Rhye's of Civilization - the fastest loading mod Expanded

[Rhye]

I must find a solution for rubber - no one seems to build Infantry or Tanks - often cities in Africa and America have small borders and can't reach the spots where rubber is. And then they reach rubber, often a road is missing. When there's a road, there isn't an harbor.
What can I do?

 

[Rhye]

oh - I'm thinking of removing again the requisite of saltpeter for riflemam. Well, the fact that Cavalry would keep needing saltpeter is a bit odd, but I don't want to see new founded cities with spearman in 1900, there's a need for some units with no resources. Otherwise I could remove the requisite to Cossacks and Cavalry too. But that would leave Sipahi alone - the only mounted unit in the game which requires saltpeter (remember - Hussars have a sword).

About rubber - my question is - were European nations able to build an army without colonizing Africa? Did America have colonies where to take rubber for building tanks?

 

[Rhye]

The civilopedia speaks of natural rubber coming from Americas, useful for balls etc. Then speaks of synthetic rubber, pruduced in 19th Century and indipendent from colonies, useful for ships (?)
Are we sure that this resource is accurate? Isn't it more likely to be a luxury?
Well, completely removing it would cause guerrilla to be useless. It would need the long time ago promoted changes (not wheeled, all terrain as roads)...

In the meantime I added some forests in Africa: the spots for cities are reduced, to better reflect poor density of population and help massive colonization of Americas

 

[bjorn]

As said im playing the Americans atm and Ive noticed something weird: Ive defeated the Iriquois, the Aztecs and Maya, but instead of being destroyed a city magicly pops up somewhere on the map. The first 2 suddenly had a city in South America, and the latter one in Alaska. However when I traded maps I couldnt find any eveidence of a trail of exploration there leading me to believe they just spawned there.

 

[Rhye]

isn't this "respawn AI players" option?

 

[Rhye]

current progress:

- New plateau and mountains graphics (green borders now can be barely seen), new pollution graphics (brighter)
- Fixed Elephant Archer and Camel Rider "Available to" list
- Elephant Archer and Camel Rider obsolete (but not upgradeable) with Cavalry (first gunpowder mounted unit, first unit with 3 movement)
- Frigate and Privateer obsolete with Combustion; Explorer obsolete with Advanced Flight; Cavalry and Hussar obsolete with Motorized Transport
- Horses no more available in deserts
- Camel appearance = 160
- Replaced some LM forests (in Greece, Mongolia and Norway)
- Added a sugar in Madeira and an oil in Iraq
- Redrawn some pacific islands and added two southern islands with the help of bjorn
- Redrawn Philippines
- Added some mountains and plateaus in Andes in order to make Incan escape more difficult
- Added some rivers to separate some islands from the main land
- Worker cost now 20 shields, 2 food
- Spearman, Pikeman, Medieval Infantry, Longbowman, Musketman, Flintlock Infantry, Rifleman, Hoplite, Impi, Immortal, Numidian Mercenary, Swiss Mercenary, Samurai, Musketeer, Grentzer cost increased by 5 (except Spearman, by 4) because they were over-produced units
- Moved a couple of barbarian camps
- Tuned plague grace period (500) and variance (40)
- Added more sea in the Atlantic
- Tuned Babylonian, Sumerian, Japanese, Russian, French, German, Viking, Persian, American strength
- Tuned Japanese, Viking, German, Indian, Portuguese, Russian and Dutch research speed
- Fixed a major mistake: English now have standard horses instead of the American type; in America there are only American horses
- New timeline: 40/50, 50/25, 87/20, 41/10, 45/8, 33/4, 54/2. Now the game develops in 400 turns and loading times are much reduced in Industrial and Modern Age.
- Holy War cost reduced to 32; Knigths Templar cost reduced to 36; Sun Tzu's Art of War cost reduced to 45; Shakespeare's Theathre cost reduced to 40; Smith's trading company reduced to 50; Theory of Evolution reduced to 56; the united Nations reduced to 80; Apollo Program; Battlefield Medicine and Strategic Missile Defense cost reduced to 30
- Almost every tech cost has changed to fit the new timeline, because of the shrinking. The changes consist in -2 to -14. The new ranges can be found in the readme
- Minimum research time decreased to 5
- Added some forests in Africa: the spots for cities are reduced, to better reflect poor density of population and help massive colonization of Americas
- Moved a goody hut, spices and sugar one square farther from Persian cities (now they're more likely to be under Indian territory
- Added two barbarian camps in Indonesia
- Major changes to the map: thinner Africa and eastern Europe; larger Greenland
- Redrawn Zimbabwe, South Africa, French Atlantic Coast, Baltic region, Scandinavia, Greece
- Moved Russian starting location a square SW




I'd like to know something about:
- rubber, industrial units and luxury
- rifleman, cavalry and gunpowder
- colonization of America
(see my posts above and in the previous page)

 

[Iztvan]

The civilopedia speaks of natural rubber coming from Americas, useful for balls etc. Then speaks of synthetic rubber, pruduced in 19th Century and indipendent from colonies, useful for ships (?)
Are we sure that this resource is accurate? Isn't it more likely to be a luxury?
Well, completely removing it would cause guerrilla to be useless. It would need the long time ago promoted changes (not wheeled, all terrain as roads)...

I'd like to know something about:
- rubber, industrial units and luxury
- rifleman, cavalry and gunpowder
- colonization of America

This is a complicated question. rubber was definately a strategic resource during ww1 & ww2, but not as essential as oil. An option that has been discused in these forums earlier is to allow tanks to be built without rubber, but be more expensive, ie having "Tank" and "Rubberless Tank" (but with cooler name) with the same stats but where "Rubberless Tank" costs +25% or +50% to build.
Maybe use this guy as "Infantry" and the ordinary infantry as "Rubberless infantry"?

Rubber, like Saltpeter, is a strategical resource that doesn't feal 100% right. Perhaps the best way to use them could be for allowing a treasure-generating rubberplant similar to those in the Colonial conquest for tobacco. Saltpeter should probably be renamed just Salt and done as a luxury resource. I think some of the luxuries & bonus resources should be swapped around. Tobacco and Sugar should be luxuries, and two of the current luxuries changed to bonus or strategic instead. This would make international colonisation & trade more desirable. Currently Africa gets colonised early, because:
1) It's close to europa
2) It's vacant. The ethiopeans don't have enough time to colonize western africa
3) It has Gems, a luxury resource the europeans are missing, and later has rubber (the ai knows about this)
This could be fixed with:
1) A west-african civilization (replacing who? Mayas? Greeks? Byzantines?)
2) Tobacco & Sugar as luxury resources in America.


I'd like to see something done about this: When you reach Military tradition, you have Flintlock infantry & Hussars, which feals very 18th centruy. But you still have Medieval infantry, Longbows & Knights hanging around. How about allowing Knights to upgrade to Hussars, and putting something between Medinf/longbows and Guerilla, perhaps some kind of Guard Infantry (6/3/1) . And then move up Guerilla (with better stats) to Rocketry (or some other modern tech) and have a Partisan at Replaceable parts.

Rhye - you have done changes. Are you still interested in a savegame from 2.4? It features a Conquistador army in nortern america 1400ad.

 

[ibcoltscrew]

ibcoltscrew -> chieftain, warlord, deity and sid are difficulty levels not supported by this mod. I wrote it in the readme.
The timeline fits the emperor level. Tanks should appear shortly after 1900.
But I still have no reply about my question. I want to know it, I'd like to post the patch today.

I'm not going to start an other chieftain game !!! thanks for telling me. I should read the readme file
My last chieftain game , i won by score (50300 --> High score) in 1921.

 

[Rhye]

From the civilpedia it seems that synthetic rubber was the strategic resource, because it allowed indipendence from colonies. Natural rubber wasn't essential, and was used since native americans, not only from repleaceable parts.
What do you mean with trasure generating? A luxury?

 

[bjorn]

Id say leave rubber the way it is and where it is now. I like the fact that when playing a European civ I have to plan ahead and found a few colonies in Africa so that Ill have rubber in the industrial age (along with some of the luxuries Africa has like gems). If I was able to build tanks another way i probably wouldnt even found colonies which is unlike what happened in Earths/Europes history.

 

[Iztvan]

From the civilpedia it seems that synthetic rubber was the strategic resource, because it allowed indipendence from colonies. Natural rubber wasn't essential, and was used since native americans, not only from repleaceable parts.
What do you mean with trasure generating? A luxury?

Have you played the conquests? They used the following mechanic: Make a biulding called "sugar plant" (or "tobacco plant" or whatever). Make it require the Sugar resource within city radius (similar to Iron Works). Make it produce a unit every X rounds (like Knights Templar). make this unit a treasure. It has to be carried by another unit, can be captured by the enemy. It's only use is to be disbanded in the capital for XXX gold.

So the player builds (supercorrupt, otherwise useless) cities in the colonies, rush-builds the sugarplant, and then has a transport hanging around to pick up the treasure-unit, transport it back home, and ka-ching - loads of cash!
And his enemies start to look at his colonies with greedy eyes...

 

[Rhye]

I mean, what components of tanks or infantry equipment require rubber?

Edit: I see you've (Iztvan) edited your post. Yes, I'm still interested in savegames. I'll use them to make screenshots for the site

 

[bjorn]

I like the idea of tobacco and/or sugar being made luxuries, again it would be another motivator for me to found colonies. Africa does get colonised a bit too early - in History it was from the 1450s onward (small trading posts) because people were afraid of what they might find down south. Obviously such a psychological barrier is hard to recreate in civ. Having said that theres only so many places in Africa a player can settle, and the AI isnt that extremely quick about it. Again Id say keep it as is

 

[Rhye]

Tobacco and sugar won't be made luxuries because there are duplicates. Tobacco-to-tobacco and sugar-to-sugar-to-sugar trades would happen.

 

[Iztvan]

I mean, what components of tanks or infantry equipment require rubber?

Edit: I see you've (Iztvan) edited your post. Yes, I'm still interested in savegames. I'll use them to make screenshots for the site

I'm not sure. The way I understand it, Rubber get's to fill the role of a lot of materials, you could almost rename it "rare minerals" or something.

One way of handling the importance of rubber, would be to bring back barracks going obsolete, as it (annoyingly) did in earlier editions of Civ. What if barracks go obsolete with Replaceable parts, and the new barracks require rubber, but none of the troops? Then anyone would be able to build Infantry, but only those with barracks could upgrade their Riflemen or build veteran infantry?

When I started editing, mine was the last post. When I was finished, the discussion was on a new page!

 

[Jaybe]

Id say leave rubber the way it is and where it is now. I like the fact that when playing a European civ I have to plan ahead and found a few colonies in Africa so that Ill have rubber in the industrial age (along with some of the luxuries Africa has like gems). If I was able to build tanks another way i probably wouldnt even found colonies which is unlike what happened in Earths/Europes history.

Yes, I have always liked the idea that a mid-1900's Germany totally dependent on the resources of its contiguous empire could still build the best infantry and tank units.

Regarding previous units, I still say post-musketman units should not require saltpeter, and medieval units should not require iron. These resources represent new techniques/technologies which became readily available later on, by being able to synthesize the ingredients (saltpeter) or successfully using lower-grade ores/better refining techniques (iron).

OTOH, it's just a game.

 

[Rhye]

Yes, it's just a game. But we are Civfanatics!

But...one more question: is it only in my games or it has happened in your games too, that AI doesn't build Infantry and Tanks, and american colonies are defended by spearmen?

Jaybe ->so, together with the rifleman, would you remove saltpeter from cavalry, too?

 

[Jaybe]

Jaybe ->so, together with the rifleman, would you remove saltpeter from cavalry, too?

In my mods cavalry hasn't needed saltpeter (nor pikes, iron) since shortly after C3C came out.
[edit] In Civ3, cavalry need saltpeter because cavalry are a prime offensive unit, and offensive units require resources per the Civ3 design philosophy. [/edit]

BTW, in case I had not already mentioned it: I have knights appearing before pikes, as pikes were a development to counter the appearance of knights. Knights at monotheism, pikes/med.inf. at chivalry.

 

[Rhye]

I had some ideas, I hope you like them.
To finally eradicate obsolete units:

1) riflemen again without saltpeter (so that it can be built in colonies far from the capital), but leave cavalry with saltpeter
2) replace upgrades:
longbowman->guerrilla with longbowman->rifleman;
med.infantry ->guerrilla with med.infantry->rifleman;
berserk->guerrilla with berserk->marine (they haven't bombard ability, and both can make anph.attakcs)
rifleman->infantry with rifleman->guerrilla
flintlock inf.->rifleman with flintlock inf->infantry
this would fill the large gap between medieval units and guerrilla with an early industrial guerilla-type (no resources): rifleman; and connect the resources line flintlock inf. and infantry

 

[Rhye]

oh, by the way, the timeline problems are now gone. So if you all give me the OK to the last changes I proposed, I'll post it tonight when I'm back home. No changes to the rubber