Rhye's Catapult

I have a question about Rome. If their UP is double road movement, what is up with all their melee units still having March? Are they supposed to have both bonuses or is march supposed to be removed?

Yeah, I noticed that too. But it was nice so I didn´t complain! ;) It makes Roman empire building feasible! :D
 
OzzyKP said:
Yea but there is a limit to that. Making impossible demands to try and break the game doesn't fix it.

Should we try to make this a reality?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mongol_Empire_map.gif

Mongols conquering all of Asia in less than a hundred years? What is that, like 10 turns or less? No way.
First of all, nothing is impossible. This is a work in progress and if we want to achieve realistic historical feasibility, we need to test the mod up to realistic historical standards. If real history allowed Rome to get where it did then the mod should try to do so as well. If real history allowed the Mongols to conquer such a huge area in ten years, the mod should try to do so as well.
But one empire at a time - Roman, then British, then Macedonian, then Mongol, or something.

Rhye, what do you think of my suggested change to the Roman UP?

I thought of a nice small touch: prenamed :gp: from techs. You know those techs that give a certain type of great person to the first who discovers them? Well why not have that great person prenamed?
And while we're at it, why not have civ-specific naming of the regular :gp:s?

Progress report on the England game:
I played a bit further on the save where I bugged the hell out of Louis, and ended up waiting longer than planned for the war. Meanwhile, Persia chose Egypt as its next target for destruction, and since my South African colonies bordered the bottom end of Egypt, I decided to use the Galleon-load of Redcoats ready to invade the bottom of Madagascar to instead get the bottom of Egypt. Luckily, after I conquered the most coastal city (two cities there link between lakes and allow ships to go quite a ways inland), Egypt collapsed and I simply trapesed into the two remaining Egyptian cities that had gone barbarian. I quickly consolidated that area and then continued the buildup for France.
My first attempt at the war was a bit too early, so after my Stack of Doom got crushed within a turn of landing, I reloaded the save before my invasion and decided to wait a bit longer. This time, the next turn Cyrus chose France as his next victim, and after a few turns I realized I have to invade before Cyrus gets France's European holdings (he had already gotten North Africa, shared with Mansa Musa). I invaded, but with too many units (the French army was busy with Persian invaders so my invasion was overkill) and by the time I could move out of my first French city (Rennes), Cyrus had already gotten the all-important Paris and Aix-le-Chepelle (sp?). A couple turns later, right after I took Toulouse, France collapsed, and at this point Louis had only had cities in North America and one more city in Madagascar. This made me very happy (I was trying to get Roosevelt to grab the American cities for ages) but all in all I was not happy with the result of the war. Next time I play (Sunday, probably) I will reload for before I finally declared and invade Paris first, before Cyrus gets to it. I'm pretty sure I can do much better next time.
And I'm sorry I'm not getting to the Rome challenge yet... I'm just very engrossed in this game, as I'm not about to win and I really have to work to stay near the top and climb higher.
 
I just have a small idea that could be easily (I hope) implemented into this great mod...

It is sometimes rediculous to get Great People form certain cultures appear in others...
Meaning, Nabu-rimmani appearing in the aztec empire... I wonder if it would be possible to create a list of Great People for each civ, or go more advanced and make it for each region.

Nabu-rimmani would appear in whichever civilization taking hold of Babylon.
Zoroaster would appear in any civilization talking hold of (a) Persian city.
etc. etc., I'm sure this would add more flavour to the game and would enhance it. ;) .

What do you guys think?
 
Wow, seems like a lot of progress has been made since I left! I had a marathon reading session where I caught up on all of the pages that I had missed :crazyeye:


I like the direction that the UP's are going. They really should add some good flavor to the game. There are two on the list that I would suggest changes for.

First, I agree with whoever said earlier that the English should somehow get a bonus in quality to their ships, rather than quantity. The Royal Navy throughout history was known more for its superior training and equipment rather than sheer numbers.

My other suggestion pertains to the Persian power of Satrapy. The bonus confered by eliminating distance corruption is essentially negligible in the early to mid game, especially for the AI. This should be the time in the game when the Persians are at the height of their power though. I would suggest that they be given the Vassalage civic from the start and also be given the ability to draft Immortals as a replacement.


I like the concept of Congress for peace for the most part. Seems to remind me a lot of the Paradox games (EU2, Victoria, etc.) They will probably take a whole lot of work to get working correctly though. Have fun Rhye :)


I was inspired by all of the talk about Rome and its conquests to attempt to recreate the conquests of Alexander. The game was set to the middle difficulty level to make it a bit easier (I usually play the highest). I made a valiant effort, but alas, it took me until 150 BC to destroy the Persians and conquer Egypt. I have confidence that I would be able to accomplish the goal if I were to try it again. Rather than me go through and describe everything I thought it would be better if I just showed you all some pictures:D

One tiny little possible bug that I found was that the city I had on the Northern coast of Egypt didn't rename itself automatically to Alexandria, it just kept the name it had before. I figured that it was close enough to the historical location that it should be renamed.

This is at 310 BC, the turn after which Alexander would have died historically.


This is 150 BC when I completed my conquests. I decided to not invade India.
 
I think we should wait for Warlords to try to get the Mongols to work. The Barbarian Invasion scenario may prove very fruitful for understanding what might work for simulating the invasions from Mongolia which changed the world: the Xiognu, Huns, Avars, Turks, and Mongols. If we can figure out some way to channel those forces into the game, well, it'll be awesome.
 
I decided to run a test game, letting it play through to the Americans, without Open Borders (as I suggested a few pages back). The effects seem to be subtle but generally beneficial.

The game ran generally along the same lines as most others under 0.84 with a few exceptions. The Greeks managed to dominate their neighbors, combining with the Barbarians to destroy Persia, and fighting the Romans to a bloody standstill in the Balkans, though the Romans managed to capture and keep Athens, it didn't seem to make a difference, as the Greeks thrashed the Arabs, and added Arabia to their possession.

Chinese expansion was generally halted by aggressive barbarians who kept razing Chengdu and capturing Luoyang, only to be driven back soon after. The Japanese got to Korea first and expanded into Manchuria.

The most surprising development came out of Mongolia. The Mongols decided to turn their Keshiks against India, capturing Delhi and razing a few other cities in North India. This was the first time I'd seen the Indians attacked, and the process was still going when I Retired.

Europe, however, was the primary reason I turned off open borders. A combination of barbarians and Greeks had the Romans fairly well confined to the Italian peninsula, and they did not expand into North Africa. Spain, Germany, France, England, and Russia then expanded with relative ease into their natural positions. The Germans got to Norway and Uppsala first, while the English sailed into and colonized Finland.

Isabella was, um, rowdy. She declared war on France and razed Bordeaux, confining Louis to three cities in the north. She also declared war on Monty, presumably at first contact! Sadly, this war amounted to nothing, no capture of Tenochtitlan.

Bismark and Peter fought not one but two inconclusive wars. The only action I could see was Novgorod switching hands and then switching right back.

Louis decided to declare war on Mali, which is an exciting example of potential European imperialism. No cities had changed hands by 1605.

England still got involved in no European wars, but did expand to Boston and Praetoria, as it always seems to. Spain had colonies in Havana and San Antonio. China moved into Hanoi but razed it and left. Japan had a few colonies in Indonesia.

A few wars in the 16th century seemed bizarre. Qin Shi Huang thought it would be a good idea to declare war on Bismark. No idea why.


Conclusion: I see little reason for Open Borders to exist, either historically or in terms of gameplay. Wars seemed to occur with slightly more frequency, and there were NO instances of cities appearing outside of a Civ's area of control, like Rome moving through Greek territory and founding cities in Central Asia, a regular occurance in games with Open Borders.

I plan on testing this at least twice more, once as a sim-to-America, once as a player in the game. I would suggest that, after nerfing scouts to one move, they be given the ability to explore as with Open Borders.

If anyone else wishes to test this out, the process is simple enough. Go into the XML of CivilizationTechs, find WRITING, and change Openborders from 1 to 0. That's it!
 
Well I tried the Rome challenge and something great happened... I didn´t make it, I only could possess the entire mediterranean and France. But as I conquered more cities, my vaults began to deplete, making my armies go on strike. I had the greatest empire, but it was falling because of it weight. I started changing civics, so to go on anarchy to support my armies, I started to give some distant cities to other civs, and I was waiting for the new civs to appear, so they could take some cities away from me! The fall of my empire was natural, historical, and I wanted it to happen, as it was the solution for my problems.

One thing that happened, tough, was that the French settlers appeared in the iberian peninsula, and as they couldn´t move trough spanish territory, they founded a city there. Later they could move them, but they finished with only 2 cities in their terriory, 1 in spain and another north of constantinople.
 
Lachlan said:
I don't like Football :D
Lachlan said:
I want simultaneous turns !
:rotfl: Love your contributions, dude. Thanks for the insights. ;)

Blasphemous said:
And while we're at it, why not have civ-specific naming of the regular :gp:s?
Agreed. Willing to do some grunt work on this! PM me if I'm needed.

Gunner said:
First, I agree with whoever said earlier that the English should somehow get a bonus in quality to their ships, rather than quantity. The Royal Navy throughout history was known more for its superior training and equipment rather than sheer numbers.
Also agreed. Specifically, Philip Broke, an officer who successfully smote a more powerful American frigate during the War of 1812, was an expert gunner. (Saw a Histoy Channel special on that one battle.) For this reason, England's ships should have Drill I AND/OR Drill II.

Gunner said:
My other suggestion pertains to the Persian power of Satrapy. The bonus confered by eliminating distance corruption is essentially negligible in the early to mid game, especially for the AI. This should be the time in the game when the Persians are at the height of their power though. I would suggest that they be given the Vassalage civic from the start and also be given the ability to draft Immortals as a replacement.
Makes sense, agreed. We should try it. :goodjob:

Gunner said:
I was inspired by all of the talk about Rome and its conquests to attempt to recreate the conquests of Alexander. The game was set to the middle difficulty level to make it a bit easier (I usually play the highest). I made a valiant effort, but alas, it took me until 150 BC to destroy the Persians and conquer Egypt. I have confidence that I would be able to accomplish the goal if I were to try it again.
WOW! :eek: That's a heck of a conquest! Mighty fine job, mate!

Arkaeyn said:
I think we should wait for Warlords to try to get the Mongols to work. The Barbarian Invasion scenario may prove very fruitful for understanding what might work for simulating the invasions from Mongolia which changed the world: the Xiognu, Huns, Avars, Turks, and Mongols. If we can figure out some way to channel those forces into the game, well, it'll be awesome.
Hmm... interesting point. So Mongolia can wait.

I'll be out of town this weekend, back on Monday. I'm going to be SO behind... :cry:

SilverKnight
 
Gunner said:
First, I agree with whoever said earlier that the English should somehow get a bonus in quality to their ships, rather than quantity. The Royal Navy throughout history was known more for its superior training and equipment rather than sheer numbers.
I agree with this and with SK's suggestion: Drill I and II for all English naval units, scratch the quick production.
Gunner said:
My other suggestion pertains to the Persian power of Satrapy. The bonus confered by eliminating distance corruption is essentially negligible in the early to mid game, especially for the AI. This should be the time in the game when the Persians are at the height of their power though. I would suggest that they be given the Vassalage civic from the start and also be given the ability to draft Immortals as a replacement.
Ah! Finally I understand the broken balance of my England game! Persia has an absolutely enormous empire, spanning most of Asia and half of Africa, and now I am reminded of the reason: no distance maintenance. And this all started happening long after Persia should have historically fallen. A change is definately needed for realistic balance.

And while we're on the matter of UPs, I beg of you Rhye, change the German UP! Blitzkrieg just doesn't make sense for them! Germany should be a leading power of academic discovery, with the potential to be a military superpower. It doesn't make any historical sense to have the most unique feature of Germany set to focus them on military expansion!

I'm going to go play my England game in a few minutes. Me and my little brother were supposed to do a Star Wars marathon today (episodes I through VI one after another) but we decided to only do the original trilogy and split into three consecutive days, so I can get moving today and not just tomorrow as I had thought.
 
And while we're on the matter of UPs, I beg of you Rhye, change the German UP! Blitzkrieg just doesn't make sense for them! Germany should be a leading power of academic discovery, with the potential to be a military superpower. It doesn't make any historical sense to have the most unique feature of Germany set to focus them on military expansion!

And perhaps the panzer can be given a bonus to represent the Blitzkrieg, as it´s bonus over the normal tank is lame. A movement bonus would be nice. It would power up germany in that particular period...
 
I'm in 17th century in "Viceroy"

I'm Rome I control North Africa, Italy, Salonae, Gallia and Iberia ...

I love the system for refusing flipping ...

I'm the leader of Gaia

Parsa is second
Germania is third

I think a few that i will add Hellas to my empire :lol:
 
Almost finished with the exams, I have got more time to play.

Trying Spain, the movement bonus is nice. Circumnavigated the globe, a galleon moves from Spain to Brazil in 1 turn. Greece is the leader, with me and Russia few points backward. Researching democracy. Persia is the only civ eliminated. All the europeans and egypt are christians. The east coast of Latin America is mine, the other still Incan.

Only one war with me involved, against France as soon as I had conquistadors. I captured to cities and signed peace. Luis was still pleased, the culture of Paris was overwhelming and they revolted too much. I gave them back after years of useless nothing.

Germany's bonus is not the best as it is now, along with Egypt and England.
I must go.

Farewell
 
To quickly sum things up in my England game, everything that went spectacularly well before went bad this time, but everything that went bad went well so I'm satisfied. I have Paris, I will soon have access to the spots where Rennes and Aix-la-Chapelle were razed from, and the two second-place world powers (all that stands between me and Persia at the top) Rome and Russia just started a war. They have a huge border and huge territories and big armies.
All that said, the game is becoming less fun because the war is over for me, so I will probably not continue this game and go straight to the Rome challenge next time I play (tomorrow).
 
In my game to play myself without Open Borders I decided to play as Rome, and discovered a slight exploit. In my first turn, I decided to research mathematics and move towards Currency. I also decided to build The Oracle in Rome, and aim for Great Prophets. Mathematics and The Oracle finished at the same time, giving me the option to take Machinery. This put me in the Middle Ages and gave me Crossbowmen in 410BCE.

Needless to say, I didn't have much problem with barbarians.

Also, the second run-to-America with no Open Borders was far less interesting, however, it did have England declare war on France in the Middle Ages, the first time I'd seen that. No cities changed hands.
 
@Rjhye and other ...

I have a wonderful idea : if we take Celts for create a new civ : CSA of Jefferson Davies ?

We could simulate secession war that USA knew in 1865

The script would say : "The Confederate States of America has did secession from USA of Abraham Lincoln ! Slavery is not dead !"

We should scripting CSA to use always "slavery" civic ...

Why not modify "slavery" civic ?
New effect : a civ with slavery will be hated by all civ with "emancipation" but loved by other civ with slavery ...

In fine, why not creating a new civic callad "modern slavery" ?

Take note my friends !
 
I agree with Blas and others who say that Germany's bonus seems a bit off. I like Riker's solution of making the Panzer unique unit useful and changing the UP to be a bit more accurate.

Representing the CSA would be a bit too detailed for the scale that Civ is on, imo. If we were to represent the American Civil War like that then it would only be fair to represent all civil wars with the same amount of accuracy and thoroughness. Keep in mind that we want to try and keep turn speeds as low as possible in addition to not adding too much complexity to the game.
 
A played a few more games on .84. A few things

Persia is always to powerfull with a HUGE empire. I beleive like it was said above, that its because of the no distance penalty. Persia had a empire from Egypt to China, including india, and a city in Greece, expaning into Russia's underbelly.

When the civs fall, After half their cities are taken or whatever. The cities are destroyed, I know this is to help load times, but typically its the outer smaller insignifcant cities that are captured, then once the fall requirments are met, the cities that fall are the signiifcant cites size 10 or above. Rome, Athens, Byzantion, Is there any way we can have important cities like these become barbarian controlled rather than razed?

I havent tried to disable open borders yet , but in my games in .84 im always bombarded by a enemy half a continent away with a super stack (china declared war on greece (me), Spain declared war on Russia(me). They stack their stacks of units and through open borders then when they are a tile way from the players borders, they delcare war. Either there needs to be an attrition model, or the disabling of open borders. China should not be able to travel all that way and have a succesfull invasion in 1400 AD.
 
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