[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

[raystuttgart]

Of course I like it! That's exactly what I was looking for.

Great.
(We have a new feature on our list.)

Hi Kairlic. You're right ! "Bribing" isn't the correct word.

Yes of course.
I just wanted to explain the idea so people understand.

That must be fun! Insulting your rivals !

Yes, interesting.
I will think about it.

We'll will surely try to make it fun!

I really think that the feature will be fun.

@Kailric:

New Bargaining with Natives is more complex than I did explain here.
(Attitude affects your chances for success for example.
Too much bargaining will get the natives angry.
But of course at the moment it is more like a prototype. It works quite good already but can be enhanced / improved.)

I have already done other Diplomacy-Events and plan to do several more.
(I really want to have more diplomatic interaction in the game. )

I was also thinking about a feature "Gifts to the King".
(This could have several positive effects, like the king lowering your taxrates.)

Please take a look at TAC (best release currently: 2.02b).
There are several new victory conditions implemented.

Thanks a lot for your remarks.

@all:

I really have an awful lot to explain, but I simply need to find the time.
(I have been preparing features and brainstorming with people for more than half a year.
It is simply not possible to explain all of that in a few days. )

Also, I would like to do the discussions step by step.
(Discuss a few features and then decide.)
Otherwise everything will get so chaotic that nobody will understand anymore.

I will try to organize a few things in an Overview within this week.

 

[raystuttgart]

Hi everybody,

some of you might remember KJ's Mod Slavery Market. The Orient. Port-Royal.
(Parts of "Triangle Trade" from Dom Pedro II were used.)

I would really like to use this great existing mod-comp to create a new version for this project.

A) Africa

Here it is possible to buy slaves.
No other units can be bought here.

Certain goods can be sold profitably. (Mostly goods like Tools, Weapons, Trading Goods, Alcohol, Cigars, Cloth, ...)

It is not a very good place to buy anything except Coffee, Gems and Indigo .
(Europe is cheaper.)

Going here will take 4 Turns from the New World or Port Royal and 3 Turns from Europe.

B) Port Royal

Here it is possible to buy criminals.
Also Privateers can be bought here only. (Will not be sold in Europe any more.)
No other units can be bought here.

Certain goods can be bought at quite good prices. (Mostly goods like Coffeeberries, Cocoafruits, Sugar, Natural Rubber ...)

It is not a very good place to sell anything except Rum, Cigars and Weapons.
(Europe is more profitable.)

Going here will take 2 Turns from the New World and 4 Turns from Europe or Africa.

C) Slaves (Yes I know that some people will not like that.)

Slaves can be bought very cheap in Africa but have a lot of penalties.
(I would change a lot of things.)

- cannot Build Settlement
- cannot be educated inside the city
- cannot use "Expert-Mechanism" from LbD ("Learning by Doing")
- cannot be Soldier, Pioneer or any other specific profession outside city
- cannot work in buildings
- cannot be trained in native villages
- cannot discoverd map
- cannot enter Goody Huts

- requires 1 Food per day
- produces +1 on all tile-professions

With the Constitution Element "Abolish Slavery" (from TAC), which can be chosen after declaring Independence, all slaves will be freed.

- Slaves can become free (using modified "Free"-Mechanism from LbD).
- Player gets a dialog that asks if he wants to buy free the slave (which will cost money).
- A slave that is bought free will turn into a normal colonist.

- Slaves can escape (using "Escape"-Mechanism from LbD).
- Once "Barbarian Civs for CivCol" is fully implemented and integrated there will be an actual Unit "Escaped Slave" running away.
- An "Escaped Slave" can be captured again by military units, which will turn it into a unit "Slave" again.
- If you do not succeed capturing an "Escaped Slave" within a certain period of rounds it will disappear forever.

- Having many slaves in your colonies will drastically lower Satisfaction. (Annother large concept I will explain at some point.)

D) I would explicitly not like to use Orient.

I do not want to have a world-wide scenario but focus on the New World and the era of Colonziation.
2 new ports is enough for that feature.


Greatest Challenge:

Getting AI to make good use of this feature.
Maybe I will need to implement some AI-Cheats to simulate ...

Feedback ?

 

[Gomer_Pyle]

Implementing AI cheats is not a good idea. I am afraid I have to say that if that is the result then I would not implement the feature. It is not really a feature then. It is sad since I really like the idea. How deeply is the AI go to europe trade coded? Impossible to recreate?

 

[raystuttgart]

New Types of Goody Huts

Unique

Unique Goody Huts are created maximally once per map at game start.
(They will not be there every game.)

Examples:

Wrecked Viking Ship at the Coast
Considerable Amount of Gold + Maps

Spoiler :

Lost Capital of an unknown destroyed but highly cultivated Native Civilization

Considerable Amount of Gold + rumors about Eldorado spreading in Europe (Immigration)

Respawning

These Goody-Huts would be spawned from time to time.
Giving some reason to scout the continents contiuously.
Total Amount of existing "Respawning Goody-Huts" would be limited by Mapsize

Examples:

Campfire in the woods

- Outcast from a Native Civ: Reward is a Native Mercenary
- Lost Colonist: Reward is Settler
- Lost Missionary: Reward is Missionary

Almost sunken Ship

This Goody-Hut would spawn on Sea-Tiles.

- Ship can be repaired: A Caravel or another ship
- Ship can be repaired and crew saved: Improvement to other European Nation
- Some goods can be saved: Random amount of Random Yield is put on your ship (if space available)
- A Settler can be saved: Settler is put on ship (if space available)
- Maps are found


Basically I only wanted to talk about the idea of unique and respawning goody-huts.
(Everything else are just examples.)

 

[raystuttgart]

How deeply is the AI go to europe trade coded? Impossible to recreate?

No, there is nothing "impossible".
It might simply be a hell lot of work.

See there are very complex decisions for AI involved in this feature:

* When should I buy Slaves or not ?
* Will my ship sail to Europe, Africa or Port Royal to sell these goods ?
* Will I buy coffee in Africa and sell it in Europe ?
* Will I try to hunt down the escaping Slave or will I need to keep my military unit in city for protection ?
...

It is probably all possible without AI-Cheats.
But often it is much much easier to simulate stuff with AI-Cheats than really implementing the AI to make true use of the features.

The normal user / player would never know if I would not tell what I did !

 

[Gomer_Pyle]

Hehe! True, but some eyes are better than others. But I know you will do the right thing.

Oh. Just remembered. Why not add the feature of a Continental Army too? Veterans being upgraded to a bit stronger elite continental unit after declaration of independence?

 

[Robert Surcouf]

I like the idea of a Port Royal and Africa screen.

However, I don't understand how we get there?

Going here [to Africa] will take 4 Turns from the New World or Port Royal and 3 Turns from Europe.

4 turns? How much is standard travel time (I mean, from a EUROPE EAST plot to Europe)?

Do we really have to cheat? I mean can't we program AI to choose intelligently ?

By the way, I love the idea of new goody huts. Has TAC added Col94's Fountain of Youth (Dale added it in Age of Discovery if I'm correct...) and seven cities of Cibola (Seven golden cities) ?
Unique goody hut is a good idea.

Oh. Just remembered. Why not add the feature of a Continental Army too?

Oh yes I remember ! Would it be a new unit ... or a new profession ?

[Off topic]
Have you tried Fall form Heaven II (it's a Civ IV Beyond the Sword mod), Ray? In FFH II, there are also unique bonuses ! You can have a look if you want.

 

[Gomer_Pyle]

Oh yes I remember ! Would it be a new unit ... or a new profession ?

Whatever is easiest to do I presume. Is it even possible to replace units of one profession with another profession on the map? (Event/scipt?) Remember in Col94 all your veteran soldiers was instantly replaced by continental soldiers (veteran elite).

When I think about it. Maybe it should be a profession only available after declaration of independence. Also maybe it should pop up as an event and if you choose to do certain stuff the result of event would be transformation from veteran to continental?

Anyone watched "The Patriot"? Remember the common man fighting for their towns ect? Militia i think it was. Maybe that could be a unit aswell? Colonial Dragoon, Colonial Soldier (Veteran Profession) and Colonial Militia with guerilla bonuses (Non Veteran/Free Colonist ect)?

Anyway, this is just ideas.

 

[raystuttgart]

However, I don't understand how we get there?

Ah Sorry, forgot that most of you never tried KJ's mods and mod-comps.

A) There are buttons at the ships for commands "Sail to Africa" and "Sail to Port Royal"
B) There are buttons at the top of the screen (next to the one that opens Europe-Screens) to open "Africa Screen" and "Port Royal Screen".

4 turns? How much is standard travel time (I mean, from a EUROPE EAST plot to Europe)?

I think it is 3 turns.
(But I am not sure.)

It is in the GlobalDefines somewhere.

Do we really have to cheat? I mean can't we program AI to choose intelligently ?

No it is not necessary !
But working totally without AI-cheats will require a lot of work to teach AI to use all of the aspects of this feature wisely.
(Using some AI-cheats to simulate things would make that feature a lot faster to programm.)

Aahhh!
I will never tell anything about "AI-Cheats" again.

By the way, I love the idea of new goody huts.

It is just a basic idea to bring a little more variation into the game.

Has TAC added Col94's Fountain of Youth (Dale added it in Age of Discovery if I'm correct...) and seven cities of Cibola (Seven golden cities) ?
Unique goody hut is a good idea.

TAC does not have Fountain of Youth as Goody-Hut.
(The others did not want it because there already is a Founding-Fathre about that.)

Have you tried Fall form Heaven II (it's a Civ IV Beyond the Sword mod), Ray? In FFH II, there are also unique bonuses ! You can have a look if you want.

No, I have never tried any Civ4-mods.
(I just played Vanilla.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Why not add the feature of a Continental Army too? Veterans being upgraded to a bit stronger elite continental unit after declaration of independence?

I am not sure about the use of that.
It would be quite some work and at least for me, it would not really add fun.

 

[Kailric]

That must be fun! Insulting your rivals ! By the way, have you checked out your Inventor modcomp lately ?
You don't like the idea !
We'll will surely try to make it fun! The point is, I really think you can't understand this period of history if you forget about religious wars !

I haven't checked it out in a while, why whats up with it? I made some improvements to it in my Medieval mod I should transfer over at some point though.

I didn't say I didn't like the idea I was just saying its hard to picture in my mind just how this would be in game. I like the idea of religious wars and that really was part of the history and I like simulating history. When I get the chance to play a working version I can give more feedback.

AI Cheats.... well the thing is in my modding I made a lot of AI Cheats to start with just to get a working version out so players can test. Once all the bugs and concepts are worked out the way you like then you can go back and work in the AI. Thats better then teaching the AI to do something then you make changes and have to reteach the AI.

I really like the Idea of having more than one port to venture too. I would say the AI doesn't need to be programmed to decide what port he should visit, not at the start anyway and then only if AI trading effects the prices at each port separately. In vanilla each Colony has its own Europe and prices. The player never sees rival ships at port so it doesn't really matter where they go as long as they are gone

 

[raystuttgart]

When I get the chance to play a working version I can give more feedback.

This will probably take a while.
It is a quite large feature.

AI Cheats.... well the thing is in my modding I made a lot of AI Cheats to start with just to get a working version out so players can test. Once all the bugs and concepts are worked out the way you like then you can go back and work in the AI. Thats better then teaching the AI to do something then you make changes and have to reteach the AI.

You do understand what I am talking about !

To my experience there is nothing more difficult in modding CivCol than programming complex AI-logic for new features !

I really like the Idea of having more than one port to venture too.

It is one of my favourites since I took a look at KJ's work !

I would say the AI doesn't need to be programmed to decide what port he should visit, not at the start anyway and then only if AI trading effects the prices at each port separately. In vanilla each Colony has its own Europe and prices. The player never sees rival ships at port so it doesn't really matter where they go as long as they are gone

Exactly !

And often "AI-Cheats" where you simulate something work a lot better than some crapy AI-logic where you try to force the AI to somehow use the feature.

I am quite sure that I could create a very good "simulation" of AI using that feature.

A) The player would never notice the difference.
B) AI would have a much better "performance" then when trying to force it to use the feature by all means !
C) I would be done in less than one third of the time !
D) The risk of serious bugs (like CTDs) is maybe one fifth !

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

But I really do not think further discussion about AI-Cheats will lead us anywhere.
(We should simply collect what we want and then we will see how to implement.)

Simply put some trust in your modders.
(We will give our best.)

 

[DARCK-PHOENIX]

when will be release this mod?

 

[colonialfan]

Love the idea about incorporating elements of the slavery market mod into the TAC mod. Slavery is an integeral part of the colonial experience that was sorely missing from Col94 and C4C. I agree with Ray, that the Orient option should be dropped, and that the feature concentrates on Africa and Port Royal.

As for the AI making good use of the feature, I'm not sure it would be completely necessary as not all the colonial powers were heavily embroiled in slavery. Granted the English colonies relied on them the most, closely followed by the Portuguese and the Spanish. But the French had far fewer slaves in mainland America and their Caribbean colonies, as did the Dutch who rather preferred to trade in slaves.

Jumping back a post or two about the native interactions, again another fantastic idea. I particularly like the option of the Indian civs displaying some warning before an impending attack and you having options of how to deal with them in return.

Just throwing an idea out there, and feel free to think about, disregard it or shelf it, as I know you guys are getting many ideas thrown at you. Kailric I believe created an interesting mod, where you could build outlying forts close to your colonies. How would this feature affect relations to other colonies and Indians if incorporated. Would Indians/Europeans be willing to raid/attack you if you had a fort close by, or would they attack the fort instead? The fort would not necessary need to produce anything, as its purpose would be defensive, but obviously it would consume food. New France whose population was always sparse to say the least, depended on a string of such forts to protect the scattering of settlements they had that stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Again just an idea, do with it as you wish.

 

[Robert Surcouf]

when will be release this mod?

2050 ! No just kidding
We don't know yet !

D) The risk of serious bugs (like CTDs) is maybe one fifth !

What is a See-Tee-Dee ("CTD") ? A secret code ?

Kailric I believe created an interesting mod, where you could build outlying forts close to your colonies. How would this feature affect relations to other colonies and Indians if incorporated. Would Indians/Europeans be willing to raid/attack you if you had a fort close by, or would they attack the fort instead?

Good question ! I don't know... I have to look at Kailric's work first...

I haven't checked it out in a while, why whats up with it? I made some improvements to it in my Medieval mod I should transfer over at some point though.

Well, a few functions don't seem to work... I posted a message in April. You told me you were going to look into it. In addition to the two or three functions that don't seem to work, you light bulb icon doesn't appear in the Civilopedia, and I think your "Convert Units" doesn't work properly if your units are traveling from Europe to the New World (or in the opposite way)....

 

[raystuttgart]

Kailric I believe created an interesting mod, where you could build outlying forts close to your colonies.

I have been discussing that mod-comp of Kailric with the German community when I was working on my old project.
Almost nobody was interested in integrating that feature.
(I was also not interested.)

Technically it is a nice piece of work, for sure.

But currently I do not see a lot of use in integration.
Why should I build a fort if I can build a city ?

Again, it is a good implementation, but for me it does not make a lot of sense to integrate it.

 

[Ronnar]

What is a See-Tee-Dee ("CTD") ? A secret code ?

Crash To Desktop - one step before BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) which is rare to get nowadays

 

[Kailric]

Well, a few functions don't seem to work... I posted a message in April. You told me you were going to look into it. In addition to the two or three functions that don't seem to work, you light bulb icon doesn't appear in the Civilopedia, and I think your "Convert Units" doesn't work properly if your units are traveling from Europe to the New World (or in the opposite way)....

Ok, will have to look into it Seriously, though yeah, there are bugs still. Those where all huge projects and I did mostly all the programming/merging myself. Anyway, I do hope to have more time to fix up my existing mods in the coming weeks.

About my Forts mod... I come to the same conclusion while play testing the mod, why build a fort when you can found a colony. I like the idea of Forts but some features would need to be redesigned to make it a more fun and viable part of the game.

The thing with that mod though is I introduced PlotGroups code from Civilization IV. In vanilla Col there is no way to tell if two cities are connected by roads or ocean tiles to simulate trade routes. In Civ IV you are able to trade, say, your extra Wine with your neighbor because you are connected by a trade route if there are roads.

Thats one feature from Civ IV that I felt was missing in Col cause it would increase Diplomacy and Trade options as well as allow for new features such as Colonies getting bonuses depending on if they are connected to certain Resources by a trade route.

One use would be if you are connected to a neighboring colony that is producing lots of extra tobacco, that you need, but its lacking in ore you could make a deal to swap five tobacco for five of your ore each turn. The deal would be broken it either side can't fulfill their quota or the trade route gets interrupted. At some point I want to add it to my Medieval and Inventor mods.

 

[raystuttgart]

About my Forts mod... I come to the same conclusion while play testing the mod, why build a fort when you can found a colony. I like the idea of Forts but some features would need to be redesigned to make it a more fun and viable part of the game.

Yes currently it does not make a lot of sense and I am very careful about redesigning base functionalities that nobody complains about ...

The thing with that mod though is I introduced PlotGroups code from Civilization IV. In vanilla Col there is no way to tell if two cities are connected by roads or ocean tiles to simulate trade routes. In Civ IV you are able to trade, say, your extra Wine with your neighbor because you are connected by a trade route if there are roads.

Yes, but that is one of the most interesting things in TAC:
You organize Trade Routes (with highly improved Trade Route Mechanism) with Transport Units.

I do not like to have goods beamed around between cities or nations.

Thats one feature from Civ IV that I felt was missing in Col cause it would increase Diplomacy and Trade options as well as allow for new features such as Colonies getting bonuses depending on if they are connected to certain Resources by a trade route.

One use would be if you are connected to a neighboring colony that is producing lots of extra tobacco, that you need, but its lacking in ore you could make a deal to swap five tobacco for five of your ore each turn. The deal would be broken it either side can't fulfill their quota or the trade route gets interrupted. At some point I want to add it to my Medieval and Inventor mods.

Trade-Routes in TAC / CivCol work very different compared to Civ4.

Here you create Trade Routes and assigning Wagon Trains or other Transport Units.
(In TAC this really works very very good, no comparison to vanilla.)

I simply do not want to have some invisible Trade Routes with no units on it.

The whole idea of "swapping or beaming goods" without having units involved is a concept I really do not want to have, sorry.
(There are some exceptions like Custom House, some small events, ...)

This might have been the way to do things in Civ4 but I do not think it is very applicable for CivCol.
(In CivCol ressources exist as goods that can be transported by units.)

I was brainstorming both ideas "Forts" and "Trade Routes defined by Routes instead of Units" quite some time with several people.
At the end almost everybody agreed that currently both ideas do not make a lot of sense.
(All ideas people had were at most replacing another working concept or at worst drastically interfering with another existing concept ...)

They could make sense if:
* several really good working basic concepts would be changed. --> I really do not want to do that.
* somebody finds a totally new and interesting concept that could use theses aspects --> We could not find even one.

Sorry.
(As I said, technically it is a great implementation ...)

Edit:

We were even discussing "Forts only as Improvement that gives defensive bonus".
At the end we all agreed that it would not be that useful either.

• There are very very few positions on most maps where enemy-units cannot simply walk around such a defensive building.
• Most players very much prefer the strategy "offense is the best defense".
• Usually players expand at a relatively high rate, so they would again found cities instead of forts.

So yes, this would be possible, but almost nobody really cared about it ...

You could simply have absolutely the same and even more by founding a city and building some defensive buildings.

 

[raystuttgart]

when will be release this mod?

Hi Darck-Phoenix,

1) We are just starting. We still need to define and agree on several features.
2) There will be several releases not only one. (It is simply too much for one release.)
3) We will need to wait for TAC 2.03 before we can start integration of our features.
4) This is a long term project and not something we will have finished by tomorrow.
5) It also really depends on how many people will join the team ...