raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
Ok, thanks for the info. 
We still have a few todos for the release anyways.
We still have a few todos for the release anyways.
[Religion and Revolution]: Feedback and Questions
- Thread starter raystuttgart
- Start date
Hi RayStuttgart.
I'm a scale-focus character who enjoys strategy/economics games such as MOO2, OpenTTD, and Factorio among others.
I thought I'd offer some thoughts. Good and improvements that I thought RAR could use
Also I finish out with some questions.
Headline of course is, many thanks and well regards for investing the effort to so completely overhaul the game experience.
In short:
It very much felt like playing a true evolution of Colonization 1994, rather than just the Col4 'shiny remake'.
Good
The auto-educator was fantastic. I didn't use it enough as I did not fully understand where the school would source its free colonists from, but fantastic all the same.
Domestic Demand! The concept and implementation of domestic demand realized the creation of a separate economy, rather than just a big plantation, warehouse, or factory. This is a huge addition to the game.
Import Feeder! I understand this came from another mod, but to combine it made the creation of larger empires plausible without the game becoming a full-time job. It's hard to believe a simple feature was not included as part of the original.
Slaves, Africa, Slaves!
The triangle trade at last!
My fleet going in different directions, becoming a real globetrotting force! As professionals becomes available they become more of a 'frontier force', and the price does quickly becomes untenable with a +10 inflation rate. But it was still a feature I could not do without. Perhaps if there was a slight deflation over time, or a +5 inflation rate?
Trains and Railroads make continental empires very much possible. Significant land logistics are required to make a large empire, and I remember handling upwards of 50 wagon trains with the old trade route systems (Col4, Col 1994 was better) was just ridiculous. Trains did seem a touch 'cheap' to build though.
Random events are great to break the routine a little bit, and add some decision making. Unfortunately I found these exciting events never seemed to occur frequently enough, and in late game seemed to be hours in between. Especially exciting was the opportunity to expand my galleon from 6 to 8 cargo holds. Would love to be able to choose to do this regularly as it reduces user-workload.
The addition of extra music tracks was a lovely part extending the length to the point where it was almost long enough not to be repetitive!
Of course I extended it further with the Dances With Wolves soundtrack
Bad
The religion part of the mod title made me think there would be protestant and catholic alignments and allegiances. I didn't see any impact from the Vatican in my game.
Even at Governor difficulty the AI was particularly passive.
The only foreign power to declare war on me was... the weakest one. One swift front into my territory which was quickly rallied against, then refuted leading to their fall.
Without taking his capital he was un-interested in peace negotiations even as he was dis-assembled and handed to other foreign powers piece by piece.
With 2PCR, factories are even more important. I found that with only 3 colonist slots in Tier3 factories, that raw materials quickly backed up. And with certain bonuses even a single plot would close to saturate a single factory. Leading to a very distributed production network necessitating... equally distributed logistics.
Some of the epic music at points surprised me. My wife commented 'Oh... are you at war?!' in response to some of the more up-beat tracks. I was just building some roads and chillin!
Ugly
At high 50%+ tax rates Port Royal is clearly the way to go. But I was not able to see a way to automate. This lead to multiple ships per turn manually loading and unloading. 5, then 10, then 20 ships every turn. At this point I was preparing for revolution and gold was beginning to be less of a concern, but this was a significant timesink over the course of the game.
Also given that port royal was 'secret' the prices should deflate more rapidly than europe. It's not plausible for fleets of 20 ships to be unloading thousands of tonnes of goods... secretly
The Founding Father tech tree now stretches almost to oblivion. I understand that it was designed to sllow significant scale, but 100k political points was untenable.
National single-use wonders surprised me, and caught me aback when I found I was not able to rebuild the,
Not sure what's with the statue, taking over 1000 turns to build??
My Modifications
Before the game begun I added one movement point to pioneers, scouts, dragoons, and cuirassiers.
Before the game began I doubled the work rate of pioneers. It seemed a little slow to wait 40 turns for a forest to be cleared, even by slave labor.
Before the game I moved the europe barrier 1-2 tiles inland both for my North American East coast starting location, and for areas near the AI home cities.
Mid-game for the spanish in mexico, I added a europe transit point in the gulf of mexico as they became cut-off and isolated from east-route due to the west indies becoming foreign territory.
In the late game I edited Tier 3 factories to handle 5 workers rather than 3.
I considered creating a Tier 4, but realized I would likely break the XML leading to hours of troubleshooting.
In future for my next game I would add cargo points to ships across the board galleons and west indiamen, and increase the price to make a clear differentiator. I believe much larger ships (or fleet management) are needed to handle 2PCR.
Questions:
Donations?
Setup a donation avenue and I'll probably find US50 somewhere for you.
I think many others would too anywhere from US5 to US100!
Funded Improvements
I know work on RAR is finished, but as I've already literated a good couple of pages, I thought I'd gather some information from you in return.
Deciding where to work next on your mod can be difficult at times. Priorities mixed, feedback complex. Voting and public opinion (it's hard not to listen to the loudest guys in the room) often help guide direction of urgency and importance of work prioritision.
Where am I headed with this?
I'd like to know what your personal feelings and thoughts are on paid-for extensions and improvements to RAR are?
I ask this of many modders and game creators I have spoken with and It's something I'm keen on understanding opinions and consensus.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and if you have additional time in return, I am interested in any answers you may have to my question.
Many thanks again!
I'm a scale-focus character who enjoys strategy/economics games such as MOO2, OpenTTD, and Factorio among others.
I thought I'd offer some thoughts. Good and improvements that I thought RAR could use
Also I finish out with some questions.
Headline of course is, many thanks and well regards for investing the effort to so completely overhaul the game experience.
In short:
It very much felt like playing a true evolution of Colonization 1994, rather than just the Col4 'shiny remake'.
Good
The auto-educator was fantastic. I didn't use it enough as I did not fully understand where the school would source its free colonists from, but fantastic all the same.
Domestic Demand! The concept and implementation of domestic demand realized the creation of a separate economy, rather than just a big plantation, warehouse, or factory. This is a huge addition to the game.
Import Feeder! I understand this came from another mod, but to combine it made the creation of larger empires plausible without the game becoming a full-time job. It's hard to believe a simple feature was not included as part of the original.
Slaves, Africa, Slaves!
The triangle trade at last!
My fleet going in different directions, becoming a real globetrotting force! As professionals becomes available they become more of a 'frontier force', and the price does quickly becomes untenable with a +10 inflation rate. But it was still a feature I could not do without. Perhaps if there was a slight deflation over time, or a +5 inflation rate?
Trains and Railroads make continental empires very much possible. Significant land logistics are required to make a large empire, and I remember handling upwards of 50 wagon trains with the old trade route systems (Col4, Col 1994 was better) was just ridiculous. Trains did seem a touch 'cheap' to build though.
Random events are great to break the routine a little bit, and add some decision making. Unfortunately I found these exciting events never seemed to occur frequently enough, and in late game seemed to be hours in between. Especially exciting was the opportunity to expand my galleon from 6 to 8 cargo holds. Would love to be able to choose to do this regularly as it reduces user-workload.
The addition of extra music tracks was a lovely part extending the length to the point where it was almost long enough not to be repetitive!
Of course I extended it further with the Dances With Wolves soundtrack
Bad
The religion part of the mod title made me think there would be protestant and catholic alignments and allegiances. I didn't see any impact from the Vatican in my game.
Even at Governor difficulty the AI was particularly passive.
The only foreign power to declare war on me was... the weakest one. One swift front into my territory which was quickly rallied against, then refuted leading to their fall.
Without taking his capital he was un-interested in peace negotiations even as he was dis-assembled and handed to other foreign powers piece by piece.
With 2PCR, factories are even more important. I found that with only 3 colonist slots in Tier3 factories, that raw materials quickly backed up. And with certain bonuses even a single plot would close to saturate a single factory. Leading to a very distributed production network necessitating... equally distributed logistics.
Some of the epic music at points surprised me. My wife commented 'Oh... are you at war?!' in response to some of the more up-beat tracks. I was just building some roads and chillin!
Ugly
At high 50%+ tax rates Port Royal is clearly the way to go. But I was not able to see a way to automate. This lead to multiple ships per turn manually loading and unloading. 5, then 10, then 20 ships every turn. At this point I was preparing for revolution and gold was beginning to be less of a concern, but this was a significant timesink over the course of the game.
Also given that port royal was 'secret' the prices should deflate more rapidly than europe. It's not plausible for fleets of 20 ships to be unloading thousands of tonnes of goods... secretly
The Founding Father tech tree now stretches almost to oblivion. I understand that it was designed to sllow significant scale, but 100k political points was untenable.
National single-use wonders surprised me, and caught me aback when I found I was not able to rebuild the,
Not sure what's with the statue, taking over 1000 turns to build??
My Modifications
Before the game begun I added one movement point to pioneers, scouts, dragoons, and cuirassiers.
Before the game began I doubled the work rate of pioneers. It seemed a little slow to wait 40 turns for a forest to be cleared, even by slave labor.
Before the game I moved the europe barrier 1-2 tiles inland both for my North American East coast starting location, and for areas near the AI home cities.
Mid-game for the spanish in mexico, I added a europe transit point in the gulf of mexico as they became cut-off and isolated from east-route due to the west indies becoming foreign territory.
In the late game I edited Tier 3 factories to handle 5 workers rather than 3.
I considered creating a Tier 4, but realized I would likely break the XML leading to hours of troubleshooting.
In future for my next game I would add cargo points to ships across the board galleons and west indiamen, and increase the price to make a clear differentiator. I believe much larger ships (or fleet management) are needed to handle 2PCR.
Questions:
Donations?
Setup a donation avenue and I'll probably find US50 somewhere for you.
I think many others would too anywhere from US5 to US100!
Funded Improvements
I know work on RAR is finished, but as I've already literated a good couple of pages, I thought I'd gather some information from you in return.
Deciding where to work next on your mod can be difficult at times. Priorities mixed, feedback complex. Voting and public opinion (it's hard not to listen to the loudest guys in the room) often help guide direction of urgency and importance of work prioritision.
Where am I headed with this?
I'd like to know what your personal feelings and thoughts are on paid-for extensions and improvements to RAR are?
I ask this of many modders and game creators I have spoken with and It's something I'm keen on understanding opinions and consensus.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and if you have additional time in return, I am interested in any answers you may have to my question.
Many thanks again!
raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
That is how I feel about RaR as well and that is how it was intended.
It was supposed to be an evolutionary step for the game concept "Colonization".
----------
A few comments from my side:
Most importantly:
1. This mod is not finished yet.
I had given up modding on it some time ago, because of lack of time.
But I changed my mind on it.
We are even short before the next release (Release 2.1).
(And there are already detailled plans for at least one following release.)
However, my time is still really limited, so progress is / will be slow.
But at least, there is progress at all.
I also don't know, how long I will be motivated or able to continue working on the mod.
But currently I still am.
2. We are actually a team of modders.
Currently it is me for programming and Schmiddie for graphics as core team members.
But we have been a much larger team in the past and there are still several partners that give very valuable support with texts, translations, graphics, performance improvments, ...
----------
Specifically to a few of your remarks:
1. Statue of Governor
--> It is only a filler for endless games. It does not have any spcial purpose and is actually not intended to ever be finished.
2. "Passivness" of AI
--> AI is optimized to win War of Independence. It is not balanced to lead war against human player without any really good reasons, since it would usually only waste its resources that way.
3. Founding Father Tree "stretched to Oblivion"
--> I strongly disagree with that. I have been playing long games on Mapsize Gigantic, where I had almost 30+ colonies and succeeded getting to the end of that tree.
I have actually been asked by Schmiddie (another team member) to add a few more Founding Fathers, since he feels similar.
4. Need for "Distributed Production and Logistics"
--> That is intended.
5. Automation for Sailing to Africa and Port Royal
--> It is on the todo list. Just don't know when it will be implemented.
6. National Wonders
--> Well, I like that feature.
----------
About your private modifications:
Well sure, modify it to any way you like to play.
But modding is personal taste and none of your private modifications are likely to be adapted to RaR base mod.
----------
About donations:
Well, thanks for the offer.
It has been offered several times already but our answer has always been and will always be:
No, we do not accept money for modding.
We are modding for our own fun.
----------
About "Voting / Public Opinion":
Well, we are listening to public opinion.
But it will never directly guide direction of our development.
The only thing that will really guide direction of our development is our own personal taste.
----------
Thanks for the detail feedback.
Hey guys,
I have played Civ4Col some times, but found it somewhat easy. Now I started R&R, beginning on the highest difficulty (call me suicidal), on the biggest map and on Marathon. The new options are overwhelming! I don't have the feeling that I am doing particularly well, and though I find tons of ruins and burials with my scouts (probably more then the others), I didn't get huge profits from them.
Still, when I look at the scores, I soar high above the other colonial powers, except the British, with both of us around 60-70 and the others around 15. I couldn't believe it (as I said, I rather thought I was stumbling around, experiencing, not making the best progress I probably could have), so I started a new game. After some hours of playing I had the same result: Me at around 60-70, the others around 10-20. One of them was even wiped out by Indians.
I'd like to ask: Is this the usual behaviour of the Colonial AI? Is this mod specifically for human vs human playing? Or am I experiencing something weird? I already searched the forum, but couldn't find the issue, although it MUST be there, I'm sure. Can somebody point me towards the discussion? Or tell me?
Cheers and thanks for your help,
Bokarati
I have played Civ4Col some times, but found it somewhat easy. Now I started R&R, beginning on the highest difficulty (call me suicidal), on the biggest map and on Marathon. The new options are overwhelming! I don't have the feeling that I am doing particularly well, and though I find tons of ruins and burials with my scouts (probably more then the others), I didn't get huge profits from them.
Still, when I look at the scores, I soar high above the other colonial powers, except the British, with both of us around 60-70 and the others around 15. I couldn't believe it (as I said, I rather thought I was stumbling around, experiencing, not making the best progress I probably could have), so I started a new game. After some hours of playing I had the same result: Me at around 60-70, the others around 10-20. One of them was even wiped out by Indians.
I'd like to ask: Is this the usual behaviour of the Colonial AI? Is this mod specifically for human vs human playing? Or am I experiencing something weird? I already searched the forum, but couldn't find the issue, although it MUST be there, I'm sure. Can somebody point me towards the discussion? Or tell me?
Cheers and thanks for your help,
Bokarati
vetiarvind
Prince
I might be wrong, but I don't believe the R&R team has modified the AI logic much (except for places including new features, but they're usually fair on the AI). What turn (or year) are you in? I've played games in gigantic where the AI is competitive with me upto 1700+ in normal speed. (although I'm usually among the top 2-3) I usually play in conquistador difficulty though, so I'm pretty surprised at what you're seeing. I'm not surprised one of them was wiped out by Indians (it can happen to human players easily as well if you're not well defended)
The scores for each player are dominated by the amount of founding fathers they have, while the amount of territory inside their borders and their population has a little effect as well. What probably happens is that you and the English produce lots of Bells and get several founding fathers more than the others, which can make a huge difference. But I don't think the player scores are very good indicators of how successful civs are at the moment.
Thanks for the reply!
My first game is on my old machine, but the second one is 1534. My score is probably inflated by many settlers/slaves/units I found in the various ruins, and definitively inflated by the Man-O-War I got from my king for declaring war, but the score for the others is far behind regardless.
Me: 53
Cortes: 15 (only met him, don't know how he developed)
Champlain: 12 (only met him etc.)
Stuyvesant: 8 (had 4 in year 1520ish)
Penn: 6 (had 5 in year 1520ish, but suffered a war against me)
About Penn: I won that war with only the two units (cannon reg., hessian) I received from the king. Shouldn't they be somewhat stronger in year 1520?
Cheers,
Bokarati
My first game is on my old machine, but the second one is 1534. My score is probably inflated by many settlers/slaves/units I found in the various ruins, and definitively inflated by the Man-O-War I got from my king for declaring war, but the score for the others is far behind regardless.
Me: 53
Cortes: 15 (only met him, don't know how he developed)
Champlain: 12 (only met him etc.)
Stuyvesant: 8 (had 4 in year 1520ish)
Penn: 6 (had 5 in year 1520ish, but suffered a war against me)
About Penn: I won that war with only the two units (cannon reg., hessian) I received from the king. Shouldn't they be somewhat stronger in year 1520?
Cheers,
Bokarati
At this point I have 4323 bells and Marquette as founding father, who is the only founding father taken so far.
This could, of course, explain this. I am still somewhat surprised that at this difficulty level I am the only one with an FF. With these 4823 I have declined some other eplorers, so I really think the others should have one, too by now.
BTW, I am impressed that at a time I have only bought a single galleon I receive a Man-O-War, which felt somewhat ... unbalanced. Do they other European powers receive materiel when my king makes me declare war on the other colonial powers?
Thank you and cheers,
Bokarati
This could, of course, explain this. I am still somewhat surprised that at this difficulty level I am the only one with an FF. With these 4823 I have declined some other eplorers, so I really think the others should have one, too by now.
BTW, I am impressed that at a time I have only bought a single galleon I receive a Man-O-War, which felt somewhat ... unbalanced. Do they other European powers receive materiel when my king makes me declare war on the other colonial powers?
Thank you and cheers,
Bokarati
Getting a Man-o-war early in the game can seem unbalanced. If you get it very early in the game you can easily steam roll the other players (as you've found out).
1520 is very early in the game so I recommend continuing and seeing what you think after winning one. Unless you abuse the save/re-load to avoid losses, you'll find you lose alot of scouts when trying to scout a gigantic map.
Using a gigantic map can be both a blessing and a curse. Having a huge area to explore can gain you tons of "goodies". Also, with the gigantic map you may be fortunate to not be near another European and have room to expand. But remember the king's army (Royal Expeditionary Force - REF) size is partially based upon the map size...so the REF is huge. You may find it challenging to get the rebel sentiment high enough to rebel while maintaining a large enough army to beat the REF.
The other European AI are focused on expanding and don't use the 2 radius cities like they should. IMO, it's better to advance one city for a while before expanding...you'll get FF alot quicker that way.
my 2cp,
Windfoot
1520 is very early in the game so I recommend continuing and seeing what you think after winning one. Unless you abuse the save/re-load to avoid losses, you'll find you lose alot of scouts when trying to scout a gigantic map.
Using a gigantic map can be both a blessing and a curse. Having a huge area to explore can gain you tons of "goodies". Also, with the gigantic map you may be fortunate to not be near another European and have room to expand. But remember the king's army (Royal Expeditionary Force - REF) size is partially based upon the map size...so the REF is huge. You may find it challenging to get the rebel sentiment high enough to rebel while maintaining a large enough army to beat the REF.
The other European AI are focused on expanding and don't use the 2 radius cities like they should. IMO, it's better to advance one city for a while before expanding...you'll get FF alot quicker that way.
my 2cp,
Windfoot
Nightinggale
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2009
- Messages
- 5,281
Vanilla has a problem with AI and advancing colonies and to my knowledge no mod has managed to improve on that. The AI has two main problems:
- values production of hammers and lumber too low
- cuts down forests
and was able to observe his every move. He showed up with two hardy pioneers, which strait away removed every single forest within reach of his colony. With no room to expand and no lumber, he remained a nobody forever.
raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
That is only partially correct.
Yes, Vanilla AI is very poor.
(It simply was not properly adapted from Civ4(BtS) to Civ4:Colonization considering new game concepts.)
However, both TAC and RaR have improved AI.
(Economy, Transportation, Military, Building Improvments, ...)
Event though most of those improvments have been punctual, they have transformed a "very poor AI" to "almost modest AI".
The AI still has lots of weaknesses though, that have not yet been properly solved.
(And are quite difficult to solve actually because there are so many dependencies.)
1) AI and Production (including AI chopping down too many forests)
2) AI and Economy (Buildings or using / training Specialists efficiently)
3) AI and Military (buying / equipping / training)
4) AI and Expansion (often AI does expand to heavily or too little)
...
Actually I have met AIs in some games that were almost as strong as myself until midgame.
(At some point human player is always better.)
But it is pure luck (or bad luck - depending how you see it) if you have AIs that manage to keep up with human player.
(Also heavily depending on many random factors like starting position, goodies or events.)
The only ways to ensure really strong AI Players is too have them cheat like hell or to give them a heavily advanced start (more gold, units, ...)
or to have them play by completely different rules (e.g. not having to transport goods or units at all).
(Which I all would not like to do.)
But there is of course still a lot of potential to further improve AI.
Like always, it only takes skilled modder with enough motivation and time to implement those further AI improvments.
(AI coding is much more difficult though than feature / functional coding.)
lethiel
Streaming Col at https://www.twitch.tv/lethiel01
I would suggest that attacking from at transport should do that you automatically unload the unit. It is pretty 'op' to be able to make hit and run 'nukes' with a train filled with super mobile artillery/cannons. It's not very realistic either.
I know in single player you can just avoid exploiting this - but even here its very tempting.
I know in single player you can just avoid exploiting this - but even here its very tempting.
Nightinggale
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2009
- Messages
- 5,281
I agree and would like to point out one important factor in this: RaR works in network games. Even if you don't do this, you can't be sure that you will not be beaten by somebody, who does.
Just one note guys.
Fantastic job on R&R.
Been playing BTS for years and it was finally getting a bit stale.
I got COL around the same time but it was unplayable so I put it aside.
I saw mention of this mod and gave it a try. I got that "just one more turn" feeling again.
You guys should be really proud of your accomplishment.
Wanting to learn some of the new things, I've read this "ENTIRE" thread (that's my accomplishment) It was fun seeing the evolution, but the most entertaining was seeing all the claims that no more work was being done on this. I'm glad you guys didn't mean it and I hope to see a few more versions. It is a still a tad tedious since I haven't mastered automating all the trading but am learning.
And I'm glad you mentioned that statue, since I was wondering what the heck it was.
Again, I can't say it enough, I figured I wasted my money originally but you guys have redeemed it in spades. Thanks again.
Maybe I can get my brother in to it so we can try some MP.
Fantastic job on R&R.
Been playing BTS for years and it was finally getting a bit stale.
I got COL around the same time but it was unplayable so I put it aside.
I saw mention of this mod and gave it a try. I got that "just one more turn" feeling again.
You guys should be really proud of your accomplishment.
Wanting to learn some of the new things, I've read this "ENTIRE" thread (that's my accomplishment) It was fun seeing the evolution, but the most entertaining was seeing all the claims that no more work was being done on this. I'm glad you guys didn't mean it and I hope to see a few more versions. It is a still a tad tedious since I haven't mastered automating all the trading but am learning.
And I'm glad you mentioned that statue, since I was wondering what the heck it was.
Again, I can't say it enough, I figured I wasted my money originally but you guys have redeemed it in spades. Thanks again.
Maybe I can get my brother in to it so we can try some MP.
raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
Nightinggale
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2009
- Messages
- 5,281
What do you mean? You go to a plot without any road and press R or the build road button. Once there is a road, you can upgrade it to plastered road or railroad.
The auto build route to button will always build railroad though.
Played MP with my brother this weekend. I was amazed at how stable it was. Great Job Guys.
There's a bit more luck involved than BTS but it was quite interesting. We were playing a more cooperative game than we would doing BTS but that will change as we learn the game more.
Looking forward to continuing our game.
There's a bit more luck involved than BTS but it was quite interesting. We were playing a more cooperative game than we would doing BTS but that will change as we learn the game more.
Looking forward to continuing our game.
