RFC Classical World
- Thread starter srpt
- Start date
Ogi123
The End is the Beginning is the End
But you can remove them completely and roll bombard function into heavy infantry, representing building siege engines during siege. This also means that cavalry and light infantry cannot conquer well fortified cities on they own.
I think I may have accidentally uploaded an experimental DLL last time. hopefully this update will fix it.
svn 274
changelog
-Agrarianism now gives +1 commerce to farm, no food bonus
-Flood plains now give +2 food
-Woodsman promotions combat bonuses increased to compensate for the -25% forest defense but only available to archers and javelinmen
-hopefully fixed the Army Reformer events to go to the proper civs
-removed the health bonuses from the Cothon, they were not supposed to be there
-tightened the Ptolemies goals considerably: wonders now due in 225BC, Alexandria size and culture in 200BC and 7 ports in 180BC
-tightened Carthage's goals a bit: 6 luxuries in 180BC, Rome destroyed by 100BC, 9 luxuries in 50BC
-changed how the NPC spawn dates are set so that they always work even if there is a reload around the spawn date
about siege units and related things:
I share everyone's frustration at Civ's combat system and believe me I've lied awake many nights thinking of things to do to it. obviously the AI is the key. you make any kind of better system, but if it makes the AI even more incapable then you have really achieved nothing. I tried lowering their strength but giving them a city attack bonus to make them less useful in field battles but the AI just spammed them to the exclusion of any other attacking units. the last change I did on my own was too make catapults bombard-only, no attack. I then noticed that there is no UNIT_AI tag for bombard, only CITY_ATTACK and COLLATERAL. then in a game I got attacked by a fearsome Roman stack of a Legionary, a Horseman and 5 Catapults.
when I came back to the mod recently I put catapults back to vanilla stats and have had better games with much better AI unit use. a normal invasion stack from the Greek civs in my last 3 games has been 1 Heavy Spearman, 2 Catapults and 3 Spearmen, not a SOD but since I'm stretching myself to get UHVs it's actually a threat.
that being said, I'm happy to keep trying different ideas and removing catapults completely could work. either give collateral damage to the city attack promos or possibly make all units in cities take collateral (hard to make the AI know this, probably)
I do like the idea of cavalry having a city attack penalty, just need to make allowance for the Parthian's and Kushans needing to conquer large empires.
I think you could make walls a lot more important if you did something like this:
-no mounted units could attack walled cities, they would attack unwalled cities with no penalty
-the city attack promos would have a smaller city attack bonus, still triggering the siege tower graphic, but also cause collateral damage and bypass walls. this way city raider units would be essential for walled cities but not really needed for unwalled ones
-walls would more expensive and possibly require stone
-add an event like the washed-out-road where the walls fall into disrepair and you must pay gold or lose them to keep the whole world getting walled
-interesting possible side effect: mounted barbs would pillage more and raid deeper into your territory
That's not really historic imo - armies could build rams and ladders on the move but more complex siege engines like catapults and trebuchets needed careful forging for the metal components. You couldn't just build them on the fly, you needed to have them in your baggage train.
Not quite in the time period, but the main reason Manuel Komnenos lost the battle of Myriokephalon was that he lost his siege train and thus could no longer assault Ikonion. He had plenty of heavy infantry, but that was no use in building the types of equipment needed to actually bring down a fortified wall.
Ogi123
The End is the Beginning is the End
Well yes, but often simpler siege engines were build on spot. And this is mainly for gameplay reasons, if only thing that siege does is bombard then it can be removed without to much impact.
Simpler siege engines were generally only able to breach gates or climb over the walls - they still left the attackers at a significant disadvantage compared to those which could actually breach the walls.
And I disagree that the removal of siege wouldn't have much of an impact - you would have to build and protect siege units and strike a strategic balance between strong infantry and weaker siege units which move slower. Pretty much exactly what ancient armies had to do in order to overcome defences.
If you give bombard to heavy infantry (I assume you are referring solely to the heavy spearmen, swordsmen and heavy infantry units), you just encourage a blind spam of infantry which can overcome any defences and have no real meaningful weakness. Heavy infantry are generally already the strongest units in the game at every period, I don' think they need further buffs.
I think there are some odd upgrade paths (or lack of paths) at the moment. Whilst I appreciate that some of the following may result in unique units losing bonuses, the upgraded version would still be stronger:
- Why do Spearmen, Heija infantry, Uazali and Sarawit not upgrade into Heavy spearmen?
- Why do Heavy spearmen and Dao infantry not upgrade into Heavy infantry? (Or Swordsmen for that matter, as they are much more powerful)
- Why do Au Lac crossbowmen not upgrade into Marksmen?
- Why do Horsemen upgrade to Horse archers? Lancers would seem to make more sense.
- Why do Azatavrear, Hetairoi and Numidian cavalry not upgrade at all?
- Why do Longbowmen not upgrade to Marksmen?
- Why do Maccabees not upgrade at all?
- Why do Spearmen, Heija infantry, Uazali and Sarawit not upgrade into Heavy spearmen?
- Why do Heavy spearmen and Dao infantry not upgrade into Heavy infantry? (Or Swordsmen for that matter, as they are much more powerful)
- Why do Au Lac crossbowmen not upgrade into Marksmen?
- Why do Horsemen upgrade to Horse archers? Lancers would seem to make more sense.
- Why do Azatavrear, Hetairoi and Numidian cavalry not upgrade at all?
- Why do Longbowmen not upgrade to Marksmen?
- Why do Maccabees not upgrade at all?
Regarding combat, I really love the RFCE model. Generally, I believe that there should be a model that:
- spears beat cavalry
- axes / swords beat spears
- cavalry beat archers and melee
- archers severely damage melee
- horse archers beat melee
And using light + heavy units for each category. I really believe that arcers have a role to play on the offensive.
Actually this is another topic that I wished to discuss. As I am reading once again some ancient history, what I found out is that most of the ancient armies were relying A LOT on mercenaries, and on peltasts + archers. Really, a lot!! So What I would love to see is more AIs and humans relying on mercs rather on building units. Units should cost a lot, and reduce population of a city (since it is indeed taking some population to actually train them).
Also, for the catapults, you might want to add a +100% penalty when attacking cities; this way the catapults should focus on only reducing the defences. Being able to capture ships and catapults sounds fun!
- spears beat cavalry
- axes / swords beat spears
- cavalry beat archers and melee
- archers severely damage melee
- horse archers beat melee
And using light + heavy units for each category. I really believe that arcers have a role to play on the offensive.
Actually this is another topic that I wished to discuss. As I am reading once again some ancient history, what I found out is that most of the ancient armies were relying A LOT on mercenaries, and on peltasts + archers. Really, a lot!! So What I would love to see is more AIs and humans relying on mercs rather on building units. Units should cost a lot, and reduce population of a city (since it is indeed taking some population to actually train them).
Also, for the catapults, you might want to add a +100% penalty when attacking cities; this way the catapults should focus on only reducing the defences. Being able to capture ships and catapults sounds fun!
Ogi123
The End is the Beginning is the End
So lot of unit categories and if experience teach us anything most of them will be not used? Seriously from both gameplay and historical perspective it doesn't matter if unit is equipped with swords or spears.
But srpt will not, for understandable reasons, totally revamp whole unit rooster, so we are left with some tweaks propositions.
1. upgrade patch for heavy spear 8str +25% vs cav.
2.Javelin gets upgrade - heavy javelin 6str +50% vs melee.
3. Something need to be done with heavy inf unit, currently at 9 str +25%vs melee is not worth it, sword is cheaper, earlier and only one str less.
4.Capture able siege is ok idea, ships not so much. Perhaps boarding promo that gives X% chance to capture enemy ship.
5.Lots of UU are meh or OP, galatian inf, falxman are way to strong, seleucid UU is however meh at best.
My only complains are about AI diplomacy and production. AI cant use slavery so AI produces very little units. Second problem are insane alliances and general AI coordination of troop deployment. AI is very poor on warfare and something should be done about it.
are you saying the AI would build more units if it settled the slaves in it's cities? I generally use slaves as workers or to rush buildings and I still have plenty of production for units. getting the AI to use slaves properly would be in the DLL and probably a bit of a tangle. I'm not going to tackle it right now.
there are no alliances or defensive pacts in the game, not sure what you are talking about there.
yeah the AI isn't clever. we're all still here.
Hi, about alliances or defensive pacts I meant AI often asks me to join war... which is in China and I am somewhere around Mediterranean sea. Naturally it is impossible me to do anything on this situation because of distances. Really here the best solution would be AI only can ask x to join war against y if x and y share border.
And can you say which civ you have plenty of production and in which era? I found that many cities in earliest scenarios have little or none production, like Massilia. Only way to make these cities productive is to settle +5 slaves.
DC123456789
Deity
Minor suggestion: make Thrace historical for the Seleucids. It seems a bit odd that Greece and Macedonia are historical while Thrace isn't, and IIRC Thrace was actually controlled by the Seleucids longer than Macedonia.
Ogi123
The End is the Beginning is the End
There is problem with health now, too much problem IMHO. Now that each pop gives 2 unhealthy buildings should be improved to compensate. Aqueduct from 2 to 4 health, public baths 1 to 2, hospital from 2 to 4 or even 6. Secondly resources still give only 1 health, perhaps there should be some buildings that give +1 health per resource group (grains, animals, seafood etc.). Growth is already successfully limited thanks to reducing food from farm. Thirdly stockade building should be replaced with smoke-house, graphics and description can be taken from DoC.
Religions should not disappear if they are state ones, Zoroastrianism in example.
Brickhouse should be removed for workshop, +1hammer additional hammer from tech, so in end +2hammers.
Town should not be -1 food, overall there is problem that not riverside plains can not build any improvement except cottage.
Agrarianism change to low upkeep, no penalties, +1 commerce from farm, pasture, plantation.
Theocracy needs be removed or get some bonuses, as for now only Arabs use it, it is underwhelming civic.
Religions should not disappear if they are state ones, Zoroastrianism in example.
Brickhouse should be removed for workshop, +1hammer additional hammer from tech, so in end +2hammers.
Town should not be -1 food, overall there is problem that not riverside plains can not build any improvement except cottage.
Agrarianism change to low upkeep, no penalties, +1 commerce from farm, pasture, plantation.
Theocracy needs be removed or get some bonuses, as for now only Arabs use it, it is underwhelming civic.
Ogi123
The End is the Beginning is the End
Question: does anybody know where are xml that regulate unhappy/uhealthy per population?
agreed, I will add it
this is a civ IV thing, not a Classical World thing. I agree it's annoying but I can't prioritize it right now.
I was talking about the 3 starting Greek civs, which I've just finished playing. I'm saying in those games I had enough production to accomplish my goals. there are definitely some production-poor sites.
there is a python script which runs when the AI gets a slave which gives it hammers or money instead of the slave in certain circumstances. in the future I will either make this routine more comprehensive, including settling slaves in production-poor cities, or right an actually slave AI routine in the DLL if it's not too hard.
when I stated playing the mod I thought health was too easy and this didn't reflect the time period. there are a lot of health resources on the map, especially in the mediterranean. that was why I set health at -2/pop. I'm happy to change it back if that's a more popular option.
I will set Granaries and Harbors to give +1 health each and require the resources to build. I think giving them +1 per resource is too much.
agree. I will change it.
in ancient times mud bricks were an important building material and I thought this would be a cool way to add production to flood plains. if you allow an identical building on any flatland the uniqueness is gone.
non-riverside plains is supposed to be near-useless land. you shouldn't even be able to build cottages there imo.
I like the fact that the landscape does not get totally industrialized in this mod, at least not in the early game.
I think Agrarianism can stay medium upkeep. I agree about the bonuses to farms, plantations and orchards but not pastures.
see below
it's not in the xml it's in the DLL. I will be changing it back soon.
there are some bigger changes in the works that I wanted to let you guys know about and get feedback on.
one of the directions I'm going, which I'm sure will agree with many of you, is simplifying things, getting closer to vanilla civ in some ways and removing features that were cool ideas and fun to code, but in the end didn't really add much and felt cluttered. there as a time when I wanted the mod to have as many unique aspects to it as I could put in. I really don't feel that way any more. now I just want the macro-AI situation to function well and for the rest of it to be simple and intuitive.
things I'm taking out:
the distance penalty for tile yields
unhealth from specialists that produce hammers
the religious resources
the 2 extra kinds of specialists, artisans and tradesmen, along with their corporations
I know the last 2 were already disabled, they will be removed.
for flavor, I will rename artists artisans and engineers craftsmen
I'd like to add a slave merchants corp which would yield gold based on settled slaves and allow selling slaves in that city
lately I have tried to improve the unit progression. I have a new setup I like but that caused me to seriously look at the tech tree and it seems very confused in the area of military units. there are also quite a few useless techs, either because they don't allow anything or because everyone starts with them. I have been working on a complete rewrite. a few points about that:
in general tech progression in this mod is strange and uneven. there are civs that are quite advanced right at the start and there are civs at the end that are quite primitive. after the romans it's hard to put your finger on any significant improvements in infantry tactics or equipment.
the tech tree wants to be deep, not long. there are many different branches of research that don't really depend on each other, but its hard to come up with more than 4 columns. this of course makes it very beeline-able.
I find it easier at times to limit military beelining by adding prereqs to the units rather than the techs. its much more obvious that heavy swordsmen should require both metallurgy and chaimail than that either of those techs should require each other.
attached is a draft new tech tree in spreadsheet form. one thing to note: I am not going to try to make if fit the screen height. if you have to scroll up and down, that's ok with me. I just don't want to put that restriction on, at least for now. and this is a draft, I'm not proposing it as a tech tree as-is.
there are only 50 techs in this tree, down about 30 techs from before. I know that's a huge amount and I'm open to adding some so suggestions are welcome.
I'm having a hard time justifying more than 4 civics per category. the Syncretism/Free Religion the Wage Labor civics aren't really appropriate for the period and have to be considered hypothetical and the Theocracy, Religious Law and Militancy civics apply to so few civs they could be UPs instead. the civics of the period don't really evolve in a definite direction. there was slavery and empire in 320BC and slavery and empire in 800AD. the civics I'm thinking of keeping are:
Spoiler :
this is the unit scheme:
Spoiler :
there is no final heavy infantry (post heavy swordsman) in here, but I'm not against adding one. I'd love to have a clear idea of what is represents though.
some thoughts about the heavy spearman thing. yes they are available to some civs at the start and yes they remain the default melee unit for most of the game and the default anti-cavalry for the whole game. imo this is fine, even a flavor-feature of the mod. I'm not really aware of any infantry force that was that much better at facing a cavalry charge than a macedonian phalanx, let alone an across the board upgrade that actually countered contemporary cavalry. heavy spearman lose any advantage over heavy swordsmen in the above setup, so they do sort of go obsolete when the heavy swordsmen come out.
I'm really interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this. nothing is carved in stone but I want it to be simpler.
Ogi123
The End is the Beginning is the End
I really like all of those changes.
Problem with plains is that currently lot of cities have 3-4 practically workable titles, in my last Sassanid game eastern cities were all 4 -6 pop, almost no food and no ability to build anything.
Brickworks are historical I agree but currently they are buildable only on some riverside titles, basically my problem is that I don't have almost any choice as far as placing improvements, farms everywhere, some cottages and brickworks, both limited in placement. If we are talking about improvements what about windmill from what I can remember is available at very end of the game and gives only +1food/commerce that means that I never build any, perhaps give them +2hammers.
Units - marksman and crossbowman are really similar, and aren't they somewhat to strong? Archer will be almost impossible to dislodge from cities...
Perhaps something like this:
Archer 4 Str +25% city def 1 first strike
Marksmen 6 Str +25% city def 1 first strike
Croosbow 6Str +50%vs melee 1 first strike
Heavy sword - reduce city attack bonus to 10%
Fortified archer/marksman have then +50% city def, +40% vs axe/sword. That is what 4/6 vs 3,5/5,5 so about 60%+ victory chance for defender when you add first strike.
After all it worked in normal civ4 so why rediscover wheel?
Eventually if you want 7 str longbow/crossbow one gets +25% city def other +25% vs melee.
There also should be some catapult upgrade, heavy catapult 5str +50% city attack?
Of course new unit line up means redesign of all UU.
There isn't any need for additional infantry unit after heavy sword, for both gameplay and historical reasons.
About tech tree - perhaps do it like fall from heaven, there you have practically 4 separate tech trees.
Any more specific ideas about civics?
yeah, probably something like this
there is no good art for this besides the trebuchet art. the chinese did have traction trebuchets in this period, so I'll probably just use it.
not really. all the axeman replacements will become swordsman replacements, heavy infantry replacements become heavy swordsman replacements
mostly as they are, with theocracy, religious law, wage labor, military economy, and syncretism removed and agrarianism as described above.
