Realism Invictus

[Walter Hawkwood]

Shaka's horsemans have big red bubbles instead of units themself, seems like only one horse is always displayed correctly (SVN 5538).

Thanks, a wrong path, easily fixed.

Is this really true? Has the Trade been opened in a way, so you can send/give away or recieve more than 1 "unit" of any bonus to or from the same? If so, then

TBH, I didn't code this specific effect, but I can well suppose it might be a side effect of the changes to converter resource trade AI that I recently made.

A question just popped out of my mind, how come the anti clerical trait doesn't cover the pagan temples? Am I missing something?

Because pagan temples don't provide base happiness.

Ah Walt I see you actually took upon yourself to change the French starting flag, nice even though I think I preferred the phallic one even if this might be more fitting. Will you upscale it though?

It was an upscaled version already. But given how I didn't like how it turned out anyway, I went and remade it again.

ok another edit: I take it back, not all look that nice, the french confederation flag doesn't look very good to me The upscaling kinda worked for some flags, but there seem to be others who didn't take it kindly.

Eh, you're right, the horse brooch thingy looked stupid. Went for another symbol (the Frankish cross is kind of Christian, but I have reasons to believe they used it before converting as well).

While it is certainly conforting to know it does work, I wonder what caused this, I remember this bonus percentage showing in previous builds

Thanks for researching it, it helped me a lot in tracking it down! But no, it seems you have a case of false memories, as it turns out whoever originally wrote the code made a mistake in that it always only ever read base bonus of a unit against unitcombats, disregarding promotions. To be clear, this only pertained to the tooltip, the bonus itself worked all along.

Ah expectable, what are the aesthetical reasons for this? If we were to have the right animations, couldn't we manage to have 3 different animations for the modern cavalries? Kind of how the (AMAZING) Fekete Sereg has 3 and the Hospitallier have 2? Or is this something that would go against your aesthetics regarding the late industrial and modern era units?

Now that you mention it, having separate figures with lances is a distinct possibility. Ideally an animation that uses both a carbine for ranged and a lance for melee, but that...

Barring all that, how hard is it to make an animation for a game like CIV4? I remember once downloading one from this website for the game, so I know they can be made.

...is a lot of effort to make. It is not completely out of the question, even 100% new animations are possible, just very time-consuming. Generally not something I opt to do unless absolutely necessary.

This has been bugging me since the art first showed up. Thanks for bringing attention to it.

Once again, I implore everyone to share their aesthetic comments as well. I definitely won't be offended as you'll likely not approach my own internal level of perfectionism anyway, but these comments are useful to me to prioritise what I work on in my long mental to-do list.

Oh, a Papa Smurf hat!

Unironically, yes. The Smurfs are actually wearing Phrygian caps as a symbol of their freedom.

 

[[Y]]

Once again, I implore everyone to share their aesthetic comments as well. I definitely won't be offended as you'll likely not approach my own internal level of perfectionism anyway, but these comments are useful to me to prioritise what I work on in my long mental to-do list.

I've been meaning to. I even had a screenshot ready to point out that he's rolling his eyes at all my long posts... but by the time I type out everything else I have to say, I always forget about it.

Speaking of things I've been meaning to say for a while, the separatism screen can be a lot better. There's a lot of info there squeezed into a very tiny space that needs to be scrolled through, while lots of screen space is given to the effects on the bottom half, with much empty space. It really shows when comparing to the Domestic advisor screen. I'm happy to give it a face lift (and have been meaning to try) if that would be helpful.

 

[TheBirdMan]

TBH, I didn't code this specific effect, but I can well suppose it might be a side effect of the changes to converter resource trade AI that I recently made.

Let it stay then -

 

[tebriz]

Let it stay then -

I can confirm that the AI is actively using this new feature - I have seen many cases where it meaningfully imports more than one of the same resource from the same trade partner.

 

[globosud]

Since I’ve decided not to modify Realism Invictus anymore—because I prefer to play it exactly as Walter designed it, and after almost ten years with this mod I consider his work outstanding—I have a couple of questions.
First, I’d like to know if vassals are a bit more active now and whether they actually contribute during wars.
Second, I’d like to know if colonies can upgrade resource improvements. For example, if I create a colony that has a farm on a uranium resource, will it later switch to the correct improvement for that resource?
Thanks.

 

[tebriz]

Since I’ve decided not to modify Realism Invictus anymore—because I prefer to play it exactly as Walter designed it, and after almost ten years with this mod I consider his work outstanding—I have a couple of questions.
First, I’d like to know if vassals are a bit more active now and whether they actually contribute during wars.
Second, I’d like to know if colonies can upgrade resource improvements. For example, if I create a colony that has a farm on a uranium resource, will it later switch to the correct improvement for that resource?
Thanks.

Totally agree. I also used to make more extensive modifications, but lately I’ve been trying to keep things as close to Walter’s settings as possible. My only major adjustment is increasing the base technology cost while reducing the per-turn tech cost, mainly because I play on maps that are about 50% larger than Giant size.

And one of my smaller tweaks is indeed related to vassals. I raised the tech transfer rate from master to vassal from 15% to 50%. This keeps vassals much closer to their master’s tech level and works extremely well (I strongly recommend making it a default setting). I’m not sure how vassals behave in the base game, but in my last playthrough, a Berber vassal with just 2 cities managed to expand to 9 through successful wars and then declared independence Meanwhile, its master, Japan, wasn’t even in the top three on the leaderboard. But of course, not all vassals are that successful in my games.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

First, I’d like to know if vassals are a bit more active now and whether they actually contribute during wars.

There were no changes made specifically to vassal AI behaviour, but some changes to their overall viability. It seems that the overturned reluctance to vassalize before led to a situation that when a civ finally vassalized, it was already too small to be viable. It feels the vassals are "healthier" now.

Second, I’d like to know if colonies can upgrade resource improvements. For example, if I create a colony that has a farm on a uranium resource, will it later switch to the correct improvement for that resource?
Thanks.

There's nothing specific to them in this regard; they behave as any other civ would.

And one of my smaller tweaks is indeed related to vassals. I raised the tech transfer rate from master to vassal from 15% to 50%.

While I agree that it might be higher, that's a bit too drastic - remember it's what's added to base value, which is already 20, and then multiplied by any modifiers. So the minimum tech transfer a vassal has is already 35% before any modifiers from tech and whatnot (I agree that a modest additional bump might be in order, but remember that nobody prevents vassals from having open borders with the same civs they usually would, so this bonus sits on top of everything else they'd normally have).

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Also, a more generic remark: I am now in "wrapping up" mode before the 3.8 release, so if you have anything specific to report that needs fixed (rather than "I have this big idea of a concept on how to rebalance everything"), please do it over the next several days or it isn't making it into 3.8. Likewise, people on SVN could help me out in catching any graphical glitches, especially unit-related, by going to WB and just looking at everything. Remember that many unit classes change their looks based on eras, and also have graphical cultures (African, Far Eastern, Middle Eastern, Latin American).

 

[tebriz]

There were no changes made specifically to vassal AI behaviour, but some changes to their overall viability. It seems that the overturned reluctance to vassalize before led to a situation that when a civ finally vassalized, it was already too small to be viable. It feels the vassals are "healthier" now.

There's nothing specific to them in this regard; they behave as any other civ would.

While I agree that it might be higher, that's a bit too drastic - remember it's what's added to base value, which is already 20, and then multiplied by any modifiers. So the minimum tech transfer a vassal has is already 35% before any modifiers from tech and whatnot (I agree that a modest additional bump might be in order, but remember that nobody prevents vassals from having open borders with the same civs they usually would, so this bonus sits on top of everything else they'd normally have).

Then maybe we should set it to +30% for vassals? That would mean that in the late game, a vassal would research technologies twice as fast if its master has already researched them (+60% from this bonus plus +40% from open borders). It feels clean, rounded, and intuitive

 

[TheBirdMan]

Small one: Guess the text should be "rather than" and not "ratherthan"

Spoiler misspell - space is missing :

 

[TheBirdMan]

I'm (more than) impressed. Both over the game's stability - and partly over the capacity of my new 'putter. The game is still running without any break-down (except from what I just did - making a map-exchange with an AI (I know this will tilt the grahpic - so no surprise here).

After 1466 turns, 2/3 of the game is played (66,64% to be precise) - time is now January 1753. Filesize is 6.901kB. The game holds 406 cities - if I've counted correctly. Almost twice as many as I previously only dreamed of could be achieved.

Spoiler Screenshots :

Mapsize 192*144, 27.648 tiles with 15.000 landtiles.

 

[Alekseyev_]

Also, a more generic remark: I am now in "wrapping up" mode before the 3.8 release, so if you have anything specific to report that needs fixed (rather than "I have this big idea of a concept on how to rebalance everything"), please do it over the next several days or it isn't making it into 3.8. Likewise, people on SVN could help me out in catching any graphical glitches, especially unit-related, by going to WB and just looking at everything. Remember that many unit classes change their looks based on eras, and also have graphical cultures (African, Far Eastern, Middle Eastern, Latin American).

Still haven't gotten to replying to your earlier messages, but a small remark on "polish" is the pop-ups when unlocking a new civic. They often have either vanilla info (vassalage iirc), outdated info (civil service) and sometimes just wrong info (plutocracy mentioning production, and it is also worded weirdly uninformative compared to the other ones). I could probably supply better texts if you want, later today or during the week.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Then maybe we should set it to +30% for vassals? That would mean that in the late game, a vassal would research technologies twice as fast if its master has already researched them (+60% from this bonus plus +40% from open borders). It feels clean, rounded, and intuitive

By the time you wrote that, I already set it to this very amount.

Small one: Guess the text should be "rather than" and not "ratherthan"

Thanks, I'll fix

Still haven't gotten to replying to your earlier messages, but a small remark on "polish" is the pop-ups when unlocking a new civic. They often have either vanilla info (vassalage iirc), outdated info (civil service) and sometimes just wrong info (plutocracy mentioning production, and it is also worded weirdly uninformative compared to the other ones). I could probably supply better texts if you want, later today or during the week.

Yes, thank you, that'll make my life a bit easier.

 

[tebriz]

By the time you wrote that, I already set it to this very amount.

That leaves me with only three files modified compared to the original mod

 

[JDCP]

After 1466 turns, 2/3 of the game is played (66,64% to be precise) - time is now January 1753. Filesize is 6.901kB. The game holds 406 cities - if I've counted correctly. Almost twice as many as I previously only dreamed of could be achieved.

amazing, what map script and settings are you using? That makes looks like a nightmare, but an enjoyable nightmare!

I wanna break the boundaries too, it's been long since I don't play in a gigantic map

Thanks, I'll fix

If it serves anything I also saw an strange graphical bug in one of the pedia entries for a polish UU, the one that isn't the hussars (sorry, I forgot ) displays abnormally big and white letters for a sentence in the first paragraph. Didn't thought typos like that were as important as to notify them, will remember that.

by going to WB and just looking at everything.

Ah my favourite activity! Will do

 

[teukros]

Also, a more generic remark: I am now in "wrapping up" mode before the 3.8 release, so if you have anything specific to report that needs fixed (rather than "I have this big idea of a concept on how to rebalance everything"), please do it over the next several days or it isn't making it into 3.8.

This is my first post in... maybe forever, certainly my first with this account.

First, I just want to add my voice to the chorus: THANK YOU! When I first discovered RI in 2019, I was in awe. In 2025, I'm even more in awe. The work put into this is staggering, and it is *quality* work. Amazing, really.

Now for my suggestion:

I'm one of those weirdos who plays the game to the end. A few times, I have gone for the Spaceship victory, and I know that it is more-or-less the late 20th century (at least in terms of tech). But I'm building things like "SS (starship) Cockpit" or whatever, and watching animations of the UNS "Unity" being built.

Of course I have no idea how big of a job it would be, but I would really love it if these animations could be replaced with photographs or artwork of (e.g.) the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.

 

[TheBirdMan]

amazing, what map script and settings are you using?

Here, where the "goal" has been to try a game based almost entirely on a standard version of SVN, I have used RI_Planet_Generator, Size: Giant, Map_size: Override, Relative Continent (size): May Vary. The rest is pretty much set to Default.

However, you should be aware that if you don't set a limit on how close the cities may be placed in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml - then you surely will end up with a very-very large number of cities. At least if you make a map as large as I do.

That I have chosen to spend about 2 weeks refining my map - it's probably just "me" who has some strange ideas about how I want it. But go ahead - map is attached. You have 26 different nations to choose between from the start ((it's a scenario) - remember to choose handicap level when you start, all are set to standard Noble).

 

[TheBirdMan]

A small addition - and perhaps a slightly too late wish for our common Christmas present:

Even though my current game is not finished, "så vover jeg pelsen" (Danish expression for doing something risky) and predicts that I think my current game actually can be finished normally by time. At least it will be a close run. But only because I have changed the distance between cities to 4 (giving no overlap in the workspace for the cities). If I had not done so, I think even the lowest graphical level would have tilted the game - either because of the savegame filesize or capacity on the card in my 'puter.

So Walter - will it be possible to add an option during the setup of a new game, where you could choose the distance between cities? If so, then I personally think that 6 tiles should be the maximum. And yes, I know that we already have many choices and that one more often will make it more difficult/annoying. But still - now that giant maps actually is usefull to choose/setup.....

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I'm one of those weirdos who plays the game to the end. A few times, I have gone for the Spaceship victory, and I know that it is more-or-less the late 20th century (at least in terms of tech). But I'm building things like "SS (starship) Cockpit" or whatever, and watching animations of the UNS "Unity" being built.

Of course I have no idea how big of a job it would be, but I would really love it if these animations could be replaced with photographs or artwork of (e.g.) the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.

Yeah, I know the spaceship thing is not quite realistic, and feels somewhat tacked on to what otherwise is (and was in vanilla) a tech tree that barely reaches the year 2000. But there is really nothing that humanity did IRL that would merit a similar victory condition. Do we win by doing a moon landing? Not only is that even nowhere near the end of even the currently limited tech tree, but would feel an extremely underwhelming note to end on. What have we done since then? Launched a mid-sized house to space (and are close to decommissioning it now)? Put a robot on Mars? Sad to admit it, but that hardly sounds like IRL our humanity is anywhere near anything that's a "space victory"; even a manned Mars mission within our lifetime is not a given, much less any kind of permanent settlement that's not immediately in Earth's orbit.

So yes, this is a strictly fantasy option, but it'd be really sad to get rid of it; if not ours, at least Sid Meier's humanity is able to colonise space...

So Walter - will it be possible to add an option during the setup of a new game, where you could choose the distance between cities? If so, then I personally think that 6 tiles should be the maximum. And yes, I know that we already have many choices and that one more often will make it more difficult/annoying. But still - now that giant maps actually is usefull to choose/setup.....

I frankly don't get you. Why? To then have to inflate map sizes as you did? Why not just leave the city distance normal and have a smaller map? I know you "need" more resources, but that's much easier on everything to ensure even in smaller map sizes.

And no, the answer is no, not ever - if I add such an option, I am responsible for what it does. Which means I have to then dig around AI code to make sure it properly understands any city distance. Something that I have absolutely no need of personally, and don't want to spend my time on.

 

[TheBirdMan]

Well another so to say.....

But when I find something that I think is interesting for other than just me - then of course I will write about it. Sometimes I hit completely off the target (then I am probably the only one who finds it interesting), but sometimes it happens, that my comments are not all completely selfish.

For example, it's almost 3½ years since I first wrote about the AI and its inability to use its artillery (passive defense/collateral damage/perform ranged attacks) in a reasonable way. It might have happened without me writing about it from time to time - who knows - but today it's part of "the package".