Rhye's of Civilization - the fastest loading mod Expanded

[Aeon221]

Balancing is a titch ;p

Rhye, you are totally right about Parts/Guerrs, but I still think they need a bit of a changeup... so how about give them all terrain as roads? Makes them fast and hard to catch, even if they do have outdated weaponry.

Are you going to reduce the attack values of gun infantry?

I have no idea what to do about implementing French Army special, so why not give them a cannon UU? Napoleon was famous for his usage of artillery, and made it absolutely incredible. It would absolutely fit them, and give them the extra oomf they need to get a really powerful assault going with the Fusies and the Cav.

Might not be so excellent in the hands of the AI, but who cares about them.

WHICH REMINDS ME

When this pack comes out, I would REALLY like to start a PBEM with it with 7 other people here. Rhye, you have a spot reserved on it regardless of what you say now ;p so six other people. I will start a thread on it when we get closer, which will deal with such issues as: how do we get that many AI into a multiplayer game ;p

 

[Owain]

That's a heck of alot of space for only 8 people... I'd do a PBEM game on a smaller random map for sure though.... but if you insist on the Rhye map, I'd be willing to join anyway

 

[Jaguar]

Owain, is that a Civ3 map of the Southern part of South America in your avatar?

 

[Owain]

nope, its a civ 3 map of my home state of Vermont.

 

[Tyrion]

I'd play. It might be better to do a Story and Tale like the Warhammer Challange where players agree on a country and difficulty then upload the save at very beging and play seperatly seeing how their games differ from each other.

 

[CJ.]

Just some ideas. North Africa should be occupied by the Romans and later France, Italy and the Arabs, but this doesn't happen. A French foreign legion unit is a suggestion. Likewise India should give the English some benefit. Japan never invades China, but this is important historically. Japan should be invading China and maybe a Japanese settler would initiate this? Also the US should be willing to use nuclear weapons as soon as they get them.

 

[KingOfCiv]

For the love of God..no America in the Xpack.... I want just orginal Civs.

KOC

 

[Rhye]

It won't transport units inside it. It doesn't know how.

It will probably build them and stick them in cities for the most part.

BTW, why would you put units inside the war wagon anyway? It's not very fast.

Can you suggest better stats?
2 movement and leave 2 transport?
3 defense and leave 2 transport?
2/3/1 and no transport?

I'm testing with the Romans and see a few issues. The 3/3/1 +1 hp Legion shouldn't upgrade to the 3/2/1 Urban Militia. The Militia is an inferior unit by far. Maybe let the legion hang around until Pikeman. The Legion is just unstoppable with the extra hit point. Maybe further increase the cost to 60.

Also, why does the ballista upgrade to trebuchet? They have the same stats. Is 8 bombard a mistake for the Ballista? Should it be 6 like the catapult was?

yes, the legions need to be removed from that upgrade path.
Blasphemous and others insisted in giving the extra hp. But I fear that this is unbalancing.

The ballista should have something better than the catapult, otherwise what crap would it be, being a UU?

BTW, I don't need you to play a whole game. Just look through the editor and the civilopedia and see what needs corrections

Just some ideas. North Africa should be occupied by the Romans and later France, Italy and the Arabs, but this doesn't happen. A French foreign legion unit is a suggestion. Likewise India should give the English some benefit. Japan never invades China, but this is important historically. Japan should be invading China and maybe a Japanese settler would initiate this? Also the US should be willing to use nuclear weapons as soon as they get them.

There's Carthage there. That's the reason.
Instead I've seen Japan invading both China and Korea

Are you going to reduce the attack values of gun infantry?

I have no idea what to do about implementing French Army special, so why not give them a cannon UU? Napoleon was famous for his usage of artillery, and made it absolutely incredible. It would absolutely fit them, and give them the extra oomf they need to get a really powerful assault going with the Fusies and the Cav.

Might not be so excellent in the hands of the AI, but who cares about them.

WHICH REMINDS ME

When this pack comes out, I would REALLY like to start a PBEM with it with 7 other people here. Rhye, you have a spot reserved on it regardless of what you say now ;p so six other people. I will start a thread on it when we get closer, which will deal with such issues as: how do we get that many AI into a multiplayer game ;p

-> I've reduced riflemen and fusiliers attack

-> Allright, the grand battery of Napoleonic Conquest can be the solution. But it needs some stats that make it very powerful

-> What's the max number of civs? I have never played PBEM

That's a heck of alot of space for only 8 people... I'd do a PBEM game on a smaller random map for sure though.... but if you insist on the Rhye map, I'd be willing to join anyway

After the pack I'd like to play multiplayer, and a couple of succession games.

For the multiplayer there's the 8 civs limit. I've done a 112x78 cut of my 134x130 map. I could update it to Conquests, and use it with 8 players.

 

[Metatr0n]

Yes balloons with scientific method seems right.

Some small points about the map. The square 82,52 should have horses. to represent the horses of the camargue of the Rhone delta. They have lived there for 17,000 years. In addition to that I would move the English horses to 75,35 to represent the new forest horses.

Additionally there is no gold in britain at all, Britain was the source of most roman gold and 75,29 is still where the worlds finest gold is extracted (this is welsh gold, the worlds purest and most expensive gold - all British royal family wedding rings are made of this) whilst there is little gold left there today it was bountiful in the ancient period.

There also needs to be some oil in west africa (Nigeria has oil fields).

Lastly, Iceland, you've removed the sea corridor from the UK, but Iceland was settled very early by Europeans - is it possible to move greenland a touch west and iceland a touch east and place the ocean squares between them - maybe LM squares similar to the bering strait will be necessary to stop scandanavia finding america (however accurate that would be). Or better still, move both iceland and greenland east a little - place the impassible corridor between them and america - make one square at the east of greenland settlable with some whales and fish within its radius. Afterall Scandanavia settled both of these islands very early in history.

Oh and some whales off new zealands south coast would be good too.

 

[Rhye]

I've added the resources.
I've added the horses but I'm not 100% sure for balancing reasons. I want to see where Rome builds its 2nd city. It the location is moved west, and they become even more powerful with the cavalry, it's better removing it.
I did not add the sea corridor (an early discover of Iceland means an early discover of America)


I have two questions:

to Horton->as you've played a little, what did you see about ships: does AI build more galleys or dhows? More caravels or galleasses?

to Blasphemous->can you tell me more of the big gun you were talking about? An appropriate name, and the detailed info (some links would be good)

 

[Horton]

I haven't gotten far enough to see many ships yet. Several English galleys is about it.

I didn't realize the ballista was a UU so that's cool.

I think you should consider going back to the 4/2/1 MI unit instead of the 3/2/1 Urban Milita unit. The reason is that the AI is awful at using combined arms and with only 3 ATK swords or militia the AI civs will stalemate against 3/3/1 pikes and 1/3/1 crossbows. It will be much harder for AI cities to change hands and human players will face little threat at all unless the AI has enough production to build plenty of horse units. Also, the lack of a good medieval foot unit gives the romans a massive advantage as their UU is now the premiere foot attacker AND defender from early ancient to halfway through the medieval eras. Coupled with a cheap 8 bombard ballista, Rome is now a 6 on the 1-5 power scale. I did a mass upgrade of about 20 warriors to legions and built 5 ballista and I steamrolled the AI so badly that I had crushed Greece, Spain, Byzantines, Portugal, very early while still fighting off French and Ottoman invasions. I love playing the Romans so I don't want to see them crippled but they're crazy tough right now. How about a worker on steriods type unit for Rome's 2nd UU. Something like 1/1/2 that works 50% faster available with construction or engineering?

Also, the Immortal is now a seriously powerful unit. 2/2/1 for only 10 shields allows Persia to pull off early game rushes against India and the entire Middle East with stunning ease. With the AI in those areas having low shield production and always trying to build high cost settlers these cheap, tough, Immortals are too much. Perhaps they could be made weaker but given an ability like enslave or no upkeep or something. Even a 1/1/1 10 shield unit that had a useful ability would be valuable especially in that region in the ancient age.

I haven't played far enough to see the impact of the new gunpowder units but from browsing the civlopedia I suspect that the changes are going to cause an overemphasis on artillery for the human player and a lack of capability for the AI to effectively fight at all.

I'll play my Rome game further tonight and then pick another civ to test tomorrow.

 

[Rhye]

I haven't got an alternative worker animation for a UU. And the legions already do some works.

Rome was extremely powerful in my test game. You're right: 6 out of 5.
For this reason I:
-removed the just added horses in Camargue (they created a strong empire in northern italy)
-removed the +1hp for the legionary
-the legionary now upgrades to pikeman. In this way they upgrade to a similar unit, but a mass upgrade from warriors can't be done.


About the urban militia, it is intended to be the unit in the cheaper line. So it's good as 3/2/1. It's the pikeman that I can change. Consider standard civ3 pikeman, longbowman and med-infantry roles swapped.
Pikemen can be 3/3/1, 4/3/1, 4/2/1. My choice until now was 3/3/1 because it's the most realistic.



BTW I'd like to know an opinion from you (Horton) about the Grande Armée thing. Should it be replaced? If the answer is yes, the best replacement seems to be the Grand Battery (replaces cannon, all squares as roads)


Please wait before starting a new game. This evening I'll probably send to the list the 0.12

 

[Asclepius]

There seems to be a lot of unit development from the Middle Ages up to the end of the Industrial Age but then very few changes in the Modern Era. I think there should be more progressive development of the units, not dozens of new units, but just a few to show progress and make the end game more interesting. So here's a few ideas for making the end game more fun.

Early Aircraft Carrier (transport 3) upgrades to Modern CV (trans 6?) bombers can't land on CV's.

Early CV appears with Flight

When Modern CV appears, Anti Aircraft ship should appear called SAM Destroyer upgrades to AEGIS for the USA.

Cruise Missile Destroyer appears with Rocketry, can carry say 2 missiles.

Transport upgrades to Assault Ship in the Modern Era, with beter defence and the ability to carry 1 helicopter as well as ground units.

Infantry upgrades to Modern Infantry (foot unit) NOT mechanized Inf. Mech Inf should be a seperate expensive unit.

Tanks and Mech Inf should not be air transportable (Yes, I know I've said this one before!)

There seems to be a gap in the development that should be filled with units from around the 1960's so;

Fighter upgrades to Early Jet, say Phantom, then the F16 then Stealth/JSF (or whatever). It might be nice to introduce a special Carrier Jet like the Harrier when Modern CV's appear.

Tank upgrades to Chieftan (or M60 etc, 1960's era) then Modern Armour (Merkava for Israel)

Bomber should upgrade to Long Range Bomber (say B52) then Stealth Bomber.

Artillery should upgrade to Self Propelled Artillery (SP Artillery) with a movement of 2 before the Radar Artillery appears.

The same applies to Flak which should be self propelled before Rocket SAM's appear - SP Flak.

Might be nice if there was an Anti Submarine Helicopter (ASW Helicopter) that could be carried on some destroyers and CV's. Just a unit that detects Subs furthur away than the Destroyer.

I think that's enough new units (12) without being overwhelming. If there was more variety in the end game then people might play until the end instead of giving up at the start of the modern era.

A couple of small points about biq .11: Helicopters should be with advanced flight not amphibious war, or better yet another tech in the modern era. Aircraft carriers were developed almost immediately flight was discovered so I'd put them in with Flight - it also gives you time to build a carrier before the Jet age arrives! The partisan unit looks totally out of place with Military Tradition, I don't think the Guerilla needs a previous unit.

Comments anyone? I'd like to know what anyone thinks about extending the modern era like this.

 

[Rhye]

There seems to be a lot of unit development from the Middle Ages up to the end of the Industrial Age but then very few changes in the Modern Era. I think there should be more progressive development of the units, not dozens of new units, but just a few to show progress and make the end game more interesting. So here's a few ideas for making the end game more fun.

The list you've wrote is too wide, it would make the game redundant.
I already thought that there were some gaps in ancient and middle, but quite good variety in modern.
In this way it would become ever more.
As I've added some units, I can add a modern unit, too. But only if necessary.
For example a nice thing would be the big gun Blasphemous proposed.
From the list you've written, which is the most important in terms of history and gameplay?

A couple of small points about biq .11: Helicopters should be with advanced flight not amphibious war, or better yet another tech in the modern era.

I know, that is not definitive. Helis are there until I change the tech tree.
In the new tree the tech will be called Combined Arms and it will be at the start of the modern times.

I haven't said this before: most of the changes to the trees will follow a guideline of shifting techs to the right.
If you divide the turns of each era per the number of techs, you'll find that industrial is filled with many cheap techs. One of the problems caused by this is the min.research time that allowed the earning of lots of money.

So, Nuclear age since modern times.
18th century included in industrial (Enlightenment, Democracy)
Some techs to be deleted (Corporation, Refining, Athomic Theory, etc.)
More room to expand ancient and middle ages trees

After that, if religions work (they still doesn't) the trees will change again to make room for religion-specific techs.

Aircraft carriers were developed almost immediately flight was discovered so I'd put them in with Flight - it also gives you time to build a carrier before the Jet age arrives!

Mmmm. I'll check the carriers invention date.

The partisan unit looks totally out of place with Military Tradition, I don't think the Guerilla needs a previous unit.

Same as above. Partisans will belong to some other tech, to be added. The unit is added because there's a huge gap between medival cheap infantry and guerrilla. There were early forms of guerrilla since Napoleonic wars.

 

[Asclepius]

The list you've wrote is too wide, it would make the game redundant.

!!! I thought you were a minimalist! The list is just suggestions, not all of them have to be used. You could pick all, one or none ( I get the feeling you're leaning towards none!).

I already thought that there were some gaps in ancient and middle, but quite good variety in modern.
In this way it would become ever more.

I thought the idea of the X pack was to add more?

As I've added some units, I can add a modern unit, too. But only if necessary.
For example a nice thing would be the big gun Blasphemous proposed.
From the list you've written, which is the most important in terms of history and gameplay?

Well, I would say the tank upgrade was most important. Most countries in the world today can afford some form of modern tank (even Israel was using Cheiftains up to the 1980's) but very few can afford "Modern Armour" like the M1A1 or Challenger.

Mmmm. I'll check the carriers invention date.

The British Royal Navy started experimenting with Aircraft carriers in 1908, first real carrier operations started before WW1. The Military is my specialty so I should get these bits right.

 

[Horton]

Legionary upgrading to Pikes isn't very appealing because they're both 3/3/1. All that does is rob the Roman player of the worker attributes of the legionaries once pikes are discovered. I think not being able to to upgrade from warriors is also a major drawback. Take away the +1 HP and raise cost to 60 and keep them in the warrior line and I think the legionary gets balanced pretty well. Forcing the romans to build 50 shield units from scratch is pretty harsh. I also think you should reconsider the ballista. It gives the power of trebuchets half an age early and really makes a difference.

I haven't followed the discussion about the Grand Armee closely enough to offer and opinion. I'll look into it in the next day or two.

 

[Rhye]

Legionary upgrading to Pikes isn't very appealing because they're both 3/3/1. All that does is rob the Roman player of the worker attributes of the legionaries once pikes are discovered. I think not being able to to upgrade from warriors is also a major drawback. Take away the +1 HP and raise cost to 60 and keep them in the warrior line and I think the legionary gets balanced pretty well. Forcing the romans to build 50 shield units from scratch is pretty harsh. I also think you should reconsider the ballista. It gives the power of trebuchets half an age early and really makes a difference.

I haven't followed the discussion about the Grand Armee closely enough to offer and opinion. I'll look into it in the next day or two.

60 shields? Even more than elephants!
And what about legionaries upgrading to urban militia (and then to partisans)....it would be even worse.
There's another possibility: I can make legionary replace the spearman instead of the swordsman. Still leaving them to iron working.
Some units of the Xpack have the advantage of coming BEFORE the standard unit (the Cog, the A-Bomb, the Firelancer). And the Zeppelin will come some techs AFTER the standard unit (the balloon).
The legionaries could replace spearmen, but be available from next tech. Then they can upgrade to Pikeman (still 3/3/1?) or I could remove the pikemen from the Romans (just like Carthage in the standard game, as it has the superior Num.Mercenary) and let them go straight to fusiliers.

Sooner you can give me some input to the French UU, sooner I can send next version.

!!! I thought you were a minimalist! The list is just suggestions, not all of them have to be used. You could pick all, one or none ( I get the feeling you're leaning towards none!).
I thought the idea of the X pack was to add more?

Well, I would say the tank upgrade was most important. Most countries in the world today can afford some form of modern tank (even Israel was using Cheiftains up to the 1980's) but very few can afford "Modern Armour" like the M1A1 or Challenger.

I'm not leaning towards none, that's not true. I just don't want to add everything comes in everybody's mind.
A modern tank would be very useful...it could solve the rubber problem: the early tank requires rubber, the modern tank not.

But what's the difference between the words "Tank" and "Armor"? (In italian it is just "carro armato")

 

[Horton]

Replacing spearman is not a bad idea. Just leave the legions in the game until fusiliers then. Legions to Pikes is a downgrade and should be avoided.

 

[Aeon221]

I really like the idea of an Assault ship with a heli! Brilliant plan!

Stealth Bombers have to be new units; "cheap" mass bombers are effective, and are used concurrently with stealths even in the US army.

Cruise Missiles on a destroyer is another great plan! Its so obvious, I am surprised that Civ doesnt have that in the standard game, or that we havent already thought of it.

I say that whether we give the Romans pikemen or not depends on how you interpret their development.

Do they become the Italians in the Medieval Age, thereby deserving pikemen?
Or do they stay the course as Romans, and should be awarded the Legion?

The answer would finish that nicely.

Rhye, I think you should take away both the spearman and the swordsman from the Romans; its not like either is really useful once they have the legion, and before that why not make them a bit weak ;p

Warriors=> Legion seems pretty good if they lack the rest of the goodies, and since the unit is expensive and already is required to do the duty of defender and attacker the Romans will find themselves stretched thin (historically accurate) if they expand too much.
Giving a powerful bombard unit to what is likely to be an outnumbered aggressor is quite fair, as it will be their primary way of evening the odds.

 

[Asclepius]

I'm not leaning towards none, that's not true. I just don't want to add everything comes in everybody's mind.

I didn't expect you to add everything, they were merely suggestions. I'm not going to start wailing if I don't get my way but then I didn't expect just a "no" either....

A modern tank would be very useful...it could solve the rubber problem: the early tank requires rubber, the modern tank not.

But what's the difference between the words "Tank" and "Armor"? (In italian it is just "carro armato")

There is no difference, I was trying to differentiate by sticking to the names used in the game; "Tank" and "Modern Armour".

If you want to add an upgraded Tank before Modern Armour then I would suggest calling it simply Heavy Tank.

Tank > Heavy Tank > Modern Armour