Beta 8
General changes:
revised map of Balkans, Greece, Carpathian-basin, Lithuania
XML updates:
Updated unique UHV names
"Build Vineyard" instead of "Build Winery" when you build the Vineyard improvement
German territory UHV has proper description
Proper date for Cordoban 2nd UHV in the pedia
Art updates:
Gold icon instead of text in the pedia of Manor House
"Remove Mud" worker action shows proper button
New LHs: Ivan Asen II for Bulgaria, Karl XII for Sweden
LH update: Barbarossa, Mindaugas, Vytautas
Return of the UHV Counters, they should be working again
Upgrade to the Victory screen, now players can see won/lost provinces
Balance:
Nerfed Byzantine Stability
Germany UHV no longer requires conquest of Bohemia (we should probably redo the entire thing)
Cities in outer and none provinces are more likely to declare independence (whether a city declares independence has the same odds, the change is in which city)
Independent players now have no state religion, making the AI hate them more and losing the "fighting brothers in faith" penalty
Islamic Madrassa has equal features to the Christian Monasteries
Boost of stability for small Empires (they canno build many buildings)
Norse no longer get stability penalty for razing cities
Norse get 2 more Galleys at the start (go explore early)
Norse now need to raze only 6 cities (10 is a lot, since Independents don't count)
Merged provinces in England, otherwise they have to build too many cities to cover them all
Moved Horses around Preslav, the AI sees that the plot is close to Byzantine territory and doesn't connect them
Added a roads around the Russian rivers to let units move faster (better River Trade)
Buffed Portugal and Dutch colony production speed
Portugal UP now covers Trading Companies as well as colonies
Increased the cost for Guisarmier, it is very cheap and the AI makes tons of them. Also, since the mounted units got nerfed, we don't need so many of those.
Tech cannot be traded for 20 turns after its historic date
Tech cost would be lowered less after the histroic date
Lithuanian AI is now aware of the Pagan UP and will not instantly flip to a religion
Added more starting techs and units to Austria to balance their leter start
Adjusted Poland War and Settler maps
Bugfixes:
TEXT_KEY_AGE_MEDIEVAL bug in the religion and corporation infoscreen
Fixed the Venetian UHV (no longer requires conquest of Morea)
Fixed a Venetian Stability Bug, they no longer start with Feudal Law (which is incompatible with Merchant Republic)
Fixed a bug allowing Crusaders to spawn for dead players
Fixed a bug preventing the Human from getting production/research benefits/penalties
Fixed a bug allowing Venetian units to enter Venice even when it is conquered by other players
Fixed a bug pushing Crusades outside of spawn location due to slip of the target city, Crusaders now declare war to the new owner of the city
Fixed TXT_KEY_GREAT_GENERAL_FREDERICK_BARBAROSSA
Fixed techs turns left would often be one turn off
Beta 7
Provinces
The map is now divided into Provinces. Those play major factor for both Stability and UHV conditions. Remember to hold Ctr when hovering over a Province to see all the tiles that belong to it.
New Stability Scheme
Stability now works different than before. Every point counts (big time). Most things that you would normally do, lower your stability. The main source of positive Stability would be the four buildings: Manor House, Courthouse, Castle and Night Watch. Here is some stability advice:
- Expand slowly, make sure you have positive Stability and wait to build Stability boost buildings before you expand. Don't go spamming cities into Unstable (or even Stable) territory right away.
- Purge foreign religion from your cities (doesn't count for Poland).
- Keep your cities happy and healthy, protected and don't warmonger too much.
- Your citizens should work tiles with improvements prioritizing resources. Don't let your cities grow without commerce and production boosting buildings.
- Don't over-expand too quickly and don't let enemy cities in your core territory.
New Tech Rate
It is now very hard to get too far ahead in technology. Tech cost adjusts dynamically, depending on the historic time of each tech. You cannot get too far ahead and it is also harder to fall behind (although you can fall behind). Overall, you will not see any Knight in the 11th century and colonies do not get founded before the 16th century.
New Victory Interface
Now we can actually read what the victory conditions are. The entire Victory module was rewritten so that the interface can become even better in the future. Eventually, we will be showing counters for each UHV as well as dynamically the progress of each province Conquered or Lost.
Timeline of Europe
We are moving closer and closer to a historically accurate Timeline of Europe. Most of the UHV conditions and techs are already tied to one major event or another. Overall the mod should be more historical than before.
New Civilization: Lithuania
In the view of all the other changes, this looks like a small one. There a lot more to be done in terms of balancing Lithuania, but we do have a playable civilization now.
New Bugs for Your Enjoyment
Thanks to Opera and other testers, we have cleaned a ton of bugs already, but there are more lurking around. Overall this Beta will be somewhat unstable, but we hope to have everything fixed by next week when we want to release Beta 8.
Beta 6
- merijn_v1 updates some text on the new Manor House/Civic
- art and text changes by merijn_v1
- fixed Hungarian spawn units (2 Axes, 3 Horse Archers)
- fixed Hungarian UU, now it accurately replaces the Heavy Lancer
- removed the Congress.py file, it wasn't used at all
- removed the first strikes from the Konnik
- moved the Heavy Lancer Icon to Blast Furnace
- Blast Furnace now requires Feudalism
- The Pope no longer collapses due to bad stability
- Changes Burgundian UB to Winery (extra culture, extra health from Wine), art has not been changed
- Various Religious wonders now give Faith points
- Increaded the FP bonus form Cathedrals to 3
- Increased the requirement for Bulgarian UHV to 60 points
- Faith points are capped at 60, can be adjusted for every individual religion
- Pope AI now avoids the Printing Press
- Added AI cheat code, now some players get bonus for AI to AI battles. We can use that to boost some Ai players and get more historic game (like Ottomans vs Byzantium and Bulgaria)
- Dutch gets a "hidden" buff on the Faith Points, with only couple of cities, they can never accumulate enough
- lots of leaderhead and XML text changes from AbsintheRed
- merijn_v1 updates pedia (and Barb leader no longer shows)
- merijn_v1 updates art for Burgundian Winery
- Free Religion now allows construction of Cathedrals and Wonders from all religions
- The Brothers at War property only affects Orthodox players (or playes associated with the Round Church's State Religion tag)
- FP capped at 100, bonuses reduces, saints give 10FP, wonders and cathedrals give 4 and 6 FP respectively
- Changed Kiev UHV, Religious buildings have to be build by 1250AD and instead of the Grain, one has to produce 20,000 food by 1300AD
- Changes France second UHV, instead of wonders, they have to conquer Jerusalem. Otherwise, you get the same 2nd and 3d UHV, just build like crazy.
- Changes Burgundy UHV, they have to produce 10,000 culture, culture-bombs don't count (probably needs balancing)
- Added feedback on the UHV progress for Arabia, Burgundy, Norse and Kiev (will add more later)
- Merged some code in the C++ to speed things up (thanks to Sephi and Edead)
- Bugfix - Manor House used to not give Stability
- Bugfix - Spanish UP now gives Espionage points
- Bugfix - Genoa Bank and Corp UHV
- Bugfix - Human now gets only +1 Faith from prosecuting (the AI gets +1, Human used to get +2)
- Bugfix - Norse get Manorialism as a starting tech
- Bugfix - French leaders now follow correctly Charlemagne, Joan, Jouis
- Bugfix - Updated the starting years on the autorun Popup screen (Bulgaria, Hungary, Kiev and Cordoba were off)
- Bugfix - it was that Burgundy loses an UHV if they lose a city to France or Germany, this was leftover from an older UHV
- Bugfix - Norse city razing UHV works now
Beta 5
- added merijn_v1 XML modifications, some unit abilities and removing old and unused XML entries
- Fixed the Papal Culture Bug
- Fixed Venetian UHV
- Moved Hungarian and Kievan starting turns, with no conflict with Cordoba, we can use more historical dates (note on the bug of one extra autoturn)
- Added info for Stability, Faith, GP and GG
- Removed the exile mechanics
- Nerf to the Barbarians around Frankia, to many to allow you to grow
- Changed the Bulgarian Konnik to more appropriate early Lancer, Bulgaria now gets fewer Konniks on spawn (looks balanced)
- Cordoba and Turkey now start Muslim, the Dutch start Protestant
- Moved the Autorun constants to Python (now we don't have to worry about strange bugs like fighting barbs or meeting other nations before you spawn, if we change the unit XML files, just keep Python in sync)
- Updated small region on the map in the middle of the desert, has to do with the Autorun so "don't touch"
- Get a speedup the hack on the semi-random bugfix from Beta 4 (look below)
- Move University to Philosophy, Education gives a free GS
- National University goes to Paper
- Brewery: +1 Happy, Happyness with berley, (removed one person scientist, I didn't realize we had that with the Monasteries), lowered cost
- Change the Smokeshouse to give health from meat, changed the cost of building it
- Guild hall gives an engineer, an engeneer slot and a merchant slot
- Removed Stability bonus from the Dungeon
- Cordoba, Turkey and the Dutch start with their religions already set
- Updated main menu music (much better quality)
- Market gives only one Merchant slot
- Inn gives +2 esp, 10% gold with wine, -10 war worry and 1 spy slot
- Many wonders now require a specific state religion (as opposed to a religion being in the city)
- Changed the Manor House to give money early on
- Manor house gives +2 gold only with Manorialism (the AI is "aware" of that)
- Early Lancers and Heavy Lancers are somewhat OP, rased the cost of tech and construction
- Mounted Sergeants and Horse Archers come with Stirrup
- Lancers reuire Farriers, Heavy Lancers require Blast Furnace
- The cost of early mounted units has increased
- Hungarian Huszars are not lighter version of Heavy Cavalry, they don't require Iron, they are a bit cheaper, strength reduced to 9 (very few units have bonus vs light-cavalry)
- Hungary starts with 3 Horse Archers (in place of a Swordsman and an Axeman)
- Ghazi are the same as before (didn't want to mess up Arabia)
- Druzjina and Cataphrac also require Blast Furnace and have their cost increased
- The strength of Pistoler increased to 12
- Chateau moved as Frankia's UB, Salon moved to Burgundy (we probably need something completely different for Burgundy, I think Brewery -> Winery for Burgundian wine)
- Chateau bonus changed to +2 hammers (Frankia can really use the boost early on)
- Brothers in Faith bonus (i.e. Round Church) gives you penalty to diplomacy with people form the same faith (keep Orthodox fighting each other, as they were historically)
- Civs without state religion (i.e. Pagans) suffee diplomatic penalty from players with State Religion
- Turkey should finally be getting Constantinople
- Changed the AI flags for the Mediterranean pirates to act more like the Vikings
The big things are:
- the Ottoman AI that should capture Constantinople (even if you play another civ, please use the WorldBuilder to keep an eye on whether or not this is working).
- Early Frank Empire, the synergy between Manorialism and Manor House/Chateau
- Changes to buildings and early cavalry units
Changes for Beta 4:
Changes for Beta 3: