Rhye's of Civilization - the fastest loading mod Expanded

[navman74]

Very good idea on religions Rhye. I have played around a little with the possibilities as well, religion as well as government forms, to give each govt a strength, or each religion a strength, and small wonders seem to me the best answer.

 

[Asclepius]

The idea I got today is still only an idea, I haven't made any tests and it may not work.
It was about adding Small Wonders, one for each religion, with the flag "replace all impr. with this flag checked". In this way you must choose: any civ may not have more than one religion. I'll have to test if it works backwards (if I want to swap from Christianity to Greek Polytheism). For sure I'll have to unset that flag for the plants (coal, nuclear, solar,..)
After that, I would add the small wonder as a prerequisite for some other religion-based wonders.
Sistine Chapel will be Christian only, Statue of Zeus will be Greek Pol. only, the Communist government available only with Atheism, etc.
The complexity now raises, because I'd have to add new wonders, at least 2 for each new religion, for keeping the whole thing balanced and not considering one religion above the other.

Now that is a clever idea, I like the idea of limiting improvements to certain governments/religions. Would it also be possible to change the name of the improvements for each religion so Christianity has church, Islam has mosque...Synagogues....Budhist temples...Ziggurats... whatever religions you include?

 

[Blasphemous]

Rhye, it does sound like a nice idea but you can bet people will be offended by any stereotyping of their faith or that of others. Also it sounds like you'll be able to build as many different power plants as you want if you remove that flag, and that sounds like a pretty big problem...
Perhaps a better way to go is to split each gov't into different religions (using that gov't, eg "Monarchy (Christian)", "Monarchy (Islam)", "Democracy (Atheist)") with slightly different stats compared to the other religions using that gov't and each with its own small wonder that belongs to that religion...
That would also make it less likely that people swing from religion to religion, and would at least provide a drawback for switching (since it's not easy to convert a whole country).

 

[Rhye]

WIth gov's, I wouldn't know what stats to change. It's a nonsense for me: what difference should be between an Atheist and a Chistian Democracy?
The only way seems to be the small wonders, but the plants problem must be fixed. Removing some plaints? Raising their cost? Halving their power? IMO if it isn't unbalancing, it is a minor loss compared to having religions.

I don't know why people should be offended. By what?

 

[Rhye]

And what about Israel? Is the situation still the same? I don't understand why Blashpemous doesn't want his own people in the game...

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I think the problem with Israel is that there is no room to expand, but perhaps they should have a special cheap settler (to represent the diaspora).

 

[Rhye]

The problem is the same of Sumeria. From the point of view of 6the gameplay, With the difference that Israel starts near the coast and may go away, while Sumeria has only flood plains, a lower aggression level, and many "build never" flags that tend to cripple it much more.

Israel alredy has the UUs: the Maccabee and the Merkvava 4.

 

[Blasphemous]

WIth gov's, I wouldn't know what stats to change. It's a nonsense for me: what difference should be between an Atheist and a Chistian Democracy?
The only way seems to be the small wonders, but the plants problem must be fixed. Removing some plaints? Raising their cost? Halving their power? IMO if it isn't unbalancing, it is a minor loss compared to having religions.

I don't know why people should be offended. By what?

Perhaps there shouldn't be a difference in stats, just a small wonder for each religion (sometimes shared by a few gov'ts and sometimes having different sm wonders for different gov'ts of the same religion). It just seems like a more appropriate implementation than wonders only.
People can be offended simply by their faith being stereotyped as having certain attributes and stuff... I never really understood it but people are awfully touchy about this type of thing.

I think the problem with Israel is that there is no room to expand, but perhaps they should have a special cheap settler (to represent the diaspora).

Errrr... Whne my people were in the diaspora they weren't settling anything, they were living among the indigenous population and rarely in their own settlements. When they did live in their own settlements they were tiny towns in Europe.
Cheap settlers make absolutely no sense in representing diaspora.

And what about Israel? Is the situation still the same? I don't understand why Blashpemous doesn't want his own people in the game...

I'm not exactly the biggest nationalist, and so I can look at things rationally: all the nations represented in the game were either a major military power for a long while, a major exploring/imperial/trading power for a long time, or just took up a large area for a large time.
Israel has only been a major military power for the last few decades (just a couple percent of the time represented in the game) unless perhaps you count the kingdom of Israel (in the age of David and Solomon) as a major power. We never ever took up enough space to account for more than two cities in-game, and we were never big explorers, colonists, or traders.
Our only merit for inclusion in the mod is cultural influence.
Show me another civ that is in for that kind of merit.

Israel alredy has the UUs: the Maccabee and the Merkvava 4.

It's Merkava, not Merkvava.
It means "Chariot".

 

[Rhye]

People can be offended simply by their faith being stereotyped as having certain attributes and stuff... I never really understood it but people are awfully touchy about this type of thing.

In fact I would try to make the wonders system more various.
I'd add some American temples for American pagain cults, the Sphinx for Egyptian Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Terracotta army...
I'd try to make things less greek-centric and euro-centric.
I could even remove Bach's cathedral and assign its benefits to an Extra-european wonder.

I'm not exactly the biggest nationalist, and so I can look at things rationally: all the nations represented in the game were either a major military power for a long while, a major exploring/imperial/trading power for a long time, or just took up a large area for a large time.
Israel has only been a major military power for the last few decades (just a couple percent of the time represented in the game) unless perhaps you count the kingdom of Israel (in the age of David and Solomon) as a major power. We never ever took up enough space to account for more than two cities in-game, and we were never big explorers, colonists, or traders.
Our only merit for inclusion in the mod is cultural influence.
Show me another civ that is in for that kind of merit.

Yes, the things you're saying are right. But what about Sumeria (question mark. my keyboard is broken).
They were the first to settle in middle east. They lasted about 2 thousand years.
And then. If you see from the poin6t of view of 6the 6timeline, their period is the first 40 turns. So there's not6 much difference between all the other9 civs that ate each other that time (akkadians, babylonians, assyrians, hittites, cassites,...).
Israel is one of these civs, wi6th 6the diff9erence that
-they had an huge cultural impact on the9 whole lengt6h of 6the tim9eline
-they're back as an important nation in modern times.

That's why I consider Israel more important than Sumeria.

It's Merkava, not Merkvava.

I know it's Merkava. Tomorrow I'll buy a new keyboard.

 

[Beernuts1987]

YAY new keyboard for Rhye!! I was starting to get confused

Anyway, about the enslave ability issue. I think I have a solution: Instead of overpowering units why not create a new resource called "Slaves" and scatter them throughout Africa. Thier dissapearance/reapearance ratio would be high, to represent tribes running out of usable slaves. This resource would allow the building of a worker for 1/2 the normal cost AND no population cost. The only problem is: how do make slavery end by the late middle ages?

I have another idea: If a person has control of a "Slaves" resource they can build a sm. wonder that creates a slave worker every 5 turns or so. It could be made obsolete by industrialization or another early industrial tech.

Well, what are your opinions? (Blasphemous, you are not allowed to say "It MAY offend some people" THIS WAS ACTUALLY DONE!)


Edit: Oh by the way Horton, I will join your quest to play a crappy civ! Which one should I be?

 

[Owain]

Oh I do have a suggestion regarding the appearance of horses in the Americas... they really come too late to be of any use at all. When do they appear exactly? 1790 or so? Shouldn't they appear sometime in the 16th century? 1500's... Sure it gives the American civs a little more oomph since they're so far behind in tech to suddenly be able to produce something approaching a competetive offensive unit, but by the late 18th century it seems like the American civs either catch up in tech and by that time horses are useless, or they are so hopelessly far behind that horses make no difference anyway.

I dunno... I really like the idea of the delayed introduction of horses and I'm sure Rhye's given it alot of thought... there's probably posts about it in this thread already that I just haven't read, but it just seemed like something that could use a little fine-tuning.

I guess its a question of historical acuracy versus playability.

 

[Beernuts1987]

I think that the horses showing up is not based on time but tech advancement. A 16th century tech would make them available.

 

[Owain]

ahh, that makes sense... I got so many techs, so fast as the Iroquois once I got contact with the rest of the world that I bypassed any possible period where horses would be of use.

 

[Rhye]

Oh I do have a suggestion regarding the appearance of horses in the Americas... they really come too late to be of any use at all. When do they appear exactly? 1790 or so? Shouldn't they appear sometime in the 16th century? 1500's... Sure it gives the American civs a little more oomph since they're so far behind in tech to suddenly be able to produce something approaching a competetive offensive unit, but by the late 18th century it seems like the American civs either catch up in tech and by that time horses are useless, or they are so hopelessly far behind that horses make no difference anyway.

I dunno... I really like the idea of the delayed introduction of horses and I'm sure Rhye's given it alot of thought... there's probably posts about it in this thread already that I just haven't read, but it just seemed like something that could use a little fine-tuning.

I guess its a question of historical acuracy versus playability.

In America Horses spreaded much after the other resources introduced by the Europeans, because riding horses was forbidden. They should appear when Milittary Tradition is sicovered. To say the truth, I'm not sure of when exactly does usually (in most games) America discover MIlitary Tradition. Tell me the year. If that is too late, I'll make them appear earlier

 

[Rhye]

Oh by the way Horton, I will join your quest to play a crappy civ! Which one should I be?

It's your choice between Egypt, Aztecs, Mayas, Korea. Don't take other civs because after 2.52 there will be some tuning.

 

[Beernuts1987]

I think i'll go with the Aztecs. What do you think of the slavery idea?

 

[Rhye]

oh, right, the slavery.
I can make a resource appear, but not disappear. That's a big problem. The wonder seems a better idea, possibly to include in the Xpack. (even if I don't consider slavery a "wonder of the world" )
however I can confirm that in the expansion some units will have the ability. Just think: adding a 2nd UU, and swapping the archers role makes a big mess with the 1st UU. Reorganizing the units will take enslavement into account.

 

[Rhye]

YAY new keyboard for Rhye!! I was starting to get confused

That's strange. When I pressed "e" it wrote "9e" or "e9", when I wrote "c" it wrote "c
" (c+enter), and the same with other keys. I had to make many correction to make my massage readable.
I opened the keyboard and saw that everything was allright. When closing it I broke 2 keys, but the rest seems to work. Except for "del" which seems dead. I have to use the backspace.
Tomorrow I'll buy a new keyb.

 

[Horton]

Rhye, I have a suggestion for the Zulus. The Impi is supposed to be a fast moving unit but with the poor terrain and many plateaus and marshes around Africa the impi rarely gets to use it's 2nd movement point. Would you consider changing the Impi stats to 1/2/1 treats all as roads? That would fix the issue and make the Impi useful for taking out barbarian camps and harassing the AI like in vanilla civ.

Zulu, Mongols, or Egypt are my top choices for the crippled civ challenge. Maybe we could all start a game when the next update is ready and compare our games to see how effective different styles are.

 

[Blasphemous]

iirc Rhye, Sumeria is the direct ancestor of Babylon so in fact it deserves to be represented by Babylon and not by itself.
Sumeria is an unworthy civ perhaps (though 2000 years are not a short while, even if it is just the first 40 turns - Israel only has under 60 years) but there are other nations more appropriate than Israel... I've made suggestons before, feel free to use them. =P