chinese canals built on oasis will permanently destroy the oasis feature (automated workers like doing this). I believe the easiest way to prevent this is to just not allow canal construction on oasis tiles, since settlements are far superior and oases themselves already provide fresh water, so they don't even break a "canal network".
- Canals, being a feature, do not provide +1 commerce next to rivers when on grassland or plains. Only the canals + floodplains feature does so.

I have been wondering... what is the intended usage of canals? They provide some hammers, but watermills that don't come particularly long after do it a lot better. The commerce is also the same for the most part, as water mills don't prevent the +1 river commerce of normal grassland/plains tiles. Both watermills and canals benefit from state property, but both with and without the civic, watermills come out on top yield-wise. And that's not even comparing canals to the food that could be gotten from a farm instead and invested into a specialist.

 

[globosud]

I think your Europe actually looks strangely oversized now. Italy also looks a bit disfigured :/ And Scandinavia closing off the north of the map is a bit sad too Do you know if it is possible to cut & paste areas on a Civ4 map? Could maybe shift stuff around south by like 2 tiles and then add those to Europe across the board (based on the RI version)

If only we could have an entire world map based on the Europe map, that one is actually amazing. (I had not tried it before recently.) While I don't know what the technical max dimensions of a Civ4 map are, I am sure the game would totally die on such a large map.

"Distorted? Not to brag, but considering the number of plots it uses, I’ve never seen a better representation of Italy in Civ 4, for example look at Sicily. Obviously, Europe is oversized — but we shouldn’t confuse the 'walkable' Europe with the Europe we see on distorted world maps. This one, at least for me, is the right compromise. It’s far more unrealistic to have a Soviet Union five times larger than it actually was, if you consider real-world land area.
I also created a map similar to this European scenario that extends all the way to America, but it becomes unplayable because it would need at least 100 civilizations — the distances are too vast, and aside from slowing down the game, wars basically never happen." Image 1 is mine; image 2 is the current one and image 3 "map with real land areas, and scandinavia image 4, england image 5 and image 6 currend england map huge scenario where island faroe are too close to Iceland and image 7 scandinavia current scenario of realism . Of course, the fewer tiles you use, the less precise you can be."As for Scandinavia, I prefer it this way — the important thing is not to cut it off to the point where it risks becoming an island. But again, for playability, the map can't really go beyond what it already is: 215 x 98, compared to the 210 x 90 of the Huge scenario in Realism, I could also add more plots to the north to include all of Scandinavia, but it wouldn’t add anything to the gameplay — it would only slow the game down.. As I’ve said, it’s a compromise meant to give Europe and the Mediterranean the importance and centrality they’ve had throughout the centuries — and also to give European civilizations a chance not to disappear within the first 600 turns."As far as I’m concerned, there are no better solutions — unless you divide the world into sectors. But if you want to play on a full world map, I believe mine is the right compromise, and I don’t really see any other way. I’ve been making maps for over 20 years; I started back with Medieval Total War, and they were much more complex there, especially because they also had a first-person element.Now Europe is actually equal in size to the United States, China, and Russia. Geographical maps work better for games like Europa Universalis, but in Civilization, playing on a true geographical map brings major limitations — unless you find the right compromises." Also, remember that no map can be perfect, and everything depends on the number of tile plots you use."

 

[RezerCuid]

After playing the new SVN, I would like to suggest that you change the balance of battles.

1) I would reduce the bonuses from unit experience. If a unit gains 4 promotions, it becomes 54% stronger and has a 99% chance of winning a battle against a unit with the same level but no experience. However, it is likely to suffer only minor injuries. Alternatively, a unit with 4 promotions in city attack has a 100% increase in its attack, allowing it to kill everyone in the city. I've had instances where I easily repelled an AI attack with an army twice the size of mine. This happened thanks to my units with 4 and 5 promotions. AI mostly throws new recruits to the slaughter
I don't deny the importance of combat experience, but I just want to make inexperienced warriors a little less worthless.

Combat
Old - 10,12,14,18,20%
New - 8,10,12,14,16%

City raider and garrison
Old - 20,23,27,30%
New - 15,18,22,25%

Woodsman and guerilla
Old - 25%
New - 20%

Shock, cover, patrols, pacification, charge, pinch, ambush and gun battery,
Old - 25,32,43%
New - 20,26,34%

2) I know you're against limiting it to 3 levels, but 4,5,6 levels make warriors absolutely powerful. Maybe the maximum number of unit promotions will be 4?

 

[globosud]

After playing the new SVN, I would like to suggest that you change the balance of battles.

1) I would reduce the bonuses from unit experience. If a unit gains 4 promotions, it becomes 54% stronger and has a 99% chance of winning a battle against a unit with the same level but no experience. However, it is likely to suffer only minor injuries. Alternatively, a unit with 4 promotions in city attack has a 100% increase in its attack, allowing it to kill everyone in the city. I've had instances where I easily repelled an AI attack with an army twice the size of mine. This happened thanks to my units with 4 and 5 promotions. AI mostly throws new recruits to the slaughter
I don't deny the importance of combat experience, but I just want to make inexperienced warriors a little less worthless.

Combat
Old - 10,12,14,18,20%
New - 8,10,12,14,16%

City raider and garrison
Old - 20,23,27,30%
New - 15,18,22,25%

Woodsman and guerilla
Old - 25%
New - 20%

Shock, cover, patrols, pacification, charge, pinch, ambush and gun battery,
Old - 25,32,43%
New - 20,25,35%

2) I know you're against limiting it to 3 levels, but 4,5,6 levels make warriors absolutely powerful. Maybe the maximum number of unit promotions will be 4?

Maybe it would be enough to remove combat experience gained from killing barbarians, or at least cut it in half — that way, gaining experience on the battlefield would be much harder.