Realism Invictus

I’m glad to see the recent adjustments to technology costs across different map sizes, as well as the reduction in late-game technology costs. In my earlier games with default values, technological progress was always too fast in the early eras and too slow in the late game. After the latest changes, the balance now feels much closer to the modified values I am using in present.

I’d still appreciate your advice, though. I’m playing on a Giant map with a 3:3 wrap, which is about 50% larger than the default 3:2 wrap map. Intuitively, this should mean a higher base technology cost but a smaller increase in cost for each newly founded city. (to reflect this, I modified the per-city technology cost increase from 8% to 7%).

However, I’m unsure about the base technology cost. After comparing my setup with your latest Giant map values (SVN 5527) - considering both the WorldInfo(?) and GameSpeed files - I found that my base technology cost is 19% higher than yours. In practice, this setup feels good: technological advancement roughly matches the historical timeline, at least through the early and middle game.

Still, I’d like your opinion - does a 19% increase in base technology cost sound reasonable for a map that’s roughly 50% larger? Or do you think this adjustment might be too high or too low?
 
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In real life, the tundra has permafrost, and at best, it can produce several times less yield per unit area than temperate lands. Therefore, I propose reducing the number of farms in the tundra by 1 food, and making it so that farms are only useful with the discovery of iron processing. Additionally, I suggest reducing the number of farms in the desert hills by 1, as it is unclear why nothing can be done in the desert plains, but it can be done in the hills.
See, everyone, this is a great illustration to one of the factors that was driving me to change the name. Sure, let's make half the map terrain useless because "real life"!
I’d still appreciate your advice, though. I’m playing on a Giant map with a 3:3 wrap, which is about 50% larger than the default 3:2 wrap map. Intuitively, this should mean a higher base technology cost but a smaller increase in cost for each newly founded city. (to reflect this, I modified the per-city technology cost increase from 8% to 7%).
I wouldn't be able to tell you. All my changes I only got empirically by running a lot of hands-off games and measuring AI progress at various checkpoints. I should also note that there are a lot of other confounding factors - certain map scripts for instance produce maps that progress slower/faster overall than others of the same nominal size, and even relatively minor changes like adjusting AI weights for civics, can lead to significant changes in progress speeds. So if you want to adjust your balance to specific and exotic map settings you use, I suggest you run several hands-off games at your preferred settings, and see if your settings need adjusting (at the default speed, I usually check in on turns 1000, 1500 and 2000, which should roughly match the transition to Renaissance, Industrial and Modern tech eras respectively).

I should also caveat that it seems the difficulty level can also be impacting the overall progress pace, so it might well be that my whole hands-off approach was flawed, now that I think of it...
 
See, everyone, this is a great illustration to one of the factors that was driving me to change the name. Sure, let's make half the map terrain useless because "real life"!

I wouldn't be able to tell you. All my changes I only got empirically by running a lot of hands-off games and measuring AI progress at various checkpoints. I should also note that there are a lot of other confounding factors - certain map scripts for instance produce maps that progress slower/faster overall than others of the same nominal size, and even relatively minor changes like adjusting AI weights for civics, can lead to significant changes in progress speeds. So if you want to adjust your balance to specific and exotic map settings you use, I suggest you run several hands-off games at your preferred settings, and see if your settings need adjusting (at the default speed, I usually check in on turns 1000, 1500 and 2000, which should roughly match the transition to Renaissance, Industrial and Modern tech eras respectively).

I should also caveat that it seems the difficulty level can also be impacting the overall progress pace, so it might well be that my whole hands-off approach was flawed, now that I think of it...
I should have also mentioned that I’m testing this setup on a medium sea level Totestra map, with 34 starting civs (“start anywhere reasonable” and “pangeas allowed” enabled). I’m running the tests in AI autoplay mode on Noble difficulty, so my own actions don’t influence the results.

As I noted earlier, the early and middle stages of technological progression work well and stay fairly close to the historical timeline. What I’m more concerned about is the late game, since I haven’t reached that stage often enough to properly evaluate it yet.

For me, one of the main reference points is the founding dates of Christianity and Islam - the sum of their founding years should be as close to 600 as possible. That’s how I know the overall tech pace is on the right track 🙂

By the way, I’ve noticed that Islam is almost always founded earlier than Christianity in my tests. Do other players observe the same pattern?
 
Not here. Usually Islam is the last founded religion in most of my games? Feels like as soon as everybody has *any* religion, they stop researching.

As for the nerfing tundra and desert tiles. I totally get your point about RI being game vs. being a simulation, Walter. I think the fact that the map is based on our good ol' blue planet kind of brings up these questions e.g. "If I play on Earth, I expect things to be remotely the way I know it?" I think by giving individual Civs individual tile improvements the problem is solved in a nice and attractive way. Russians adapted to harsh winter in the tundra, Arabs to living in the desert whereas English should have trouble settling in the desert or Zulu in the Tundra. At least until technology helps ameliorating the problem. In a way that adds to the game, giving each Civ more depth.
 
Crash to desktop bug on SVN 5526. Save attached. I play a slightly modified version, and play on a Mac through wine, so possible various things could be influencing, but never had those factors trigger a consistent end of turn error.

Spoiler PythonError output :

Code:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "BugEventManager", line 363, in _handleDefaultEvent
  File "CvEventManager", line 705, in onEndPlayerTurn
  File "Revolutions", line 51, in checkRevolutions
  File "Revolutions", line 138, in startUprising
RuntimeError: unidentifiable C++ exception
 

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Recently got this mod (been playing Civ 4 for nearly 20 years now off and on... normally Planetfall, Legends of Revolution, Fall from Heaven or Rise of Mankind or one of the variants of that). Played a couple of games with 3.72c, and have to say that this is the most polished mod experience I've seen in Civ, or in almost any other game for that matter. Really remarkable work you, and I'm assuming in the past a much bigger team, have done.

That being said, I have a few questions/suggestions since I'm assuming the current build that is coming in the next few months is quite a bit different than what I've been playing.

1. Revolutions. Civilizations breaking away get a few levy units, and from the two games I've played they don't usually seem to take many cities with them. Also, while I've seen a few dead civilizations come back to life, more often I've seen new civilizations appear on the destroyed remnants of the old (still dead) civilizations that were conquered. My questions are: Are you planning on strengthening break away civilizations with some regular (not just levy) units to make them able to survive more than a few turns; and what is the logic for new civilization vs old civilization resurrected vs barbarians taking over? Seems like there is a mix, but I can't see the logic that drives it.

2. Increasing Difficulty: Quite a few other mods use this, and I think this mod could REALLY benefit from it since the AI is quite good. Just having a setting where the difficulty increases by one level from where you start every set number of turns (for the pacing this mod is at probably around 250) would be super helpful. I've seen a few other people agree with what I've experienced in my two games I've played to completion... early game is an extra challenge on Monarch (sometimes the AI will beat me before I get established), but by the time I hit the industrial era, I've either already lost or have got things well in hand and generally don't have to worry anymore. Having a steadily increasing difficulty would keep things more interesting the entire game, without me having to minimax to avoid being wiped out at the outset. I like to roleplay these games more than I like to hard core compete, but it is still nice to have a bit of a challenge into and past the industrial age.

3. Nation state comparisons. There is so much content here... unique units all over the place, and special (but not unique) units replacing almost all others. It is difficult to understand what is different about each civilization and their capabilities from the in-game resources. For example, playing as the Americans, my enlightenment era irregular unit is the minutemen. This unit gets Land Tactics and Drill II that seem to make it (especially when paired with George Washington's protect trait, which they seem to be designed to go with) one of the, if not the, best irregular units in the game (along with a 50% combat withdraw ability and 25% vs gunpowder units that base irregulars don't have). There seem to be quite a few little changes like that with big impacts, but it is quite difficult to tell much of the time. Is there a resource out there that details many of these changes by civilization so you know what you are getting before you start a game, or what each civilization is generally good at?
 
3. Nation state comparisons. There is so much content here... unique units all over the place, and special (but not unique) units replacing almost all others. It is difficult to understand what is different about each civilization and their capabilities from the in-game resources. For example, playing as the Americans, my enlightenment era irregular unit is the minutemen. This unit gets Land Tactics and Drill II that seem to make it (especially when paired with George Washington's protect trait, which they seem to be designed to go with) one of the, if not the, best irregular units in the game (along with a 50% combat withdraw ability and 25% vs gunpowder units that base irregulars don't have). There seem to be quite a few little changes like that with big impacts, but it is quite difficult to tell much of the time. Is there a resource out there that details many of these changes by civilization so you know what you are getting before you start a game, or what each civilization is generally good at?
A good option for this is to open the civilopedia, click on "Units" at the top, then "Unit Upgrade Chart" from the submenu on the top left. It gives you an overview of all the units available to the selected civ (defaults to the player civ when in game, but you can change to see other civ's lineups).

Besides what you've mentioned, there are bigger differences still. Each civ gets either a horse archer (5:strength:, 3 movement, good against charge cavalry, melee, weak to archers) or horseman (5:strength:, 3 movement, good against horse archers and recon units), but not both. Most civs get access to longbowmen but not all do. Rome has a completely unique upgrade line that makes their replacement for the Axeman part of the swordsman series. Lots of other small things throughout, and it's best to give a look to the chart when starting a game with a new civ.
 
A good option for this is to open the civilopedia, click on "Units" at the top, then "Unit Upgrade Chart" from the submenu on the top left. It gives you an overview of all the units available to the selected civ (defaults to the player civ when in game, but you can change to see other civ's lineups).

Besides what you've mentioned, there are bigger differences still. Each civ gets either a horse archer (5:strength:, 3 movement, good against charge cavalry, melee, weak to archers) or horseman (5:strength:, 3 movement, good against horse archers and recon units), but not both. Most civs get access to longbowmen but not all do. Rome has a completely unique upgrade line that makes their replacement for the Axeman part of the swordsman series. Lots of other small things throughout, and it's best to give a look to the chart when starting a game with a new civ.
Ah! That is handy! Thank you.

Yeah, I'm playing a game as the US right now and just came across this, with it being the most different "distinct" unit in that civilization so far which is why I brought it up. I like how there are quite a few "distinct" units that are actually distinct for various civilizations.
 
However those Minutemen also only have 9 instead of 10 base strength, so while I would still call them better than the average irregular, they are not a strict upgrade in all regards.

The distinctive units for sure can be quite strong in some cases! I think the most notable cases for me are Almogavars and Pencak Silats, both replacing the medieval levies.

But even if they are big upgrades, they don't break the game, and don't have the same impact that the real national unique units have. So they are great fun and it's always a cool surprise when you get those rare ones that are more than just a flavour replacement.
 
However those Minutemen also only have 9 instead of 10 base strength, so while I would still call them better than the average irregular, they are not a strict upgrade in all regards.

The distinctive units for sure can be quite strong in some cases! I think the most notable cases for me are Almogavars and Pencak Silats, both replacing the medieval levies.

But even if they are big upgrades, they don't break the game, and don't have the same impact that the real national unique units have. So they are great fun and it's always a cool surprise when you get those rare ones that are more than just a flavour replacement.
I churned out a ton of them and then upgraded them to line infantry... with a base of four promotions from their innate traits and ole George W's protective trait, then the two experience a barracks brings, that gave me the backbone for several armies that could take and hold Chinese cities. The only time so far that I've seen it be worthwhile to spend the money to upgrade irregulars into regulars.
 
There's an oasis in the desert, and it would be great if an unprocessed oasis provided at least 1 food.
 
I think the idea holds some merit, but you would never work a tile that provides just 1F and nothing else, so it would not actually change anything.
Think about it, you never even work an unimproved riverside grassland, which would be 2F 1C.

So you would have to move something like 3F 1C from the settlement/bedouin camp/ksar improvements to make the unimproved tile worth anything.

(Grassland/plains tiles not having viable yields without improvements is fine since they are just the different baselines upon which improvements add further yields, but oases can only ever have settlements so it only has the improvementless or settlemented state)
 
Well, the oasis can be cultivated. With the settlement, you can get as much as you had before
 
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I wish you could get a mid late generic building that gave fresh water. The ammount of times i skipped good cities because they had the res and tiles but not fresh water and i couldnt transfer with farms. :(

Also yeah im aware of the Noria and it is GOOOOODD
 
Well, the oasis can be cultivated. With the settlement, you can get as much as you had before
Yes but realistically, it changes nothing? You will never use a 1F 0H 0C tile. So a no-settlement oasis would be 100% as useless as it is now.
 
Crash to desktop bug on SVN 5526. Save attached. I play a slightly modified version, and play on a Mac through wine, so possible various things could be influencing, but never had those factors trigger a consistent end of turn error.
Thanks! This helped fix a nasty oversight on my part. If you'd like to continue the save in question, replace the culprit python file with the one attached.
1. Revolutions. Civilizations breaking away get a few levy units, and from the two games I've played they don't usually seem to take many cities with them. Also, while I've seen a few dead civilizations come back to life, more often I've seen new civilizations appear on the destroyed remnants of the old (still dead) civilizations that were conquered. My questions are: Are you planning on strengthening break away civilizations with some regular (not just levy) units to make them able to survive more than a few turns; and what is the logic for new civilization vs old civilization resurrected vs barbarians taking over? Seems like there is a mix, but I can't see the logic that drives it.
If there is a civ whose culture is the highest (and higher than the civ's that currently holds it) in the city that leads the revolt, then either that civ will come back, or if the civ in question is still alive, the city defects to it. If there isn't such a civ, a new one forms instead. Barbarians are a fallback, they are usually invoked if the game already has the maximum number of civs present (including dead ones).
2. Increasing Difficulty: Quite a few other mods use this, and I think this mod could REALLY benefit from it since the AI is quite good. Just having a setting where the difficulty increases by one level from where you start every set number of turns (for the pacing this mod is at probably around 250) would be super helpful. I've seen a few other people agree with what I've experienced in my two games I've played to completion... early game is an extra challenge on Monarch (sometimes the AI will beat me before I get established), but by the time I hit the industrial era, I've either already lost or have got things well in hand and generally don't have to worry anymore. Having a steadily increasing difficulty would keep things more interesting the entire game, without me having to minimax to avoid being wiped out at the outset. I like to roleplay these games more than I like to hard core compete, but it is still nice to have a bit of a challenge into and past the industrial age.
Yeah, I hear you, and I will probably think about it, but this has zero chance of making it into the upcoming next version. I am basically done with changes that significantly affect the game balance for the upcoming version.
3. Nation state comparisons. There is so much content here... unique units all over the place, and special (but not unique) units replacing almost all others. It is difficult to understand what is different about each civilization and their capabilities from the in-game resources. For example, playing as the Americans, my enlightenment era irregular unit is the minutemen. This unit gets Land Tactics and Drill II that seem to make it (especially when paired with George Washington's protect trait, which they seem to be designed to go with) one of the, if not the, best irregular units in the game (along with a 50% combat withdraw ability and 25% vs gunpowder units that base irregulars don't have). There seem to be quite a few little changes like that with big impacts, but it is quite difficult to tell much of the time. Is there a resource out there that details many of these changes by civilization so you know what you are getting before you start a game, or what each civilization is generally good at?
A lot of what's unique about the civ is informed by its unique buildings and improvements, both of which can be consulted in the civ's pedia screen. As for units, others have rightly suggested that unit upgrade chart is very informative (even to me as a dev!); more specifically, all civs have some National Units, which are available in a limited number and, rather than replacing a standard unit, exist on their own in the upgrade tree. Those are usually the most outstanding ones (in the American case, it is the USMC line and the Gatling Gun), and are clearly marked with a special symbol on their icons, but as you rightly noted, some distinctive units (as opposed to National units, these are a variant of a standard unit class) can also be much better than their counterparts.
However those Minutemen also only have 9 instead of 10 base strength, so while I would still call them better than the average irregular, they are not a strict upgrade in all regards.
Not anymore as of the next revision! In a general drive towards more consistency, all distinctive units now have the same strength as their default variants. It'll lose the land tactics promo though, so the effective strength will be almost the same.
I wish you could get a mid late generic building that gave fresh water. The ammount of times i skipped good cities because they had the res and tiles but not fresh water and i couldnt transfer with farms. :(
There is such a building - desalination plant! You can't spam it, but if there's one city that desperately needs water, it's there for you.
It's all for the sake of tribes that can't process the cells with workers.
It only applies to Australian Aborigines then (and one city in the Americas, which has lots of other tiles to work anyway), and why would we want them to do any better than they do now? They never even had cities IRL, they're only there to occupy space so that players aren't greeted with horse archers in Australia.
 

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Hi. I notice that with barbarian civ option on, sometimes a new civ emerges 1 turn after barbarian city appears on map (huge earth map). so there is no possibility to destroy this city (you have no time to move your army to this city). maybe it would be better that a new civ can emerge not from just appeared city but from city that have at list 3-4 population , so a player or AI have time to raze city and prevent new civ, or vice versa to wait till barbarian city grow to new civ
 
Might be too late to even consider for this patch, but here is a different idea I had for the protective trait. Right now it is 100% reactive, allowing you to have an easier time defending and a faster production of defensive structures. However, being in a defensive war is an undesirable situation in the first place. And defensive structures, while definitely useful for defending, add nothing to your economy until the fight. (Walls with autocracy/monarchy are the exception.)

So my idea was that protective could have a tiny, different bonus attached to each defensive structure after palisades, so they are rewarded for preparing their defence.

For this I considered these buildings:
Walls
Castle
Fortification
Bunker
Nuclear Shelter

Idea 1 is to have each commerce once, like:
Walls +1 gold
Castle +1 culture
Fortification +1 espionage (or the prior two switched)
Bunker +1 happy
Nuclear Shelter +1 science

Idea 2 would be mix of yields and commerce
Walls +1 gold
Castle +1 commerce
Fortification +1 hammer
Bunker +1 happy
Nuclear Shelter +1 science

While you would never really build the buildings for that particular bonus alone, it would reduce the opportunity cost of making them ahead of time and help protective leaders lean further into that direction, rather than just doing and getting the same as everyone else, just slightly faster.

And ideally they get the 50% build bonus for all of those, to extend the effects of that into the later game as well.

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Religions:

I think religions are generally in a good place. Just a few remarks:
Zoroastrian temples & cathedrals are 25% more expensive, and the cathedrals give 65% instead of 50% more culture. A tooltip or hint somewhere notes that Zoro buildings are more expensive but give more culture, but the latter part only holds true for the cathedral. So I would suggest the temple goes from +1 to a unique +2 culture.

Mont Saint Michel buffs christian monasteries with a happy face, but those are on a timer until humanist thought.

For Hinduism, the Vishaya Stambha gives all unemployed citizen "specialists" +1 hammer. I'm struggling to find a time when it would be useful - the wonder can be built the earliest at religious law, where craftsmen are anything from +1 to +4 hammers. The unemployed citizens would go from +1 to +2, and only way, way later can get one more hammer from labour camps if running that civic. I think it's a really cool effect to have something for this particular type of specialist, I'm just wondering if there's anything that can be done to make them just that tiny bit more interesting with it.
 
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