Rhye's Catapult

[karmina]

The only empty part of code is the number and type of units added for each civ.
I'll let you discuss what's better in your opinion, from both point of views of history and balancement.

Ouch, I'm seeing huge balancing issues piling up here...
The number of units, and maybe even the type, must vary with difficulty level, barbarian activity...most certainly also with overall actual performance (score, strength, techs) of the player and other AIs. Scaling with difficulty level should be manageable, but I have no idea how you can reliably judge strength & advancements. There's no point in e.g. spawning Spain with 2 settlers and 4 macemen when your Roman civilization has already taken over the rest of Europe with rifles.

Apart from that, I think it's safe to say that the BC civilizations should start with a small amount of their unique units (with the exception of Germany, who should get axes), and 1-4 settlers plus the same amount of workers - depending on the difficutly level (Deity=4, Noble=2). Maybe add one fishing boat for Greece, Rome and Japan.
The 4000BC civilizations should get the default units, including default difficulty modifiers.

For any AD civ I don't think the type of starting units can be generalized; it depends on the actual course of the game...(on the other hand, maybe it could be even fun to reliably dominate Europe and every known civ with maces, when suddenly an army of cossacks pops up out of nowhere! )

 

[Aeon221]

Karmina raised an interesting point there (at least in my opinion):

There's no point in e.g. spawning Spain with 2 settlers and 4 macemen when your Roman civilization has already taken over the rest of Europe with rifles.

What happens then? I'm thinking its unfair to penalize a civ that expanded well and has a good bit of territory, but... there really aren't a whole lot of locational options.

I know you said that they would be spawned in a wider geographical region should there fail to be space (I remember looking at the coding of the desert scenario and seeing all the region coding, so I understand how that would work), but just how wide an area?

And how much of a slowdown in development are we going to see in development to allow these civs to have a fair chance of growing?

 

[Rhye]

variation based on difficulty level and neighbours advancement is a necessary step, but it should be done after a basic outline is polished.
So I still have to ask you (always if you want) more detailed suggestions on the number of starting settlers, workers, and units, regardless of difficulty levels or tech modifiers. And keeping in mind that barbarian behaviour will play a randomizer role cos some cities will be converted to the new owner.

I didn't code Desert War, so I don't know what you've seen. Anyway here I'm using a starting plot coordinates, a smaller area and a broader area.
If Rome is so big, then it would lose some of its cities in that region, the smaller area (currently it should have more than 4 cities and odds will rise with that number. Barbarian cities are always flipped instead).

If there aren't cities that can be flipped, then the settler will be placed somewhere in a broader area that for example in the American case would cover a large part of North America.

 

[Barak]

I have a couple of questions...

When civs are founded, will they be up to par technologically with their rivals, or start with warriors for defense and no techs?

Also, what will happen in balancing issues if the Human plays France from 4000BC with no rivals nearby. I assume that all future competition will start as barb minor civ cities? Also, if that is true, if the human captures the barb city of Berlin, how will the German civ be founded?

thanks in advance

 

[Aeon221]

@Rhye: The WW2 scenario included in the game? Huh, I thought you were a part of that one. Oh well, my mistake

Regardless, it uses the same region setup in its events manager to determine what is going to happen vis a vis victory conditions as you are with city placement.

If anyone else is as new to coding as I am, its a good idea to peek into all the xml and python of the boxed scenarios.

@Barak: I think what will happen (based on Rhye's last post) is that any empire totally hogging a territory (ie: Rome has entirely settled the Iberian Peninsula when Spain forms) will have a high risk of its cities flipping to the new civ. If there are no cities (barbarian or player or ai) in the area, a settler will be placed.

I'm also pretty sure we will not see a barbarian city named Berlin or Madrid, as that would be fairly anachronistic, which is what Rhye is trying to avoid.

Suggestion: Replace Greece with Macedonia and have it spawn around the same time that Persia does. It makes better sense with the Phalanx unit (Greeks would have a hoplite or a trireme uu) and the Alexander leaderhead.

Justification:Greece had a fairly long Dark Age, and there were settlements in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers long before there were cities in Greece. In fact, it is fairly certain that Sumer developed writing before Egypt (although I remember reading about a Zero Dynasty in Egypt that would have put them ahead... but nothing came of that as far as I know).

Granted, the Sumerians were city state people, and granted the 'barbarians' model city states just fine... but if the earliest civ in existence, the one that basically figured out writing, grain farming, and the wheel, as well as laid the foundations of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Gilgamesh epic, and Sumerian religion in general, was co-opted by the Peoples of the Book quite nicely, and the flood myth may have been spread as far north as the Nordic peoples by Greek and Celtic traders. Regardless of the existence of a God, the writing and the stories are too similar to deny the syncretism by any academic means) is going to be a string of barbarian city states, then Greece, as another city state civ with some extremely major contributions to history and science, is probably okay as a barbarian civ too.

You could also model both Greece and Middle Eastern Development far more accurately in that way. For example, cities like Knossos and Troy and the various Mycenaean cities could spawn, then be replaced by Mycenaean cities (Athens, Sparta, Corinth...), and finally the Macedonian civ could pop and take them either by war or by flip.

 

[Lachlan]

@Rhye : very glad to see you ! You are able to create a mod for forget the vanilla version

 

[Rhye]

oooh here's Lachlan too! Now we're almost complete.
Yesterday I spoke with Horton, he said he'll show up at the end of the week.
Now who's missing, apart from Troy/Tacfun ?

 

[Rhye]

Also, if that is true, if the human captures the barb city of Berlin, how will the German civ be founded?

There can't be a barb city called Berlin unless Germans are already born and already dead.
There will be other barbarian cities spread around (Carthage, Babylon, Chichen Itza, etc) and their placement will be needed also to drive AI away from certain regions (from what I've seen, Rome tends to colonize France, Egypt founds its second city close to Mecca, and India occupies Persian region).

 

[Rhye]

@Rhye: The WW2 scenario included in the game? Huh, I thought you were a part of that one. Oh well, my mistake

I made the flags for WW2, nothing more.

I was completely dedicated to Greek World and to the world maps.

 

[Aeon221]

Yarr, so thats why you were credited. I was a-wonderin

PS: I edited the living daylights out of my post above. I'll look up some sources later. If you want, I have a job at Emory University's Library, so they generally let me into the vault if I want to get at primary source documents. Preservations (where I work) is also getting some maps together, so I'll see if I can get some copies to scan and upload. I'm working on a different collection (Stamps and Judaica, its pretty crazy), so I have to check what that group is up to first.

Basically, I can get at crazy good historical data this time around

 

[Blasphemous]

-As to colonies, I would suggest that they are gimped to size 4-5, with the option to build an improvement (semi-expensive) that can turn them into a city. Otherwise, twould be tres annoying to have your super rich sugar colony turn into a crummy city.

This isn't so realistic and with the cIV game mechanics we can easily make a more realistic model of colonies turning into cities. We can give double population- so colonies grow slower than normal, some unhappiness, and then like I suggested a dialog asking you if you want to embrace the colony and let it flourish after every pop growth from pop 3 to pop 5, with an automatic transformation once you hit pop 6.
Colonies should have their own special bonuses and buildings as well, and when you switch to city the bonuses would disappear but the old buildings would stay, maybe with a culture bonus and later a tourism bonus...
Which reminds me - we need a tourism system for Project Cannon. I have some ideas floating around but it's best to just put that on the todo list and leave it for later, for once we have the basic mod out. We can't ignore tourism, it's a major economical factor in today's world.

 

[Blasphemous]

the basic version (aka cannon or whatever)

You mean Trebuchet.

 

[karmina]

So I still have to ask you (always if you want) more detailed suggestions on the number of starting settlers, workers, and units, regardless of difficulty levels or tech modifiers.

Ok, I understand we need something to start with and tweak the numbers later, after testing on different difficulties. Here's my suggestion:

4000BC: the default units, according to difficulty

GRE 2000BC (50): Athens starting at size 3 with walls & barracks. 1 workboat, 1 worker, 1 archer, 3 phalanx

ROM 750BC (85): Rome size 4, extra settler, 2 worker, 2 Praetorians, 2 archers, 1 workboat

PER 675BC (88): Persepolis size 4, extra settler, 2 worker, 2 archers, 5 Immortals

JAP 650BC (89): 2 settler, 2 worker, 2 workboats, 2 archer, 4 swords

MON 300BC (103): 2 settler, 3 worker, 4 archer, 8 Keshik

GER 100BC (111): 2 settler or Roman cities, 4 archer, 8 axemen

FRA 475AD (134): 2 well developed cities + 1 settler, 4 worker, 4 longbows, 4 maces, 2 knights

ARA 580AD (139): 3 medium cities, 3 worker, 4 longbows, 4 camel archer, 1 Academy

SPA 720AD (146): 2 fully developed cities (size 10), 2 caravels, 6 longbows, 6 Conquistadores, 2 maces

ENG 840AD (152): London size 12 with Academy & Heroic Epic, 2 settlers, 2 caravels, 2 galleys, 4 longbows, 4 maces, 4 knights, 4 workers

RUS 860AD (153): Moscow size 8, 3 settlers, 6 workers, 6 longbows, 3 maces, 6 knights

MAL 1100AD/INC 1150AD/AZT 1200AD: No idea...maybe give them National & Heroic Epic, and some longbows. Knights don't seem to fit here, and the UUs are too weak when the barbarians already got longbows.

AME 1650AD (240): New York, Boston (only size 4, both should get harbor, merchant, grocer, bank, but nothing else), and about 6 settlers & 8 workers. Large amount of starting gold to make up for the lack of empire development and unit upkeep. 8 riflemen, 4 cavalry, 4 grenadiers.

BTW, I wonder if it would be possible as a player to jump in as one of the later civs? Or would that definitely require other, custom scenarios?

 

[SilasTomkyn]

I am not new to the Civ series, but I have never been involved in any modding. I would like to get in on this if i am needed. I could do research and writing aspect. I would really enjoy working on this team, as i really enjoyed Roc on Civ3. Let me know how i can help. Thanks!

 

[Aeon221]

@Blas: I grant you, forcing a colony to remain undersize is semi-unrealistic

...although this happened _to an extent_ in Canada: "Contrary to the ill informed propaganda of Voltaire and his fellow philosophes, France never used North America as a dumping ground for the criminal classes, the unemployable, and the wretched of the earth, as England did. Partly because Canada was barred both to freebooters and the canaille, the colony's population increased at a painfully slow rate." (1759 The Year Britain Became Master of the World, Frank McLynn. page 14). Population 4.000 in 1667, 70.000 in 1756, first French presence in ~1600-15

BUT! In the real world, profit was directly related to population size, and therefore governments (excluding the French... silly idealists ) generally encouraged emigration to the colonies.

In a game where a 'colony' city gets special benefits, we should really consider whether a player should be forced into turning that colony into a city. I for one am of the opinion that it would be silly to do so, and downright pointless, really, as any player could simply starve said colony to keep it at pop 5. Something even less realistic then simply allowing the player to ****** growth through game mechanics.

So whether you choose to use a pop up or a city improvement (ala civ 3), do not add in an 'automatic, without player consent' transition that removes special benefits from the settlement.

 

[Blasphemous]

First of all I must say this is not an area of history that I'm particularly knowledgeable about. Still, I always have all kinds of ideas so I'll write up a couple I'm having right now.
We could allow rulers to set policy for colonies in a few ways. One way is popup dialogs on certain events (pop growth, excluding 1->2->3; cultural growth; riots;great person spawning from colony [something I will get back to soon]). These dialogs will allow certain policies to be set, probably depending on activated civics. One policy could be to generally disallow immigration, which would, say, make each citizen cost 3 /turn. Another policy would be to overtax the colony, which would make each pop produce 1. We can probably think of loads of other things.
Another way to manage these policies would be a Colonization Advisor screen.
One more thing we could do is have certain Civics allow certain actions in colonies. Some civics would enable a "tax collection" button which would get you an instant 2 per pop but give 3 for five turns. Some civics would disallow building colonies, disallow dismantling colonies, and turn all existing colonies into cities the second they hit 3 pop. Maybe we can even add a whole column of civics dealing only with Colonies...
As to Great People in colonies, I think colonies (and camps) should get an automatic 1/turn and a +25% modifier to the rest of the points, because it seems amazing people show up more often than usual in borderlands and tough places. We could even make this a more general thing, with bonuses and modifiers increasing along with distance-from-palace maintenance.

 

[Aeon221]

I really really like the idea of a colony advisor screen! I don't have a clue how useful it would be, but I have no doubt I would be all over that!

Also, I agree with the great people point boost. Colonies do seem to generate activists, warriors, and generally interesting people.

As a third segment, making the food per pop of colonies is also a great way of modeling the problems with purveying food for colonists.

I like the tax collection boost, but I think a higher cash to pop ratio would be in order, considering the small sizes we are talking about: 10, 15, even 20 to one seem closer to what I would suggest. But I would also suggest a big malus: in addition to a significant happy penalty (-3 or more for 5+ turns) I would include a random chance for a revolt (colony turns into a barbarian city, or barbarians spawn nearby).

I also think that having a seperate column for colonial civics squares beautifully with history. Many countries that had republics (or at least a constitutional monarchy) at home were despots in the colonies. King Leopold in the Congo (One of the most egregious cases of brutality and wholesale slaughter in the world, estimates of human lives lost range from 10-30 million, and this tragedy occured from about the 1880s to 1906. Comparisons with the Holocaust and Stalin's Russia are entirely appropriate.), France in Algiers (military occupation for a good period of time without any Algerian representation in government), UK in America and India... and most of the rest of the world, and America in the Carribbean (I'm not referring to Guantanamo Bay or Puerto Rico, I'm talking about the Banana Republics, and the occupation of debtor islands in the early 20th century. No slaughters, just an overturning of democracy and replacing it with American military rule.)

In addition, some countries (like the UK) allowed slavery in the colonies for much longer than they allowed it in their home country (30 years longer, iirc).

So, if Rhye does indeed choose to include colonies, I would certainly hope he chooses to include colonial civics, considering how many examples there are in history for them.

Question for Blas: When you talk about pop up policies, would there be a popup dealing with each colony individually, or all of them together as a whole?

IE: I make a colony in NA very close to an enemy city so as to have a base in which to heal and unload troops that I want to dismantle at the end of the conflict, so I want to have the population as low as possible.

I also have another colony in the Carribbean, with lots of sugar resources nearby that can produce a good bit of money, and I want to overtax it (or allow slavery to give me a citizen who does not need food *hint hint* ).

Needless to say, I would want to have seperate policies in these colonies, which would work perfectly with your 'pop up policies' (so long as they are for individual colonies instead of all of them).

 

[Rhye]

I'd say a 6th column for colonies management would be easier to do than a whole new screen. Added to the list in the 1st page!

Instead, we must be carefully consider the implementation of colonies, in other words...making sure that that way is possible to do, and is understood by AI.

 

[Stellan_87]

Very nice ideas, but are there a way to have more than 18 civilizations, and a larger worldmap without slowing down your computer too much

 

[Gunner]

What do you think about having France, Spain, and England all showing up closer together after the fall of the Roman Empire? I think that it would make Europe much more interesting for those civs.


I like having a civic option for how to treat colonies, should be fun. I think a good way to implement colonies might be to give "colony" class cities a commerce bonus somehow, yet cap them at a population of 3 or 4. A colony can then be upgraded to a "city" class city by building some building in it. It would lose the commerce bonus but have the potential for more shield production and in the long run even more commerce. This system is kinda like how EU2 had it.


Edit: Ok so I thought a little bit more about that idea and here it is with more specifics:
A newly founded city (I'll call it the "colony" class) will get one free great person point per turn. It also gets a bonus of 3 gold (not commerce, colonies should help with money rather than science) per citizen living there. The drawback is that each citizen would eat 3 food per turn. A colony's population would also be capped at a max of 4. A colony could also have a set chance to rebel per turn based on its population size. Larger colonies would be more likely.

The player will have the option of upgrading a "colony" class to the "city" class by building a some building which will transform it. The "city" class is just like a regular city now. So it will have much more production potential and the extra food needed to make city specialists. In the long run it would also be able to make more commerce than a colony.