Rhye's of Civilization - the fastest loading mod Expanded

[rendermad]

Here's an idea in order to reduce the green base of mountains:
I moved the border line of the tundra-grassland tiles (xtgc.pcx), so it's now under the mountains. This is the standard civ terrain, but I guess the same could be applied to yours. I have yet to modify the mountain and hill tiles, and that seems to be the tricky part.

 

[Iztvan]

This reflects history very well! In WWI alot of the fighting was on a stationary line where trench warfare commenced, exactly because tanks were not yet fully developed and cavalry was completely obsolete. In WWII tanks and artillery were developed and so the line shifted around more.

Sure, Cavalry was useless on the western front during WW1. It was still used (and units were raised = built) on the eastern front and during the Russian civil war and in the middle east. And that was not because of backwardness, the open fronts made good recon units necessary, and with luck Cavalry could ambush and pick of fatigued or surpriced infantry.

Cavalry going obsolete when Tank (i.e. ww2 tank, not ww1 tank) is more correct.

 

[Horton]

I don't think shortening the game is a good idea. When playing some of the low powered civs like Zulu or Maya it can take most of the game just to build your empire into something that has an outside shot at winning. Wiping out 140 turns would gimp these civs even further.

Even if late game turns take a bit longer there is still nowhere near the downtime between turns you get in a normal game.

 

[Blasphemous]

Iztvan, did any nations that were already deploying WWI-style infantry actually continue to use mounted units en masse?
Perhaps what we need is to have a light cavalry unit that comes in with Infantry and serves a very short term between WWI infantry and WWII tanks. The stats could be perhaps 7.4.1, all terrain as roads, and should cost a bit more than Cavalry.
This way at least we wouldn't have century-old units running around when tanks are popping up...
(Even though I still think Infantry represents the stage at which tanks first appeared and obsoleted mounted units.)

 

[Rhye]

I don't know how many games you all have finished with this mod reaching 2050AD, and what computer you have. I have received many times advices about increasing loading times from 1600 on.
Probably most of you didn't notice that the timeline of this mod was already shortened to 500 turns. Aiming to 400 turns would mean getting rid of pointless 1752, 1754, 1756, 1758 In my opinion a standard civ game is too long in some eras.
Time will slip a little faster, and you won't notice because the research status will always be corresponding. I don't think that building empires with weaker civs will be a problem, I prefer rebalance them but give primary importance to game speed.
Of course, if all this doesn't work, I have the old version still here.
If this works....it will be the best thing I've done since double&invisible resources

 

[Blasphemous]

Cutting down 100 turns seems a bit much... Perhaps cut it down by a bit less? Perhaps by twenty or fifty turns?

 

[Rhye]

___________

 

[Iztvan]

Iztvan, did any nations that were already deploying WWI-style infantry actually continue to use mounted units en masse?
Perhaps what we need is to have a light cavalry unit that comes in with Infantry and serves a very short term between WWI infantry and WWII tanks. The stats could be perhaps 7.4.1, all terrain as roads, and should cost a bit more than Cavalry.
This way at least we wouldn't have century-old units running around when tanks are popping up...
(Even though I still think Infantry represents the stage at which tanks first appeared and obsoleted mounted units.)

Russia (Red & White), Austria-Hungary & Germany used them on the eastern front, where the Infantry wasn't "stacks of death". It was used a lot during the Russian civil war. But perhaps a "mounted infantry" would be more appropriate.

 

[Rhye]

rendermad -> how did you do that exactly? can you post the xtgc?

 

[Iztvan]

-> Rhye

The save i mailed you is useless, since I modded it just slightly... sorry, tried to mail you, but your mailbox was full.

 

[rendermad]

rendermad -> how did you do that exactly? can you post the xtgc?

Let me explain with examples:
Two original corner tiles

Two modified tiles

T means tundra, G grassland. The blue lines represent the actual border of the tiles.
I just moved the border from the tundra tiles to the grassland ones and filled the space with tundra.
BTW, I've only modified the grassland-tundra corners, but the g-t-coast tiles need to be changed as well.

Here's the file:
xtgc.pcx

 

[Rhye]

Update status:

- 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 a LM forest in Greece with a hill and in Mongolia with a forest
- 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 order to make Incan escape more difficult
- Added some rivers to separate some islands from the main land
- Tuned Babylonian, Sumerian, Japanese, Viking, Russian, Persian, American, French and German strength
- Tuned Japanese and Viking research speed
- Worker cost now 30 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)
- New timeline: 20/50, 25/40, 42/25, 97/20, 58/10, 72/5, 34/2. Now the game develops in 400 turns and loading times are much reduced in Industrial and Modern Age.
- Holy War cost reduced to 30; Knigths Templar cost reduced to 36
- 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

 

[ibcoltscrew]

Update status:
...

Do you know when its going to be available ?

 

[ibcoltscrew]

I would like to know... Why is the start location moving when i modify one of theme... After adding Canada and removing Iroquois, i have move the start location of canada 1 scare to the north... after this move, i notice that Mongol was at the England location and some other start location was wrong... like spain, Scandinavi, etc.

What's wrong ?

I've change rome for Italian (no probleme) Change Aztec for Mexican (no probleme too) but if i touch the location of Canada (Iroquois), England disapper and Mongol take the England start location !!! Same thing for Spain.
Maybe i should just rename Iroquois and modify it instead of adding Canada and removing Iroquois ??? That's what i did for Rome and everything was fine.

I dont think i will modifiy the rule ... it's already well done. Canada will be most like america and i will take a look for the leader's head... if i cant find a good one for canada, i will simply use Lincoln. Some other thing will be change for personnal use like Adding even more plain in canada and make sure the worker can clean anywhere in modern time. Lock Canada and America to make sure they never declar war to each other.

Thanks if you can help !

 

[Horton]

Why the change to worker cost Rhye? That's going to really hurt some of the civs who start in bad terrain.

 

[Rhye]

ibcoltscrew -> the patch will be released with the new timeline only if I am satisfied. If in a couple of days I can't find a good solution, I'll post the 2.41 without that change.
Remember that testing a whole game from 4000BC to 2050AD takes a whole day for me - my computer is quite slow.
About your problem, I probably know what it is - did you uncheck "custom player data"?

horton -> In some savegames I noticed with the help of the PowerBar that there are too many workers. Far too much. Don't worry about some civs - I have already improved Babylonian and Sumerian starting location - I'm going to do the same with Zulu and India. I'm sure of 2 population, not sure about raising from 20 to 30 shields.

 

[ibcoltscrew]

ibcoltscrew -> the patch will be released with the new timeline only if I am satisfied. If in a couple of days I can't find a good solution, I'll post the 2.41 without that change.
Remember that testing a whole game from 4000BC to 2050AD takes a whole day for me - my computer is quite slow.

If i add a timeline, it's not going to be soon, I will first try to change 3 civilization and will see how i could add a timeline and unit to the mod.

About your problem, I probably know what it is - did you uncheck "custom player data"?.

No ?

 

[bjorn]

"- Added a sugar in Madeira "

plz note though that sugar was cultivated in Madeira only after its discovery in the Americas (so in the 1500s). If you want to be precise it should pop up after say navigation.

 

[Asclepius]

Don't whether this has been mentioned before but the horses strategic resource in England doesn't work. It appears in the list as a resource but England can't build any mounted units until it trades for horses. Also seen Egyptian chariots moving through jungle, is that right?

 

[Asclepius]

Another thought.... have you ever considered making tanks/modern armour/mechanized infantry NOT air transportable? I always think it gives the player a hugh advantage against the AI when invading if you can build an airfield and fly dozens of units half way round the world, it just shouldn't be possible. Invasions should always be from naval transporters. (Think about US equipment sent to Iraq, waiting in ships off Turkish coast.) As a counter-balance you could keep building Infantry after researching computers and allow Infantry to be air transportable. What do you think?