Units are absolutely stunning, I was going to comment on that. From the very first sight I was struck how many beautiful units you were able to assemble and I also was surprised by many Pedia articles already existing. With every new mod I always check 2 things first: I press Ctrl W and F12. Is this the exact SoI map extended? Perhaps vertical to horizontal ratio is what makes the default zoom so attractive. I also love the flag and the color, reminds me of grapes.
We have tons of civs and leaders on this forum, some modders make a new civ every week. Did you check my link? By the way, Mithridates I and II both shown with beards on the coins, while Tigranes would look cleanly shaved, more like a Greek then Iranian (even though we are unrelated to both great nations, Armenians are at least Indo-Europeans, not Semitic, like those Bearded Babylonians and Shumers).
I think that most (if not all) units should be able to got through jungle. I understand why this feature is in the game, but I think it has a too big inpact on some civs. Especially Au Lac, Funan and Sri Vijyaja. Because of the Jungle, these civs can move their units very limited. And they don't have access to their resources for a long time. This makes them very hard (almost impossible) to play.
It actually won't have a big impact on the other civs. The only parts which have many jungle tiles are the Sub-Saharan Jungle, South East Asia and the Indonesian Islands. Most of the civs will never even come to these areas, and so won't be affected by the change. The only civs that will are the ones I named above. (Maybe the Indian civs too, but I think the amount of jungle tiles in India is that little to be too much effected.)
For the same reason, I think that chopping Jungle should be available earlier.
A way to balance this is to make only foot-soldiers (archery, melee and recon units) can move through Jungle. So all mounted units (both missile cavalry as heavy cavalry) and siege units are still unable to move through jungles.
In addition, the Vietname UP could be that, alongside their "promotion" UP, also mounted and siege units can move through jungle.
allow all light infantry (javelin, archer, spearman, axeman but not heavy spearman or swordsman) to enter jungle.
make engineering the jungle-clearing tech.
change the jungle on most or all of the resource tiles to tropical forest (I put the jungles there before merijn added the resources).
change some jungle to tropical forest via python around 300AD
open a path through northern Burma to Tibet when they spawn.
about the mines a on resourceless hills, I actually did that on purpose, so I'm interested in everyone's opinion. I know its an unorthodox move, but I like it.
first, what are those mines mining? not iron, copper, stone, marble, gold, silver, gems or coal. makes no sense really. perhaps they are mining dirt. or sand?
second, there are a lot of plains hills on this map and some cities that shouldn't be all that great become production monsters. Most of the land represented by those plains hills was (and often still is) sparsely populated and relatively unproductive. I don't really want that much production on the map.
third, it makes much more sense to me to get production from villages/towns and from city population/laborers/citizens. I think citizens should produce 1 gold as well as 1 hammer. I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be as taxable as a farmer and then you could hire them without losing money every time. or perhaps they could produce 1 gold with an appropriate civic. I would also buff villages and towns by 1 hammer each or maybe even go 1/2/3 hammers for hamlet/village /town. I honestly think the map would balance better this way.
about Tigranes. yes I checked the link but I didn't think the leaderhead there looked anything like Tigranes on the coin. I am correct that those are ear flaps on his hat, not his hair? I would like to find something with a cap like that. can anyone out there do simple leaderhead things like add/remove hats/beards etc? also, history is replete with bearded indo-europeans, not to mention greeks: semites have no monopoly there. and I don't think the Sumerian language was Semitic.
no its not the SoI map. I took it from a source that I could not find again when I went looking for it. it was a 200BC scenario and I think it said that the map was a cut-down of G.E.M. Its been very heavily modified since then though.
I'm not sure about the mines idea. It needs lots of testing to rebalance all units' and buildings' costs. Mines are the only way for some cities to get some production. With no general production stimulating improvement, some cities completely rely on whipping to get the infrastructure ready. Cottages really become the dominant improvement, I don't know if that's the way to go in an ancient oriented mod.
I think the result is going to be that food-rich areas like East China or Gaul get stronger because of cottage spam possibilities, while other areas like inner-Persia lose their strength because there is not enough food to grow, and it's a great investment to work cottages on hills, hoping these become productive towns once, not even mentioning the Plague. I know this sounds a bit sceptical (not the first time, see RFCE), so I may well be proven wrong. For now I'd say keeping mines as is and balancing other things would be the way to go.
well I have been playing the Kushans a bit which means I have been checking out auto-plays to 50AD. the Romans are doing well, the Celts usually collapse, which is good (I put stability penalty in for them). the Parthians have done well too and from the huge armies they and the Satavahanas have thrown at me I can say those civs do not lack production, and this is with no mines without resources.
I've changed the Kushan UU to +1 strength, +25% attack vs horse archer and lancer, to give them a chance against the Parthians. also gave them more units at spawn and more when in a flipping war. they also flip Margiana now.
What do the farmers farming on the plot without Wheat resource? Miners are mining Iron Ore in limited quantities, enough to create a production in local city but not enough to provide a resources for the entire Empire. I mean, I am already having hard time with forests without yields ( I wonder why)... Please don't continue in that direction .
I am having very hard time as Armenia with overall research and production rate for this not so early civ. I have a feeling hidden modifires for growth of the later civs are not properly adjusted. Why all the buildings and techs are so expensive?
Also regionList = [con.rArmenia, con.rCaucasus, con.rSyria] does not include Media and Judea.
How is Christianity scripted in the mod? Does it appear in Jerusalem if nobody discovered it around 30 AD? Do I absolutely have to discover the tech or I can convert the first as soon as I get one city with a cross in it?
don't worry nothing is written in stone, just trying things out.
yes Christianity will found in Jerusalem around 30AD. you don't have to found it, just be first to convert.
the victory text is wrong you only need Armenia, Caucasus and Syria. I was going to add 1 city each in Anatolia and Mesopotamia possibly to make it it harder.
the tech cost might be out of balance for Armenia. I haven't played them in a while. you should be able to get State Religion by the time Christianity is founded if you beeline it and use great saints.
I think mines should still be buildable on hills. For most cities, mined hills are the only way to have a decent production. If you take away the mines, those cities are crap. And I'm afraid giving the production bonus to towns will make them OP.
We could however change the mines to add 1 instead of 2.
We shouldn't concern about the units too much. We should balance that when we have the new unit line.
For the same reason, I don't think we should balance some UHV dates for now. (Like the Egyptian 3rd UHV) When we have the new tech-tree, the balance might be completly of. IMO, it's a waste of time then. I think we should first introduce the new unit-, building-, and tech-tree before we balance the UHV dates too much.
here is Antioch with no harbor or fishing boats at size 6 building a Hoplite in 15 turns with no mines, a production monster Ecbatana with no mines, the stack Parthia built to kill me with no mines, and a mini map of the world around 75AD with no mines. I really don't see anything wrong with any of it. pretty much every city site has enough resources to occupy its population. Herat, Parsa, Ecbatana and even Hecatompylos are good city sites without mining resourceless hills. towns should be powerful, they take a while to grow and they are vulnerable to setbacks.
its possible that some later buildings and units cost too much right now. I am just now getting to balancing the Kushan start. I think everything up to there is at least in the right ballpark. sure it would be great if the Romans were even more aggressive but they are going in the right direction. the Han have been monsters after 50AD. I think they and the Parthians need stability penalties or more barbs. I did increase the pre-Kushan barbs and it helped. the Kushans had no production problems. Merv was a bit weak, but the other cities pumped out units at a good rate. I had to disallow drafting with vassalage after the Satavahanas sent about 50 Heavy Spearmen at me.
I'm not sure what unit changes you're thinking of. I'm fine with adding Chariot Archers or anything else that was around back then but I think the basic structure is fine. Armored/Heavy javelineers might be cool, as well as armored bowmen for the early medieval period. I think Chainmail would be a good tech, needed for Heavy Infantry, Pikemen or whatever they end up being called, armored bowmen, heavy lancers. later ships obviously need a total overhaul, just haven't gotten there yet. I know that compared to some mods, there isn't much change in military tech over the 1000 years covered, but the fact is that Alexander's army fought with iron swords and so did Charlemagne's.
as for the tech tree, yes I'd like to finalise it. I have it all planned but last time I tried to make the changes I got unexplainable crashes so I had to revert. the changes will not be radical, but I will eliminate all the tech that everyone starts with (bronze working, pottery etc) and most of the techs that just gave a civic. I think the new version is also less confusing to navigate. here it is, for the curious:
Spoiler:
tech prerequisites
elephant training elephants
military drill heavy spearman (with iron)
agriculture farm, granary
luxury trade fairground, caravan
iron working iron
monarchy monarchy civic
writing research, spies
horsemanship horseman, skirmisher
archery archer
sailing galley, work boat
construction walls
marksmanship* archery and iron working marksman
horticulture agriculture orchard, winery etc.
currency luxury trade and writing wealth, market, gold trading
caste system* agriculture caste system civic
siege engines construction and iron working catapult
metal casting iron working forge
astronomy writing observatory
alphabet writing library
priesthood writing temple
stern rudder sailing and construction great galley
vassalage monarchy vassalge civic
literature alphabet and priesthood great library
philosophy priesthood and alphabet
naval warfare siege engines and sailing trireme
calendar astronomy
code of laws monarchy and alphabet courthouse
bulk trade currency warehouse, trade economy civic
navigation stern rudder and astronomy dhow
patronage vassalage patronage civic
aesthetics patronage and philosophy
mathematics calendar and alphabet
monasticism philosophy monastery
crop rotation horticulture and calendar reveals barley and rice
jurisprudence code of laws and philosophy oligarchy civic
state religion code of laws and priesthood state religion civic
wage labor bulk trade and code of laws wage labor civic
agrarianism crop rotation and bulk trade agrarianism civic
education jurisprudence and monasticism university
cartography mathematics map trading
serfdom agrarianism and vassalage serfdom civic
manufactured trade wage labor and engineering
selective breeding horsemanship and crop rotation lancer (with iron)
steel working metal casting and mathematics swordsman
engineering construction and mathematics aqueduct, paved roads, heavy catapult
theology state religion christianity
the plough agrarianism and metal casting plus one food from farm
architecture engineering and aesthetics cathedral
paper education
mysticism theology manichaeism, militancy civic
the stirrup selective breeding and steel working heavy lancer (with blast furnace and iron)
horse archery* selective breeding and marksmanship horse archer, heavy horse archer (with the stirrup and steel working)
blast furnace steel working and engineering heavy infantry, pikeman
sanitation engineering sewer
machinery engineering and steel working windmill and watermill
bureaucracy paper bureacracy civic
banking manufactured trade and bureaucracy bank
astrolabe navigation and machinery plus one ship movement
medicine sanitation and education medic promotion, hospital
theocracy mysticism islam
syncretism mysticism syncretism civic
printing press paper and machinery
alchemy blast furnace and education
Sorry, but I really don't see a reason to remove mines. Tigranes had it exactly right: just that there's no resource on the tile doesn't mean there's nothing to mine, only that it isn't enough to supply a whole empire. So it's throwing out a balanced game mechanic for no gain.
On the other hand: hills on plains are now more valuable with a town than with a mine. I think the direction with the -1 food for a village and town is the right one. I don't know about mines, it still seems weird that a hill with a forest is best in an unimproved state, simply because it can't be improved for quite a while.
I actually don't consider it a balanced game mechanic. I've never liked the way cities surrounded by hills got more production than those without. also, I'm not much of a min/max player, but the consensus seems to be that cottages as is are almost useless.
and as for balance, as indicated in the screenshots above, its fine. theres lots of production and lots of huge armies. I'm having to nerf the Han, Satavahana and Parthian production further and give them more barbs. I'm not looking for more production. I really don't think theres more than a small handful of cities on this map that will struggle with production, and those are probably supposed to be minor cities anyway. I don't want Parsa's production to dwarf Babylon's even though Babylon is bigger.
no one is actually showing me how this is going to wreck the game. you are all voicing deep suspicions but I am rolling 370 year auto-plays and theres plenty of production and everything is reasonably balanced.
sorry to be stubborn but I am enjoying this argument.
the forests make sense to me. they are being gradually logged for timber. the fact that forests on hills plains produce more than the ones on grass is weird though.
I honestly think the marginal iron/stone whatever you would get from that hills plains land, when it doesn't have a resource concentration, is better represented by that little hut that shows "land worked" and 2 hammers than a mine and 4 hammers.
I didn't mean to allow cottages on hills, but perhaps they could be made to cap out at hamlet if on plains hills and village on grass.
I accidently wrote that but later on I saw that cottages aren't allowed on hills, which is why I said there is no possible improvement on hills for quite some time. Sorry for the inconvenience on that one. Your solution works, but I'm still not sure how this works out. It means that every single hill gets a cottage, simply because it's the only improvement to build. A large suburban are in Iran is what I imagine. Then again, I'm not doing test runs but the concerns are not so much about balance, but about options of play. Just like forests that can't be worked for a long time, hills might become rather dull tiles. It's not necessarily bad, but one of the core strengths of Civ 4 is the 'one more turn' need. I have to say though that this modmod is already doing a very good job her since it keeps being dynamic (better than RFCE for example).
thanks for bugging me about that. I tend to wait and see what the civ really needs before making a UP. also some of them are "when I learn how to do that". also the text is behind the times on some of them. I'm tidying it up a bit now. almost everything up to the Kushans is done. I'm open to ideas for the others.
You would need to solve that commit problem , man, even if it takes to get a new svn account/host... I mean you have enough to worry about. Did you disable pillaging roads? That pillage bug really ruining my joy as I play, please please load Armenia and see for yourself. Also, I suggest you to provide all the civs with Russian UP from vanila RFC -- this would be a pretty revolutionary way to simulate the resistance of country side as the enemy army marches through. And finally Tyrany is really useless civic -- to many bad things for 1 good. Perhaps +25% production of buildings can be a logical good thing from that civic?
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instead of 2.
