Realism Invictus

[Walter Hawkwood]

Not really, the fact that you can access Europe + Africa + Asia while traveling on foot means that all the ressources are available really early.
It's not like China was separated from the mainland by an ocean and Spices/Silk would be unavailable until Navigation.

Yeah, I guess you're right. And probably made worse by the fact that the World Map is more realistic than a randomly generated map in resource distribution in that lots of those resources are found all across Eurasia rather than clustered. Just add it as another item to my long list of woes for the need to separately balance that map as it simply doesn't work the same way random maps do.

But perhaps it's a cultural thing : in my langage I never encountered the word for "Flintlock" and had to look at Wikipedia to understand what it was even after I translated it.
Whereas "Bayonet" is something I would often hear in movies, so I was more familiar with that word. Not that I mind it, I'm always happy to learn new things with your mod.

I mean, you definitely know the word "musket", and it was mostly because of flintlocks that it became a thing separate from an arquebus. Warning in advance: I am by necessity oversimplifying things, as in truth everything was much more gradual, but here goes the development of line infantry:

• Bayonet is a very simple idea and probably almost as old as firearms themselves, but had no real impact until lots of other "stars" aligned. Here's a depiction from China in 1606. Early bayonets would be plugged into the muzzle. In theory, that was a disadvantage as you couldn't fire with one plugged in; in practice, the firearms of those days were so inaccurate and took such a long time to reload that it didn't really matter - you were either far away from the enemy and randomly blasting at them, hoping to hit them by chance, or you were definitely going into a melee.
• Earlier firearm infantry usually carried a matchlock or a wheellock arquebus and usually a sword - or a bayonet, but it didn't matter. The problem with either of the early gun locks was that they required a lit match to fire - not only did it make it weather dependent, but it also made the firing process itself rather cumbersome and lengthy, usually requiring to hold the match in one hand - therefore having to rest the gun somewhere as you could just hold it with the other. Flintlock, in contrast, was not only more weatherproof, but the firing act itself was more akin to modern guns - you simply pressed the trigger. More on why this is important below.
• Back in those days, the cavalry was going through a kind of an identity crisis. The heavy cavalry was ditching lances as formed pikemen made heavy cavalry lance charges less and less viable as a tactic, whereas light cavalry eagerly adopted firearms - to very little effect. In battle, they were generally "just there", waltzing around, shooting pistols blindly, and having close to zero effect.
• Enter the first important person, Maurice of Nassau, who looked at the mess the firearms use of the day was, and improved it as only a calvinist like him could - with iron discipline. While infantry drills were slowly becoming a thing already, primarily for the pikemen, firearms infantry was mostly left to their own devices before Maurice. What he discovered though, is if you concentrated fire, even from a very inaccurate gun, it started having real stopping power. So he developed a three-row formation in which a soldier would cycle through all three rows, doing the standard reloading movement in sync with his comrades, and reaching the front row, discharged a volley simultaneously with them. This allowed a very good sustained fire rate, even if individual reloading speed was atrocious, and importantly that fire now came in volleys. All of that obviously required the amounts of training and discipline that earlier armies simply didn't have. Also importantly, the Maurician routine only worked on a purely shooter formation, so it couldn't be mixed with pikemen as tercios before it. Pikemen were initially segregated and kept at the centre of the formation with the shooters at the flanks.
• Remember, those days cavalry is relatively useless, and becomes even more useless when facing volley fire - as no mounted unit can deliver any comparable density of gunfire to such a formation. So both light and heavy cavalry would just get slaughtered outright if they got in a firefight with Maurician infantry (and "Maurician" here is a term for a tactic rather than person at this point, as it quickly spread from Dutch armies to everyone else's given how effective it was).
• Enter the second important person, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, an all-round military genius. We're interested in particular in what he did to cavalry. He looked at cavalry and compared what it had that infantry didn't, and came to a simple (in hindsight) conclusion - no matter light or heavy, any cavalryman (on horseback obviously) was a) much heavier than an infantryman (by simple weight of man + horse) and b) was quicker than an infantryman. Mass * speed = impulse, and a simple yet genius conclusion he reached from that is that cavalry is only useful in combat if it's charging, again no matter if it's light or heavy, as impulse was its critical advantage. So all cavalry would only engage with the enemy by charging straight at them, preferably discharging their firearms right before impact (for a better chance of actually hitting something; reloading on horseback was a chore, so cavalry was basically a single volley per charge).
• Gustavian "shock cavalry" was a revolution on the battlefield, that allowed cavalry units, all other things (like equipment or training) equal, to become much more lethal on the battlefield. It's well demonstrated by the English Civil War, where the Parliamentary and the Royalist cavalry were essentially the same, but Royalists kept winning all cavalry engagements as unlike the Parliamentarists, their cavalry leader, prince Rupert, learned directly from the Swedish army in the 30YW.
• This made the cavalry a credible threat to shooters again - and they could no longer be mixed with pikemen for protection, or else they lost all coherence. Now is the time for bayonets to shine. At this point, we have socket bayonets that don't plug the muzzle, so you can fire with it on. Why is it important? Well, because - if you're well-drilled, and by this time, due to Maurice and his tactics, infantry is - you can loose a volley and immediately brace for impact of a cavalry charge with what's not exactly a pike, but in a tight formation still a very formidable obstacle to cavalry. With flintlocks, you don't need to keep a lit match or rest your musket anywhere for firing, so there is no longer a practical difference between a firing line and a bayonet line. Importantly, this formation, unlike pikemen, had no real "rear" to charge into, as it could be reformed about face within a couple of seconds.
• Additionally, as Swedes again would soon demonstrate during the Great Northern War, bayonet + flintlock + drilled infantry was an extremely potent offensive mix as well. Flintlock meant you didn't have to stop and get into position for firing, and that you could carry a loaded musket on you across the battlefield. Remember, firearms are still rather inaccurate, so firing from 50 and from 10 meters makes lots of difference. With flintlock + bayonet, a well-trained (and well-conditioned, as it required keeping calm under fire) infantry unit would approach the enemy very closely without discharging their guns (whereas enemy would be frantically firing at them, by volleys no less), let loose a deadly volley from the minimal distance and then do a quick bayonet charge while the enemy was still reloading. Done right, this was absolutely devastating.

As you can see, while the bayonets were quite important in the grand scheme of things, they pre-dated line infantry and weren't particularly useful by themselves until a lot of other developments happened.

I've tried but it locks me out when I try to resume, says I have to do a cleanup command. There's like no GUI for it in SVN, so I looked it up and it's something you do via command prompt from the terminal. But I like really don't like messing with the terminal for stuff if I really don't have to, so I usually try to start the whole download over from scratch to no avail.

If you're using TortoiseSVN as recommended, there is definitely a Clean Up option:

Hi @Walter Hawkwood,
is it correct that there are two Korean civilizations (with different leaders) in the game, one original and one born through a revolution (SVN revision 5504)?
I can attach the savegame, if it's helpful.

If you're playing with separatism on, yes, this is a situation that can happen.

Unfortunately, this did not work for me, and I was still stuck indefinitely at "Setup Map" - I can provide more specifics as necessary, if you weren't able to recreate the failure locally on your end.

If you're sure you've updated to the hotfix I pushed out yesterday (as there was a legit issue that was there and that I fixed), I would very much like to see your PythonErr.log.

 

[Ahnarras]

Yeah, I guess you're right. And probably made worse by the fact that the World Map is more realistic than a randomly generated map in resource distribution in that lots of those resources are found all across Eurasia rather than clustered. Just add it as another item to my long list of woes for the need to separately balance that map as it simply doesn't work the same way random maps do.

That's one thing I like about it, as I always hated spawning on a RNG map and seeing the same ressource popping up x3 or even x4 on my spawning spot.
But as frustrating as it is for early game, I now understand how better for mid-game trading it is.

I'm also with the (very personnal) opinion that the HWM is probably a bit too loaded with ressources. I understand that there is a lot of them because there are way more Civ than on a standard map, but by mid-game the few empire that raised up and are controlling a good chunk of their continent are then able to access every ressources with ease. Removing a few of them could an easy way to make them more valuable (and renew interest for wars of conquest). It's already done for strategic ressources, which are sparce and were the main reason I went to war in late-classical.

I know HWM isn't on your priority list at all so it's not a request but I will take the occasion to add a comment that I think could help : the pre-place "natives" civilizations seems to me more like a burden than a perk.
I know the # of Civ is limited and already hitting the ceiling, but could it makes sense to remove the natives ?

For Africa, the continent I know the most about by now, it could be done with taking out the west african / bantus / swahilis and adding another Civ somewhere between the starting point of Ethiopa and Zoulous.
The jungles area aren't really worth it anyways, and would be even less usefull with less ressources in them.

Once that is done, hunting the few "sea" tiles that links the main continent towards the Polynesians islands and making Australia accessible in bronze age would take out another huge chunk of the map out.
Same for America : it could become an empty new world (or only populated with barbarians) if you take out the azteque/incas.

Those changes would make the map have a bigger portion that would be only usefull in late-game (because it requires Navigation or because the area is too hostile to make it worthwhile before the ressources of the industrial age starts spawning in them) without having artificial civilizations clogging them on. That means reducing the risk of AI going into endless wars against tribals forts they can't possibly destroy, less pre-placed cities that grants free trade route early in the game then become revolution hazard in late-game because they have no way of defend themself against true Civ's culture expansion, a whole less diplomacy spamm at beginning of the turns, probably faster between turns-time and finally empty spaces for barbarians to spawn in for early game.

I'm not sure I will ever try to finish a game on the HWM ever again as it's just too big and time-consuming to be done more than once, but perhaps my experience could help shape it for futurs players

As you can see, while the bayonets were quite important in the grand scheme of things, they pre-dated line infantry and weren't particularly useful by themselves until a lot of other developments happened.

Really interesting read, thanks a lot ! It's always fascinating to see how more complex history is, specially for those "dark ages" that were often overlooked in school.

 

[PKSRoman]

What I truely don't understand are the Irregulars, the Bachi-Bazouk.

mass of people who need standard equipment. of course it will be cost much to upgrade to this level.

meantime in my game:
WORLD CHRISTIAN COALITION HAHA

 

[FlimsyWhimsy]

Could you please offer some advice on Korean and Armenian UBs?

Armenian one is a cheaper Library with +10% culture on top. It doesn't seem like much at first, but I guess it should be pretty useful for an early border pressure game, and it also becomes available very early, so it would be strange to expect anything flashy from it. I suppose it's the same thing with South China's Pavilion, cheap + percent culture = border pressure power (although Pavilion's +25% also seem decent enough to contribute towards the cultural win).

Korean one is quite puzzling. It's a university with +5% science and a production boost for Progressive leaders. So, if you're not playing as Progressive leader, it's just +5% science, and it doesn't come particularly early. Am I missing something? Or does Korea compensate the lacking UB in some other regard? Their archers and NUs seem pretty good, as well as their pagan temple.

 

[arizzi]

Do we think that improvements are built too fast? I feel like by the late classical period basically every time has been developed. There technically isn't a limit on how many workers you can produce. I feel like it would be a nice balancer for tall vs wide to have a fixed amount of workers - arbitrarily starting at two and then increasing with technology. I'll take a look at how easy that might be to do. I do know that we can specify a cap on the number of units of that type, but not sure how difficult it is to increase it with a tech.

Separately, is autocracy a bit too good? Feel like it gets tons of happiness, especially from imperial cult / paganism. Kinda hard to pick anything else, especially vs republic. Republic should also get more free units imo.

 

[globosud]

That's one thing I like about it, as I always hated spawning on a RNG map and seeing the same ressource popping up x3 or even x4 on my spawning spot.
But as frustrating as it is for early game, I now understand how better for mid-game trading it is.

I'm also with the (very personnal) opinion that the HWM is probably a bit too loaded with ressources. I understand that there is a lot of them because there are way more Civ than on a standard map, but by mid-game the few empire that raised up and are controlling a good chunk of their continent are then able to access every ressources with ease. Removing a few of them could an easy way to make them more valuable (and renew interest for wars of conquest). It's already done for strategic ressources, which are sparce and were the main reason I went to war in late-classical.

I know HWM isn't on your priority list at all so it's not a request but I will take the occasion to add a comment that I think could help : the pre-place "natives" civilizations seems to me more like a burden than a perk.
I know the # of Civ is limited and already hitting the ceiling, but could it makes sense to remove the natives ?

For Africa, the continent I know the most about by now, it could be done with taking out the west african / bantus / swahilis and adding another Civ somewhere between the starting point of Ethiopa and Zoulous.
The jungles area aren't really worth it anyways, and would be even less usefull with less ressources in them.

Once that is done, hunting the few "sea" tiles that links the main continent towards the Polynesians islands and making Australia accessible in bronze age would take out another huge chunk of the map out.
Same for America : it could become an empty new world (or only populated with barbarians) if you take out the azteque/incas.

Those changes would make the map have a bigger portion that would be only usefull in late-game (because it requires Navigation or because the area is too hostile to make it worthwhile before the ressources of the industrial age starts spawning in them) without having artificial civilizations clogging them on. That means reducing the risk of AI going into endless wars against tribals forts they can't possibly destroy, less pre-placed cities that grants free trade route early in the game then become revolution hazard in late-game because they have no way of defend themself against true Civ's culture expansion, a whole less diplomacy spamm at beginning of the turns, probably faster between turns-time and finally empty spaces for barbarians to spawn in for early game.

I'm not sure I will ever try to finish a game on the HWM ever again as it's just too big and time-consuming to be done more than once, but perhaps my experience could help shape it for futurs players



Really interesting read, thanks a lot ! It's always fascinating to see how more complex history is, specially for those "dark ages" that were often overlooked in school.

You're basically describing everything I've done in my Huge - Europa Plus scenario, as I call it. I removed all the minor civilizations, and I only have barbarians in America and Australia — my map runs much more smoothly. I think the native civs are great for players trying the scenario for the first time, but after that, for more "veteran" players, they just become a waste of time.


The issue with barbarian fortresses seems to have been fixed in the latest SVN version. With the separatist system I created, I'm having incredibly fun games — conquered cities rebel against their new owner, which is very useful when a distant civilization captures a faraway city. With my system, they almost always lose it again within 30 turns. Newly conquered cities are at risk of separatism for 100 turns and also suffer penalties caused by internal separatist movements. My separatism system is essentially a rebellion by the original owner, which triggers a war between the old and new owner. And yes, this can also happen even if the original civ has become a vassal.


I also developed a balancing system where small civilizations don’t turn into zombies, but can actually become competitive — staying small in territory but still strong in technology, and therefore also militarily and economically. My balancing system is progressive. Civilizations with just one or two cities — to put it simply — have a growth rate about 30% higher than a civ with 10 or more cities, starting from in classic with minor bonus and after in the Renaissance era. As they grow to 5 cities, the bonus decreases gradually, scaling down until around 8 cities. If they choose to expand beyond that, they obviously lose the bonuses tied to being a small state. Basically, the bonuses are linked to their size.Keeping more civilizations competitive also makes resource trading much more diverse.


I’ll show you my world map at 30% of the scenario. It's very similar to the original, except for the increased size of Europe and the removal of all native civs. All major civs are still alive, there's only one vassal state, and look at Northern Ireland or portgual for example: just 3 cities, but still high in the rankings!!Not to criticize, but in the standard game, small civilizations get wiped out or turned into zombies by expansionist civs very quickly — at least in my experience playing on Emperor difficulty. With my system, it’s much easier to attack the peripheral cities of a large civilization than the few cities of a small one.A small civilization that's been attacked and is on the verge of disappearing can come back and turn into a superpower, or at least fight for a place in the space race. It might still be wiped out, but it will fight tooth and nail until its very last city — where the bonuses reach their peak.

 

[Ahnarras]

mass of people who need standard equipment. of course it will be cost much to upgrade to this level.

Yeah I get that, my point was more about the inconsistancy of the upgrading (some needing only 10 gold, others needing 1k), not about the total amount for the army.
But Walter explained it well in one his answer so I'm all good now

I also developed a balancing system where small civilizations don’t turn into zombies, but can actually become competitive — staying small in territory but still strong in technology, and therefore also militarily and economically. My balancing system is progressive. Civilizations with just one or two cities — to put it simply — have a growth rate about 30% higher than a civ with 10 or more cities, starting from in classic with minor bonus and after in the Renaissance era. As they grow to 5 cities, the bonus decreases gradually, scaling down until around 8 cities. If they choose to expand beyond that, they obviously lose the bonuses tied to being a small state. Basically, the bonuses are linked to their size.Keeping more civilizations competitive also makes resource trading much more diverse.

That's funny because I had the exact same situation in my game. Portugal is one of the top Civ in the world despite spending the first ~1100 turns having only two cities.
Most Civ also stayed pretty small, going with 4-5 cities at most, and were competiting quite well with the 10+ empires. The power they were lacking in number of units was usually compensated by their increase research rates that made them have better troups.

It's only once in Renaissance that everything seemed to changes, I guess the Observatory and all the bonus in gold from bank/trade route/ressources selling started to pile up.
I'm curious to see if your game would evolve the same or not.

 

[globosud]

Yeah I get that, my point was more about the inconsistancy of the upgrading (some needing only 10 gold, others needing 1k), not about the total amount for the army.
But Walter explained it well in one his answer so I'm all good now



That's funny because I had the exact same situation in my game. Portugal is one of the top Civ in the world despite spending the first ~1100 turns having only two cities.
Most Civ also stayed pretty small, going with 4-5 cities at most, and were competiting quite well with the 10+ empires. The power they were lacking in number of units was usually compensated by their increase research rates that made them have better troups.

It's only once in Renaissance that everything seemed to changes, I guess the Observatory and all the bonus in gold from bank/trade route/ressources selling started to pile up.
I'm curious to see if your game would evolve the same or not.

Can you take a screenshot of your world map around 40% into the game? And what difficulty level do you play on? Also, do you play with separatism enabled? I like this test – I want to understand how much my changes affect it as well. Thanks!"

 

[[Y]]

Does/can the isthmus apply to building forts too? Would be useful for the AI to know to build forts on those plots, which they don't seem to currently do.

---

So I've been trying to play Alaric recently to give Legislator a chance, and my conclusion is that Spain is pretty weak, at least for a player civ.

The Mineria has very little impact, and in most games practically no impact. If you get some gold or silver in your opening cities it has a chance to do good, but by the mid classical it loses any appeal. Getting +1 on 5 or 6 tiles in your empire isn't a notable difference in commercial output after the ancient era. Compare to the Carthaginian Trading Colony improvement: The Trading Colony gets the same +1 on the relevant resource, but also gives +1 happiness in nearby cities, which ultimately yields a ton more commerce, or hammers, or food. On top of that it can be cultivated. So it gets easy to come by and produces a bonus relevant to the entire game. The Mineria stops being relevant early on in the game, and in most games doesn't have the chance to become relevant in the first place because you don't have gold or silver near your starting area.

The Citadel's XP bonus to siege weapons is very lackluster and narrow. Siege units don't benefit much from promotions. Giving them +%strength doesn't mean much when they have a max amount of damage they can deal to units. Improving city bombard damage, at best, saves you a few turns of bombarding a city, but you can already get that by just adding another siege unit to the stack (which then also adds to the siege aid they give). And you only need the XP bonus in one or two cities in your empire, it's wasted on other cities. Probably my least favorite unique building. What if for the Spanish it acted as an upgrade to the Siege Workshop and allowed you to turn 1 or 2 citizens into engineers?

The unit roster, at least in the first half of the game, is full of tradeoffs. The 2 archer has less city and hill bonuses but is cheaper, the swordsman line trades defense against melee for more attack against melee, the pikeman trades half its bonus against cavalry for a bonus against archery units, which is of dubious utility and makes its role more ambiguous, and they don't get access to longbowmen. They do have great levies, though, but that requires building a big levy army, which costs more GPT and maintenance costs than a smaller but better trained army. This is all great for AI civs that have reduced costs and an easier time fielding big armies, but for a player (or at least, my own playstyle), the tradeoffs aren't in the player's favor. Especially for a leader like Alaric: My recon and mounted units already get a debuff, and now my ranged units and melee units are lacking or are limited in utility, too.

The unique units are both fantastic. Great powerhouses. But they are also available at the exact same time, and if you don't happen to be at war at that time, then they go to waste. So if you want these units to do work, you basically have to plan your game around going to war at the end of the medieval era. Not the worst, but being forced into going to war at a specific time is less exciting than making context-based strategic decisions as a player. It also makes the civ more predictable, but I suppose that's more of a PVP problem than the typical solo play experience.

If others have played Spain more and have input on what I might be missing or assessing incorrectly, I'd love to hear it! But my experience so far has been resoundingly negative with them. Maybe it's a great civ for a specific type of playstyle, just not my playstyle.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

meantime in my game:
WORLD CHRISTIAN COALITION HAHA

Almost the same as IRL!

Korean one is quite puzzling. It's a university with +5% science and a production boost for Progressive leaders. So, if you're not playing as Progressive leader, it's just +5% science, and it doesn't come particularly early. Am I missing something? Or does Korea compensate the lacking UB in some other regard? Their archers and NUs seem pretty good, as well as their pagan temple.

Korean UB is rather lackluster, yes. Mostly, as you noted yourself, due to the fact that lots of other stuff they have is pretty neat.

Separately, is autocracy a bit too good? Feel like it gets tons of happiness, especially from imperial cult / paganism.

It is the "default" option, yes, as it mostly historically was, until at least Renaissance. It does require heavier investment than most other civics.

Can you take a screenshot of your world map around 40% into the game? And what difficulty level do you play on? Also, do you play with separatism enabled? I like this test – I want to understand how much my changes affect it as well. Thanks!"

This one's from my AI test game. No separatism (all default settings), this one's with random leaders (though pretty indicative of default leader games as well).

Spoiler big screenshot :

Does/can the isthmus apply to building forts too? Would be useful for the AI to know to build forts on those plots, which they don't seem to currently do.

It can certainly be done, but I'm not sure if utility of a fort there is actually higher than utility of working that tile.

The Mineria has very little impact, and in most games practically no impact. If you get some gold or silver in your opening cities it has a chance to do good, but by the mid classical it loses any appeal. Getting +1 on 5 or 6 tiles in your empire isn't a notable difference in commercial output after the ancient era. Compare to the Carthaginian Trading Colony improvement: The Trading Colony gets the same +1 on the relevant resource, but also gives +1 happiness in nearby cities, which ultimately yields a ton more commerce, or hammers, or food. On top of that it can be cultivated. So it gets easy to come by and produces a bonus relevant to the entire game. The Mineria stops being relevant early on in the game, and in most games doesn't have the chance to become relevant in the first place because you don't have gold or silver near your starting area.

I was absolutely sure that I already buffed Minerias to be +2 at least. It was raised before and I agree that they're quite weak.

If others have played Spain more and have input on what I might be missing or assessing incorrectly, I'd love to hear it! But my experience so far has been resoundingly negative with them. Maybe it's a great civ for a specific type of playstyle, just not my playstyle.

Overall, Spain is, as you noted, pretty much a one trick pony - most of their advantages cluster around the same era (I'd also highlight a caravel that can carry any unit, facilitating early colonization - also in the same era). Whether you like a civ with a clear advantage in a particular era or one that's kind of good throughout the game is a matter of personal preference I guess.

 

[globosud]

Almost the same as IRL!

Korean UB is rather lackluster, yes. Mostly, as you noted yourself, due to the fact that lots of other stuff they have is pretty neat.

It is the "default" option, yes, as it mostly historically was, until at least Renaissance. It does require heavier investment than most other civics.

This one's from my AI test game. No separatism (all default settings), this one's with random

Almost the same as IRL!

Korean UB is rather lackluster, yes. Mostly, as you noted yourself, due to the fact that lots of other stuff they have is pretty neat.

It is the "default" option, yes, as it mostly historically was, until at least Renaissance. It does require heavier investment than most other civics.

This one's from my AI test game. No separatism (all default settings), this one's with random leaders (though pretty indicative of default leader games as well).

Spoiler big screenshot :

View attachment 739799

It can certainly be done, but I'm not sure if utility of a fort there is actually higher than utility of working that tile.

I was absolutely sure that I already buffed Minerias to be +2 at least. It was raised before and I agree that they're quite weak.

Overall, Spain is, as you noted, pretty much a one trick pony - most of their advantages cluster around the same era (I'd also highlight a caravel that can carry any unit, facilitating early colonization - also in the same era). Whether you like a civ with a clear advantage in a particular era or one that's kind of good throughout the game is a matter of personal preference I guess.

leaders (though pretty indicative of default leader games as well).

Spoiler big screenshot :

View attachment 739799

It can certainly be done, but I'm not sure if utility of a fort there is actually higher than utility of working that tile.

I was absolutely sure that I already buffed Minerias to be +2 at least. It was raised before and I agree that they're quite weak.

Overall, Spain is, as you noted, pretty much a one trick pony - most of their advantages cluster around the same era (I'd also highlight a caravel that can carry any unit, facilitating early colonization - also in the same era). Whether you like a civ with a clear advantage in a particular era or one that's kind of good throughout the game is a matter of personal preference I guess.

This screenshot — even though no vassals have appeared yet, so let's say it looks quite balanced at the moment — is an exception to a rule that is almost always the opposite. I understand the purpose of your screenshot , but it's only seemingly balanced. For example, England will soon disappear or be vassalized, or it will survive only because it's neglected by other civilizations — same with Portugal — at least 9 times out of 10.
Considering a reasonable number of games and tests — obviously in games without separatism, since I haven’t tested that enough — the East is usually absorbed by a single faction, which can be Japan, South China, or China. India almost always disappears or becomes a zombie before the Renaissance, if it even survives the Medieval era. The same goes for Carthage. Egypt is almost always wiped out by Nubia. France and Germany rarely survive unless they become vassals or are capitulated.
In any case, your screenshot still shows that only the first 10 to 15 civilizations more or less have a real chance of playing the game competitively. The others, unless a miracle happens, will just go on playing with the sole purpose of slowing down the game in later turns They won't provide military support, they won't contribute technologically — they’ll just be dead weight
In the official mod, I’d try to make it possible for small civilizations (in terms of land size) to become superpowers, as it happens in reality. For example, the Netherlands is not weaker than Ethiopia just because it has less territory. Japan is a superpower even though it’s four times smaller than Iran. South Korea is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, and I could give another hundred examples.
I’d try to balance expansionist civilizations with those less focused on war. But again, it’s just a way to make the best mod out there even more realistic. In my games, this is what always happens: the fate of the game is decided in the first 500 turns at least 9 times out of 10. I don’t like to evaluate based on specific cases — I judge based on what usually happens.With my "Huge Europa Plus" map, I’ve already somewhat mitigated this situation, but it’s still not enough. I’ve added a progressive balancing system that I’m currently testing, aiming to makecrippled civilizations — single-city or low-city civs — more competitive, and to turn them into superpowers of a different kind, non-militaristic ones.The Civ 4 AI clearly can’t handle such complex decisions on its own — and it shouldn’t be expected to. It needs to be guided or forced into making certain choices under specific conditions.
The very idea of making Civ 4’s AI — which many mods try to achieve — capable of handling certain situations entirely on its own is, in my view, both impossible and absurd. And judging by the results in many mods, it's been a total failure: a constant case of trying to stretch a very short blanket.
For me, the AI must always be forced — at least when it comes to fundamental decisions. Just like in rock-paper-scissors: if I say "paper", the AI has to be forced to say "scissors".
As I already said in the past, back in Realism 3.4 or 3.5, it often happened that vassal civilizations could actually win the game. From version 3.6 onward, that has never happened again — maybe it's just a coincidence.
In the older versions, I used to rush to vassalize others because vassal states provided significant military support. In the later versions, to me, vassals are essentially dead civilizations.
This isn’t a criticism — it’s just what I’ve seen over countless games and tests. Many players haven't experienced the older versions of Realism, so they don’t know what it used to be like.
In earlier versions, vassals were much more reactive. Nowadays, in the newer versions, it often happens that a war is declared against me and my vassals just sit there doing nothing. Sometimes, they don’t even adapt their improvements to match the new resources that appear over time — and that’s just one example.
The vassalage system used to be a clever tool the AI could use to win cultural or technological victories. Now, it's just a survival mechanism — they become vassals simply to avoid being wiped out.
I have a broader perspective — I’ve been playing your mod for 10/15 years.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

This screenshot — even though no vassals have appeared yet, so let's say it looks quite balanced at the moment — is an exception to a rule that is almost always the opposite. I understand the purpose of your screenshot , but it's only seemingly balanced. For example, England will soon disappear or be vassalized, or it will survive only because it's neglected by other civilizations — same with Portugal — at least 9 times out of 10.
Considering a reasonable number of games and tests — obviously in games without separatism, since I haven’t tested that enough — the East is usually absorbed by a single faction, which can be Japan, South China, or China. India almost always disappears or becomes a zombie before the Renaissance, if it even survives the Medieval era. The same goes for Carthage. Egypt is almost always wiped out by Nubia. France and Germany rarely survive unless they become vassals or are capitulated.

Here's another:

Spoiler big screenshot :

From another test game. I'm currently running a lot of those as I'm tweaking the scenario balance. While some trends that you speak of are there to an extent, I feel it currently plays much better than before (at least in autoplay). That said, I don't disagree with the points you're making, just with the methods, to an extent (see below). Not trying to prove anything, you just asked to provide screenshots, and I happen to have them.

In the official mod, I’d try to make it possible for small civilizations (in terms of land size) to become superpowers, as it happens in reality. For example, the Netherlands is not weaker than Ethiopia just because it has less territory. Japan is a superpower even though it’s four times smaller than Iran. South Korea is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, and I could give another hundred examples.

I feel that's an impossible goal. This is simply not how Civ 4 is designed to function. Any attempts to make 1-2-3 city civs viable necessitate A LOT of crutches, as this is simply not the original intention around which the game was built.

Civ 4 AI clearly can’t handle such complex decisions on its own — and it shouldn’t be expected to. It needs to be guided or forced into making certain choices under specific conditions.
The very idea of making Civ 4’s AI — which many mods try to achieve — capable of handling certain situations entirely on its own is, in my view, both impossible and absurd. And judging by the results in many mods, it's been a total failure: a constant case of trying to stretch a very short blanket.
For me, the AI must always be forced — at least when it comes to fundamental decisions. Just like in rock-paper-scissors: if I say "paper", the AI has to be forced to say "scissors".

I feel it's always a case-by-case thing. For instance, AI is actually excellent at deciding which improvements to build where (and how to boost them), often better than players. A couple of times I saw AI use "exploits" - finding unintentionally powerful combos - before any players did. In other aspects, AI can be staggeringly dumb and has to be hardwired. The reality of improving it is always to look at particular cases and either actually improve the internal routines or hardcode a crutch. And in some cases, even crutches don't work - handing out bonuses to small civs seems to be one of those, frankly speaking. However large those bonuses are, smaller civs aren't suddenly becoming real contenders.

As I already said in the past, back in Realism 3.4 or 3.5, it often happened that vassal civilizations could actually win the game.

And as has been the reaction of other people, including the ones who remember 3.4 and 3.5 just as well (and myself, who probably has some memory of the mod), for some reason our memories don't match. I never recall a time when vassals were as cunning as you describe them.

 

[globosud]

Here's another:

Spoiler big screenshot :

View attachment 739813

From another test game. I'm currently running a lot of those as I'm tweaking the scenario balance. While some trends that you speak of are there to an extent, I feel it currently plays much better than before (at least in autoplay). That said, I don't disagree with the points you're making, just with the methods, to an extent (see below). Not trying to prove anything, you just asked to provide screenshots, and I happen to have them.

I feel that's an impossible goal. This is simply not how Civ 4 is designed to function. Any attempts to make 1-2-3 city civs viable necessitate A LOT of crutches, as this is simply not the original intention around which the game was built.

I feel it's always a case-by-case thing. For instance, AI is actually excellent at deciding which improvements to build where (and how to boost them), often better than players. A couple of times I saw AI use "exploits" - finding unintentionally powerful combos - before any players did. In other aspects, AI can be staggeringly dumb and has to be hardwired. The reality of improving it is always to look at particular cases and either actually improve the internal routines or hardcode a crutch. And in some cases, even crutches don't work - handing out bonuses to small civs seems to be one of those, frankly speaking. However large those bonuses are, smaller civs aren't suddenly becoming real contenders.

And as has been the reaction of other people, including the ones who remember 3.4 and 3.5 just as well (and myself, who probably has some memory of the mod), for some reason our memories don't match. I never recall a time when vassals were as cunning as you describe them.

So, I'm going to quote one of your previous replies — it was in response to a player complaining about vassals being too strong. I’m attaching the screenshot; it’s on page 302 in this discussion, patch 3.4. I couldn’t quote it properly, and the original question you're replying to isn’t visible.
I think I may have figured out what’s broken. Basically, in the later versions, AI civs are much more reluctant to become vassals. And when they do become vassals, they’re already almost destroyed — practically zombie civilizations — and close to capitulation.
If no other major changes were made to the AI, then I believe the "cure" for early vassalage ended up being worse than the disease.In my opinion, it would be better to return to the old system, where vassals submitted earlier — which helped contain expansion — and remained alive and competitive, rather than becoming nearly-dead civs with no real impact on the game.At first, the idea was that making civilizations more resistant to vassalization would improve balance and overall AI behavior. But after several years, I think it has proven to be a negative change. Making submission harder has led to wars almost always being fought to the death — or at least until the weaker civilization is completely wiped out.We all know that the AI tends to relentlessly target the weakest player, and it won't abandon a war until there's either complete destruction or submission (vassalization). So, in the end, I believe that — after several years and many attempts — making the AI more willing to submit is the better choice.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

That might well be the case; I also had this thought independently just 30 minutes ago or so.

I will try bringing down the AI vassalization threshold, but with some additional changes to the AI itself - I'll disallow AI to peace-vassalize itself to someone it doesn't border (that simply makes no sense if going for someone's protection) and I'll make AI vassals more "sticky" by having separate power thresholds for suggesting to become someone's vassal and for breaking it off.

 

[globosud]

That might well be the case; I also had this thought independently just 30 minutes ago or so.

I will try bringing down the AI vassalization threshold, but with some additional changes to the AI itself - I'll disallow AI to peace-vassalize itself to someone it doesn't border (that simply makes no sense if going for someone's protection) and I'll make AI vassals more "sticky" by having separate power thresholds for suggesting to become someone's vassal and for breaking it off.

We should find a way to make the AI understand when it's clearly losing a war — and have it minimize the damage by becoming a vassal earlier, before it’s reduced to half its territory or nearly wiped out.
I don't think this would be too difficult to implement. It should be enough to give the AI fixed parameters to evaluate when it's better to surrender — for example: being involved in multiple wars, facing overwhelming power ratios, and so on.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

From looking at the code, this is already the case, it was just that the base reluctance was set too high.

 

[Noyyau]

I will try bringing down the AI vassalization threshold, but with some additional changes to the AI itself - I'll disallow AI to peace-vassalize itself to someone it doesn't border (that simply makes no sense if going for someone's protection) and I'll make AI vassals more "sticky" by having separate power thresholds for suggesting to become someone's vassal and for breaking it off.

Vassalizing to a distant but powerful empire does make sense to me: it is not done to have direct immediate military intervention from the master in case of war, but to prevent war being declared in he first place, deterred by the master's military score.
In my Egypt Huge World Map game, Portugal (2 cities) and Spain (5 cities, and almost all non contiguous) are still alive because they peacefully vassaled to Austronesia, the largest and strongest civ by far (my Egypt is 2nd). No one dares attack Austronesia, who has conquered half of Asia with ease. And with Austronesia my main traderoute and resources-for-gold trading partner, not to mention the massive army that would give me some problems, I won't attack either. Deterrence achieved.
Of course, if someone does attack the distant vassal, or the master is at war with a neighbour of the vassal, then distance is an important factor.

A couple more thoughts come to mind against disabling non-border vassals:
- island civs: they don't border anyone, but might like to be protected by the biggest army on the closest continent.
- civs in a A-B-C situation: A is at war against B and losing, vassalizing to C seems the sensible thing to do , open a 2nd unexpected front against your enemy.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

- island civs: they don't border anyone, but might like to be protected by the biggest army on the closest continent.

TBH an island civ is already well-protected. Their lower power is usually not a good indicator of how easy/hard it is to invade them.

- civs in a A-B-C situation: A is at war against B and losing, vassalizing to C seems the sensible thing to do , open a 2nd unexpected front against your enemy.

This, as pointed above, doesn't happen in AI-on-AI situations.

 

[AspiringScholar]

If you're sure you've updated to the hotfix I pushed out yesterday (as there was a legit issue that was there and that I fixed), I would very much like to see your PythonErr.log.

Something does indeed seem to be bugged. On SVN 5508, I loaded a quick test as Crimea, and, though the scenario did actually load this time, I had no units whatsoever, and all AI civs had 0 score and an even delta of (+10,000) or something like that. I should have taken a screenshot at the time, but alas, I did not. Thinking that Crimea itself may just have had no units by intention for some reason, I tried to load it as Austria on another attempt this morning, since I know that they do. It once again got snagged on Setup Map indefinitely, and I ended up having to restart my PC to get around it.

Looking at the error log, I believe this is because I may have manually enabled revolutions in the scenario file previously and this is incompatible with your fix. I'm not sure that that would have any bearing on the units not appearing for Crimea, however (unless that was somehow by design).

It seems that .log files can't be attached directly, so here is the raw text with a timestamp from this morning, so it should contain the failure with loading the scenario.

Spoiler :

sys.path = ['..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\email', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\encodings', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\build', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\lib', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\py', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\tools', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\lib\\colourchooser', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\lib\\editor', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\lib\\floatcanvas', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\lib\\masked', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\lib\\mixins', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\lib\\ogl', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\af', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\ca', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\cs', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\da', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\de', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\el', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\es', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\eu', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\fi', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\fr', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\hi', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\hu', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\id', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\it', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\ja', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\lv', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\nb', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\nl', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\pl', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\pt_BR', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\ru', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\sl', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\sv', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\tr', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\uk', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\zh_CN', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\zh_TW', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\af\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\ca\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\cs\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\da\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\de\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\el\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\es\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\eu\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\fi\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\fr\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\hi\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\hu\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\id\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\it\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\ja\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\lv\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\nb\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\nl\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\pl\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\pt_BR\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\ru\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\sl\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\sv\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\tr\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\uk\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\zh_CN\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\locale\\zh_TW\\LC_MESSAGES', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\py\\tests', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\tools\\XRCed', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM\\wx\\tools\\XRCed\\src-images', '..\\WARLORDS\\ASSETS\\PYTHON\\SYSTEM']

sys.modules = {'zipimport': <module 'zipimport' (built-in)>, 'signal': <module 'signal' (built-in)>, '__builtin__': <module '__builtin__' (built-in)>, 'sys': <module 'sys' (built-in)>, '__main__': <module '__main__' (built-in)>, 'exceptions': <module 'exceptions' (built-in)>, 'CvPythonExtensions': <module 'CvPythonExtensions' (built-in)>}

sys.builtin_module_names = ('CvPythonExtensions', '__builtin__', '__main__', '_bisect', '_codecs', '_codecs_cn', '_codecs_hk', '_codecs_iso2022', '_codecs_jp', '_codecs_kr', '_codecs_tw', '_csv', '_heapq', '_hotshot', '_locale', '_multibytecodec', '_random', '_sre', '_subprocess', '_symtable', '_weakref', '_winreg', 'array', 'audioop', 'binascii', 'cPickle', 'cStringIO', 'cmath', 'collections', 'datetime', 'errno', 'exceptions', 'gc', 'imageop', 'imp', 'itertools', 'marshal', 'math', 'md5', 'mmap', 'msvcrt', 'nt', 'operator', 'parser', 'regex', 'rgbimg', 'sha', 'signal', 'strop', 'struct', 'sys', 'thread', 'time', 'xxsubtype', 'zipimport')
load_module CvEventInterface
load_module BugEventManager
load_module CvEventManager
load_module CvUtil
load_module traceback
load_module CvScreensInterface
load_module CvMainInterface
load_module ScreenInput
load_module CvScreenEnums
load_module time
load_module Revolutions
load_module BugUtil
load_module ColorUtil
load_module BugDll
load_module BugOptions
load_module BugConfig
load_module BugCore
load_module BugInit
load_module BugPath
load_module BugConfigTracker
load_module shutil
load_module BugTypes
load_module xmllib
..\WARLORDS\ASSETS\PYTHON\SYSTEM\xmllib.py:9: DeprecationWarning: The xmllib module is obsolete. Use xml.sax instead.
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugConfig - registering xml handler BugConfig.RootHandler
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugConfig - registering bug handler BugConfig.BugHandler
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugConfig - registering load handler BugConfig.LoadHandler
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugConfig - registering config handler BugConfig.ConfigHandler
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugConfig - registering arg handler BugConfig.ArgHandler
load_module configobj
load_module __future__
load_module codecs
load_module validate
validate import failed
load_module BugOptionsScreen
load_module BugErrorOptionsTab
load_module BugOptionsTab
load_module BugHelp
load_module Popup
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod Core
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod MainInterface
load_module FontUtil
load_module CityUtil
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod NJAGC
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod Scores
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod CityScreen
load_module ReligionUtil
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod PLE
load_module Scoreboard
load_module DealUtil
load_module PlayerUtil
load_module TradeUtil
load_module DiplomacyUtil
load_module AttitudeUtil
load_module GameUtil
load_module BugUnitPlot
load_module MonkeyTools
load_module PyHelpers
load_module UnitUtil
load_module ReminderEventManager
load_module SdToolKit
load_module BugData
load_module cPickle
load_module autolog
load_module CvModName
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod Autolog
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod Reminder
load_module CvAppInterface
load_module GGUtil
load_module GPUtil
load_module ProgressBarUtil
load_module PLE
load_module AStarTools
load_module RawYields
load_module CvTechChooser
load_module math
load_module PyTechGraph
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod Advisors
load_module TechPrefs
load_module CvForeignAdvisor
load_module CvExoticForeignAdvisor
load_module IconGrid_BUG
load_module DomPyHelpers
load_module TechTree
load_module FavoriteCivicDetector
load_module CvReligionScreen
load_module CvCivicsScreen
load_module CvVictoryScreen
load_module TechUtil
load_module CvEspionageAdvisor
load_module CvPopulationAdvisor
load_module CvOptionsScreen
load_module CvReplayScreen
load_module CvHallOfFameScreen
load_module CvDanQuayle
load_module CvGameUtils
load_module Consts
load_module CvUnVictoryScreen
load_module CvDawnOfMan
load_module Buffy
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod BUFFY
load_module GameSetUpCheck
load_module AutoSave
load_module MapFinder
load_module MapFinderStatusScreen
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod MapFinder
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod AutoSave
load_module CvTechSplashScreen
load_module CvTopCivs
load_module random
load_module CvInfoScreen
load_module CvIntroMovieScreen
load_module CvVictoryMovieScreen
load_module CvWonderMovieScreen
load_module CvEraMovieScreen
load_module CvSpaceShipScreen
load_module CvDebugTools
load_module CvDebugInfoScreen
load_module CvMapGeneratorUtil
load_module CvGFCScreen
load_module CvPopupInterface
load_module CvScreenUtilsInterface
load_module CvOverlayScreenUtils
load_module CvDotMapOverlayScreen
load_module CvStrategyOverlay
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod StrategyOverlay
load_module CvGreatPersonScreen
load_module GreatPersonNaming
load_module RandomNameUtils
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod CustDomAdv
11:03:12 INFO : BugCore - creating uninitialized mod TechWindow
load_module CvPlatyBuilderScreen
load_module WBPlotScreen
load_module WBEventScreen
load_module WBCityEditScreen
load_module WBBuildingScreen
load_module WBCityDataScreen
load_module WBPlayerScreen
load_module WBProjectScreen
load_module WBTeamScreen
load_module WBTechScreen
load_module WBPlayerUnits
load_module WBUnitScreen
load_module WBPromotionScreen
load_module WBInfoScreen
load_module WBReligionScreen
load_module WBGameDataScreen
load_module WBCorporationScreen
load_module WBDiplomacyScreen
load_module WBTradeScreen
load_module CvCameraControls
load_module CvAdvisorUtils
load_module DynamicCityNaming
load_module StoredData
load_module DynamicCivNaming
load_module BarbCiv
load_module IDW
load_module AheadOfTime
load_module InputUtil
load_module CvAirCombatExperienceEventManager
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugUtil - extending BugEventManager.preGameStart instead CvAppInterface
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'PreGameStart'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'BeginActivePlayerTurn'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'SwitchHotSeatPlayer'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'LanguageChanged'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'ResolutionChanged'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'PythonReloaded'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'unitUpgraded'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'unitCaptured'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'combatWithdrawal'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'combatRetreat'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'combatLogCollateral'
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugEventManager - adding event 'combatLogFlanking'
11:03:12 WARN : BugEventManager - event 'playerRevolution' already defined
11:03:12 DEBUG: BugInit - game not fully initialized
PY:OnInit

I will try bringing down the AI vassalization threshold, but with some additional changes to the AI itself - I'll disallow AI to peace-vassalize itself to someone it doesn't border (that simply makes no sense if going for someone's protection) and I'll make AI vassals more "sticky" by having separate power thresholds for suggesting to become someone's vassal and for breaking it off.

If it's not too much of an ask, could the border requirement for vassalization be wrapped behind an option in the menu? I don't particularly like this idea, for the same reasons as Noyyau; it feels somewhat forced and dissonant with both reality and valid gameplay situations where the ability to peace-vassalize away from borders makes good sense. (I do like the idea of making it more "sticky" however.)

What about the Hapsburg's dominion over the Low Countries and Naples, flanking France and the Papacy far away from Spain proper (and I hear you about to say that they technically controlled the Holy Roman Empire at this time, too, but I think you know what I mean)? What about, later in the game, the USA's Monroe Doctrine on South America without direct control (or any other Victorian era gunboat diplomacy of the time for control of resources, just as non-contiguous vassals provide in-game), or the spheres of influence in the Cold War which in many cases were patchworks of political geography far away from those pulling the strings? I think that for the already quite limited range of diplomatic options we have in the game, vassals satisfyingly model a number of things that a strict border requirement would mitigate even further.

 

[zoob]

This one's from my AI test game. No separatism (all default settings), this one's with random leaders (though pretty indicative of default leader games as well).

Does that mean, it is possible to activate separatism for World Map scenarios?

In addition, as you're going to tweak World Map Huge, can we expect balancing changes for the Large one as well?