Rhye's of Civilization - the fastest loading mod Expanded

[Rhye]

Another thing:
I noticed that in the standard biq jet fighters and bombers don't upgrade to stealth units. Is there a good reason for building those units from scratch?

 

[Blasphemous]

1. Hmmm... I'm gonna probably wake up at about 11:00 or 12:00 GMT, I'll make it my first priority...

3. It may be a bit more problematic with units in the middle of a line, because then lines merge. But with line-starting units like the Warrior there's nothing at all to lose if you want it to upgrade to a different line than usual.

4. I know they should, but that's not possible so what I suggested can be used because it does make sense in a way and it would in fact have a use in the game by allowing small civs with high production capabilities to build mercenaries that would not drain the national funds and would still be pretty powerful.

6) Thing about jets

6. Well, IIRC Stealth are expensive and not totally superior so they can be used in conjunction with the earlier air units... But honestly the only air unit I build alot of is Bomber and I don't recall the last time I built a stealth plane.

 

[Khift]

I have to say that I disagree with the no-upkeep mercenaries. Rhye is right about them - you should call on them only when you need them and dismiss them as soon as you can. And, as a player, I know that I would end up building mercs and only mercs once I filled up my supply.

 

[Horton]

horse archers are not upgrading to cavalry or lancers, they seem to be a dead end.

Please do not take away the ability of rome to upgrade warriors into legions, that would be too drastic a penalty.

Fusiliers are 5/5 and cavalry/lancers are 6/3, shouldn't the horse units have a more superior attack rating over the gunpowder foot units? Maybe change fusilier to 3/5/1 as in original RoC.

 

[Aeon221]

Yes, there is a good reason for regular planes not upgrading into stealths; the damn stealth thingies are so expensive to build, and are not very effective at combat (look at stealth fighter stats vs jet) The stealth bombers are nice, but since IRL they cost so much to build and maintain I think the designers decided to force you to build them from scratch.

I always preferred that, as it just felt cool to be able to build a few stealths and do a long range strike with them out of nowhere ;p

@horton: I think Rhye moved the attack of footsies down a bit

 

[Jaguar]

Cavalry shouldn't have a real significant advantage in attack strength over foot soldiers. Because then infantry would only be useful for defense. Cavalry shouldn't have a clear attack advantage in addition to their speed and retreat advantage.

 

[Tyrion]

I said just incase there wernt any whales near tas i havent had units near there so i didnt knwo. you reminded me by mentioning New Zealands supply.

With a Civpack removing Byzantines can we expect a similar one introducing Australian or New Zealand Aborigines? That isnt 70 Megabytes.

 

[CJ.]

Get rid of the Byzantines and add a population for Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. They can be "Austral-Asia". Searfaring and argricultural. Their special unit can be a warrior with a boomerang.

Australian Aborigines are hunter, gatherer nomads. Indonesians are seafarers and fishing related. If a civ can be added, it would more realistic.

 

[Asclepius]

I have to agree with Blasphemous in that Byzantium gets in the way of Roman and Greek expansion. I would also prefer a SE Asian or Australasian civ replacement. However, how do you stop the Ottomans from expanding up into central Europe? It would be more realistic if Anatolia wasn't connected to Europe at the bosphorous but how would that affect game play?

Re: Stealth. As everyone else said, they are too damned expensive to build and operate. Upgrading bombers to stealth bombers is a no-no!

Re: U2 spyplane. Upgrading a balloon to a U2? That's kind of a large step! But it is possible. The U2 was first used in the mid 1950's and if you are changing the tech tree anyway, just put it somewhere in the post-WWII position. Say in with the Tank upgrade!

 

[Rhye]

horse archers are not upgrading to cavalry or lancers, they seem to be a dead end.

Please do not take away the ability of rome to upgrade warriors into legions, that would be too drastic a penalty.

Fusiliers are 5/5 and cavalry/lancers are 6/3, shouldn't the horse units have a more superior attack rating over the gunpowder foot units? Maybe change fusilier to 3/5/1 as in original RoC.

yes I switched them back to 4/5.

Horse archers are upgrading to cavalry, while horsemen and knights upgrade to lancers. Instead of dividing into light and heavy cavalry, I prefered dividing the ranged cavalry.

And with Blasphemous' idea of an alternative warrior, legions can upgrade to warrior and then follow the spearman path.
So I can decide again what I want to replace (spearman or swordsman)

 

[Rhye]

Re: U2 spyplane. Upgrading a balloon to a U2? That's kind of a large step! But it is possible. The U2 was first used in the mid 1950's and if you are changing the tech tree anyway, just put it somewhere in the post-WWII position. Say in with the Tank upgrade!

the tank upgrade.....
the new tank can be called Armor or Heavy Tank.
Or I can call the WWI tank "Light Tank" (in fact they were poorly armoured) and the WWII and post-WWII tank "Tank".
And why not, rename the modern armor "Modern Tank"

Which one's better? (Rememeber, in italian it's the same ("carro armato") so I don't know the difference)

 

[Rhye]

Oh, I've seen what Horton was saying. I forgot to check their upgrade option.

 

[Rhye]

Now, another question before I change the biq:

is it OK for:
-B52 and AEGIS Cruiser American UUs.
-A-Bomb replaces Tactical nuke

 

[Blasphemous]

Modern Tank doesn't sound right... Main Battle Tank sounds better, and iirc that name has been used in other mods for the modern heavy tank.

I don't know about AEGIS cruiser being an American UU... There are plenty of other things that are more distinctly american and more influential in American military history. Even giving them boosted marines would be better than giving them the AEGIS imho.

About Legions, I think they should replace both Swordsmen and Spearmen... The Romans get Spearmen with Bronze Working, and then when they get Iron Working they upgrade all their spears and warriors to Legions which last into the middle ages, when they become obsolete, upgrade into the Spear line (whatever is in that line right after Pikemen), and then they need to start diversifying their army a bit since there will be fast powerful units available to them for offense.

And now on the tech trees (writing ideas and concerns and solution as they come, sorry for the erratic style of writing):

Ancient:
Maybe Warrior code should be required for Iron Working? The organized kind of units represented by Swordsmen and the UUs that replace them (Legions especially) should not be available before simpler units of archers.
One of the religious techs (polytheism or monotheism) should still be requisite for Monarchy, to avoid the situation I desribed earlier where a player would just research along one path no matter what and then choose a government when they time came... But then we in fact have teh sae problem again because you would still have to research the two same lines no matter what government you want. Okay, here's an idea:
Mathematics requires Alphabet but not Writing.
Monarchy requires Currency and Polytheism.
Republic stays the same.
I know it's not AS logical as your proposed setup, but it would force the player into more choice and also it would leave Monarchy easier to achieve than Republic, meaning we're likely to see more Monarchies around.
I think perhaps a distinction should be made between ancient monarchies which were really just advanced despotisms, and medieval feudal monarchies which were more institutionalized... and stuff. I would say make Monarchy a bit more similar to Despotism, then rename the Feudalism gov't (which was not an actual form of government anyway) "Feudal Monarchy" and make it a bit more similar to Monarchy...

Medieval:
I'm trying to think how the tech tree could be changed so it would still make sense but not become just one big line of techs where you only have a choice earlier on what side to start on... It would help if Magnetism was part of the top line and not the bottom one... Perhaps make Astronomy require Magnetism and Magnetism require Education? Then the military tech line would only merge with the spiritual/social/intellectual line via the naval line at the end of the age. Again, a little bit of realism discarded for more gameplay variety.
And what exactly is Physics going to give? That tech is another connection between the military line adn teh naval line, and even though it doesn't really fuse the lines (because noting requires it), it may not be the greatest idea to add such a connection between the lines if this tech is something everyone will want to research (because then they'll have to research through all three trees to get to it.)

Industrial:
Simply make Economis require nothing, and you get three seperate lines: (from top to bottom) socio-political; industrial-economical; technological; with the two latter fusing together at the end of the age.
Of course having Economics require Enlightenment wouldn't be all that bad really, it makes little difference either way, but it may be better to remove the link simply to make the distinction of lines more distinct. There was a serious problem in the original tech tree of the Industrial tech tree not giving you much of a need to decide what line to research, I think that mistake should be avoided.

Modern:
No real complaints, actually. Just maybe somehow make Superconductor come later than Laser and Robotics, since the Superconductor is in fact a future tech and should not come in before things that already exist.
Also, what will Globalisation actually do?

EDIT:
Just had an idea for the mercenaries thingy... Have a small wonder for each type of mercenaries (say "Assassin Contract" or "Pikeman Contract", depending wether you want to hire Assassins or Pikemen), that is relatively cheap to build, has VERY VERY high upkeep, produces the chosen type of mercenary every two or three turns. This wonder would become obsolete after just a couple techs, and every mercenary unit would have a zero-shield cost (so they're no use for rush-disbanding) and not upgrade to anything (or perhaps upgrade into a regular unit line at a high cost). There would be a few of these contract wonders spread across the tech tree, they should require Palace in their city so that people build them only in their capital, and any nation can hire any mercenary - for a high cost, for a while.
The idea may need to be altered a bit to work, but what do you guys think?

 

[CJ.]

I agree that the US special unit should be the Marine. The US should be building very powerful "Marines" rather than tanks, modern armor. Then you have, "the US are sending in the Marines". They should be a little weaker than modern armor, and a lot cheaper.

 

[Rhye]

Modern Tank doesn't sound right... Main Battle Tank sounds better, and iirc that name has been used in other mods for the modern heavy tank.

What about
Light Tank -> Tank -> Battle tank

About Legions, I think they should replace both Swordsmen and Spearmen... The Romans get Spearmen with Bronze Working, and then when they get Iron Working they upgrade all their spears and warriors to Legions which last into the middle ages, when they become obsolete, upgrade into the Spear line (whatever is in that line right after Pikemen), and then they need to start diversifying their army a bit since there will be fast powerful units available to them for offense.

In this way you would leave romans with no armies until iron working...remember, the legions come later. I think I'll make them replace swordsmen with

Ancient:
I know it's not AS logical as your proposed setup, but it would force the player into more choice and also it would leave Monarchy easier to achieve than Republic, meaning we're likely to see more Monarchies around.
I think perhaps a distinction should be made between ancient monarchies which were really just advanced despotisms, and medieval feudal monarchies which were more institutionalized... and stuff. I would say make Monarchy a bit more similar to Despotism, then rename the Feudalism gov't (which was not an actual form of government anyway) "Feudal Monarchy" and make it a bit more similar to Monarchy...

I think I'll remove alphabet. Writing and alphabet sounds the same. If you know alphabet, you know how to write!
About the gov's, let's postpone the problem.

Medieval:
I'm trying to think how the tech tree could be changed so it would still make sense but not become just one big line of techs where you only have a choice earlier on what side to start on... It would help if Magnetism was part of the top line and not the bottom one... Perhaps make Astronomy require Magnetism and Magnetism require Education? Then the military tech line would only merge with the spiritual/social/intellectual line via the naval line at the end of the age. Again, a little bit of realism discarded for more gameplay variety.
And what exactly is Physics going to give? That tech is another connection between the military line adn teh naval line, and even though it doesn't really fuse the lines (because noting requires it), it may not be the greatest idea to add such a connection between the lines if this tech is something everyone will want to research (because then they'll have to research through all three trees to get to it.)

If I postpone Astronomy too much, America will be discovered too late.
Otherwise........I could move caravels to magnetism and apply your changes.
Physics is going to give Newton's university.
It doesn't hurt strategical decisions, as it is the last researcheable tech

Industrial:
Simply make Economis require nothing, and you get three seperate lines: (from top to bottom) socio-political; industrial-economical; technological; with the two latter fusing together at the end of the age.

There are other problems:
-the last techs in the upper path must be corrected
-something must be put in the middle of the lower path to substitute Replaceable Parts

Modern:
No real complaints, actually. Just maybe somehow make Superconductor come later than Laser and Robotics, since the Superconductor is in fact a future tech and should not come in before things that already exist.
Also, what will Globalisation actually do?

So, supercondutor is a future tech? I'll move it at once!
I'll add "Mobil Warfare" at the beginning of the age, too. It will allow tanks.

Just had an idea for the mercenaries thingy... Have a small wonder for each type of mercenaries (say "Assassin Contract" or "Pikeman Contract", depending wether you want to hire Assassins or Pikemen), that is relatively cheap to build, has VERY VERY high upkeep, produces the chosen type of mercenary every two or three turns. This wonder would become obsolete after just a couple techs, and every mercenary unit would have a zero-shield cost (so they're no use for rush-disbanding) and not upgrade to anything (or perhaps upgrade into a regular unit line at a high cost). There would be a few of these contract wonders spread across the tech tree, they should require Palace in their city so that people build them only in their capital, and any nation can hire any mercenary - for a high cost, for a while.
The idea may need to be altered a bit to work, but what do you guys think?

nice idea. But there's one problem: when the wonder expires, the upkeep remains....afaik wonders can't be sold.

 

[Blasphemous]

Gonna number these again, sorry.

1) What about
Light Tank -> Tank -> Battle tank

2) In this way you would leave romans with no armies until iron working...remember, the legions come later. I think I'll make them replace swordsmen with

3) I think I'll remove alphabet. Writing and alphabet sounds the same. If you know alphabet, you know how to write!
About the gov's, let's postpone the problem.

4) If I postpone Astronomy too much, America will be discovered too late.
Otherwise........I could move caravels to magnetism and apply your changes.
Physics is going to give Newton's university.
It doesn't hurt strategical decisions, as it is the last researcheable tech

5) There are other problems:
-the last techs in the upper path must be corrected
-something must be put in the middle of the lower path to substitute Replaceable Parts

6) So, supercondutor is a future tech? I'll move it at once!
I'll add "Mobil Warfare" at the beginning of the age, too. It will allow tanks.

7) nice idea. But there's one problem: when the wonder expires, the upkeep remains....afaik wonders can't be sold.

1. Batle Tank sounds wrong... Main Battle Tank I think is an actual term used by modern armies. But I don't really know much about this, I'll leave it to others to comment on.

2. Whaa? What kind of armies would they get before Iron Working anyway (other than spears, which they still will have)? All I said was that once they get legions they won't need Swordsmen or Spearmen and so the Legion can replace both, giving them a nice boost due to intial upgrade rushes being possible from both Warrior and spear, and later forcing them to construct a new army as their Legions upgrade into units that no longer dominate the battlefield offensively.

3. But that doesn't solve the problem. That way if you make Monarchy require Polytheism it will still require (almost) the same research for both Monarchy and Republic (except for the gv't tech itself.) You gotta force nations to choose what line to research in the ancient age, this was a major choice to make in Civ3 and I don't think it should be cahnged drastically.

4. What I proposed would make Astronomy come in a bit EARLIER, not later, becuase you would only have to research teh upper tree to get to it (while now you need to start a bit of the lower military tree to get Magnetism).

5. Please elaborate.

7. Tests need to be done on this... Are you sure upkeep continues to be active after obsoletion?

 

[Rhye]

here's the second version of the tech trees.

They seem very accurate now, and I hope that the problems Blasphemous mentioned are now solved



EDIT: updated the first part. I put there a couple of wrong arrows

 

[Asclepius]

What about
Light Tank -> Tank -> Battle tank

As Blasphemous suggested, Battle Tank doesnt sound right. Main Battle Tank or MBT is a modern acronym for a modern heavy tank. The word tank isn't used much any more - they are described as "armour".

The graphic for the "tank" is actually a WWII US Sherman not a WWI style tank. Personally I would skip the WWI style tanks as they were used for such a short time and simply the very bottom of the learning curve.

I would suggest:
Light Tank > Heavy Tank > MBT

 

[Rhye]

I've added the Light Tank with a WWI tank animation (lower stats, requires rubber).
I left the Tank and the Modern Armor with their tank and their animation.
The Tank is postponed to the beginning of Modern Times and doesn't require rubber.

OK?