Rise And Rule Revisited (epic mod)

[Belofon]

One small graphic bug - steam transports don't have ranged attack (because of this units who attack transport do not rotate).

 

[Civinator]

Hi Belefon, when looking into the editor, in RARR 1.7 the (steam) transport has the ranged attack flag. Can it be, that your screenshot is from an older version of RARR?

 

[Belofon]

Can it be, that your screenshot is from an older version of RARR?

It is indeed from older version of RARR - I've started this game several months ago. No wonder this error was found before.
I've just checked my current RARR biq, and it already has this small bug fixed.

As for current version, I think that wheeled flag for armored cars seriously limits their effectiveness as a replacement for cavalry (due to this - no fast offensive unit in late IA for maps with lots of mountains/marshes). Deleting this flag seems rather illogical, so what about changing cavalry upgrade path back to air cavalry? IRL cavalry was sometimes used along with armored cars, and it would definitely find some use in case if frontline would be ill-suited for use of vehicles.

 

[PhilB]

I've finally found a way to play the game from a pen drive, without prior installation. It's not "portable" in the purest sense of the term, as you need to add up a few lines in windows register, but once it's done (from .reg basic file), it's playable.
Now if anyone gets fired from his job, complain to Civinator
PM me if interested.

 

[PhilB]

Also, I posted a message in the general civ 3 forum about the difficulty level. I was playing a great game on the earth map/Emperor (what a fantastic addition to the mod), but I noticed the AI was losing ground and didn't want to dominate the game excessively.
Then I realized it was just for a short time as a huge world war had started, from which new powers arose. Anyways, it raised a few questions regarding the AI in RARR :

- Is the AI improved or tweaked in RARR, compared to vanilla C3C ? I think I read that somewhere in the thread but can't remember where... Maybe cost factor tweak ?
- As the AI advantage from having extra starting units on Semi-God mode makes the early game really tedious, do you think in-game difficulty change (with C3MT) could be a solution ? (again, by changing cost factor mid-game)

Thanks for your answers !

 

[Twingrey]

Hey! Me and my friends made a video about the mod, ours is not a big channel too, but still, maybe someone will be interested:

 

[Civinator]

Twingrey, welcome at CFC!

I always like it when Civ III receives some attention. I also like it, that in your video the proper credit to the original creators of the DyP and RAR mods is shown for an adequate time. For not English speaking spectators like me, I think you are sometimes speaking a little bit too fast. In your video for my taste too much was shown about other things outside this mod and too less about RARR. For all civers who don´t have played RARR until now: Please don´t be afraid, that the US must fight with their old Iowa BB4 predreadnought against the WW2 Bismarck and Yamato battleships. Their German and Japanese opponents coming with the same tech are the Mikasa and Brandenburg predreadnoughts. In WW2 the US of course is fighting with another generation of Iowas.

Spoiler :

So not belonging to RARR, I also like your short report about other games (Civ 2 ToT, AOW2 SM, AC) of that genre and I agree, that the multiple maps in Civ 2 ToT were a great feature that unfortunately was never repeated in the Civ series again. The best modding work I have ever done in my eyes was a Civ 2 ToT science fiction mod with multiple maps and lightly animated spaceships, holding different galaxies (or quadrants) where invasions could be started by creating wormwholes from one galaxy (or quadrant) into the other one. This is a brutal game - especially in multiplayer - as it added a real third dimension the player has to pay attention to.

I also liked the short scene of AOW2 SM, one of my favourite games beside Civ 3, and I am wondering about the name of the AOW2 SM scenario showing that wide underground level in your video.

What was added by the first not well known inofficial Russian expansion to Civ 3 called Atlantes (or something like that)?

I agree to pack Civ 1 - Civ 3 into the same group (good interface and good visible optics on the map and fun to play) and the other civ versions in the other group, that is haunted by interface problems and an - in my eyes - poor table top presentation of the game. There is one 'revolution' in the civ series, that was not mentioned in your short report about Civ 2 ToT: The modder TNO created TOTPP. This is a massive update of Civ 2 ToT adding 72 patches for Test of Time including Lua scripting. First very interesting scenarios using TOTPP and lua scripting can be found here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ2-scenario-league.428/ As most Civ 3 units can be converted to animated Civ 2 ToT units, in my eyes this could become the true future of the Civ series, if a programming error in the Civ 2 ToT combat animations of the defending unit could be resolved.

All in all: Good job. I want to see more about Civ 3, Civ 2 ToT, AC and AOW2 SM.

 

[Civinator]

As for current version, I think that wheeled flag for armored cars seriously limits their effectiveness as a replacement for cavalry (due to this - no fast offensive unit in late IA for maps with lots of mountains/marshes). Deleting this flag seems rather illogical, so what about changing cavalry upgrade path back to air cavalry? IRL cavalry was sometimes used along with armored cars, and it would definitely find some use in case if frontline would be ill-suited for use of vehicles.

Belofon, I want to have all these beautiful armored car units (AC) in the game. As the ACs have lower attack and defense values compared to tanks, the AI refuses to build ACs (at least in greater numbers). On the other side, when ACs become available in the game, there are tons of mounted units on the map, that historically became mostly obsolete when ACs did appear. So cavalry in smaller numbers were used even in WW2, ACs were found in the overwhelming number of cases on the side of tanks - and not cavalry. I don´t like the sight of tanks combined with masses of cavalry in the game. So the existing masses of AI cavalry on the map are the source, that there will be a greater number of ACs for AI civs later in the game, too.

For reasons of gameplay, I always have the feeling, that Firaxis showed too less respect of mountains in Civ 3. In my mod CCM all mounted units have the wheeled flag, too - and if you have a look into one of the CCM succession games at CFC, this works very well, even with the strictly limited number of workers in that mod. Mounted units were never famous for their great cavalry charges against alpine forts on top of those mountains. They even were not frequently used for transporting material over the mountains. This duty belonged to mules - but a "mule cavalry" combined with tanks is the last thing I want in the game. I don´t think, that a replacement unit must be better in all values than the unit it is replacing. So I don´t see any need to change back the upgrade path from cavalry to air cavalry with the consequences that ACs will disappear for AI civs and horses are one of the main attacking forces in the game until helicopters are available (what is a pretty lot of a time).

 

[Civinator]

Also, I posted a message in the general civ 3 forum about the difficulty level. I was playing a great game on the earth map/Emperor (what a fantastic addition to the mod), but I noticed the AI was losing ground and didn't want to dominate the game excessively.
Then I realized it was just for a short time as a huge world war had started, from which new powers arose. Anyways, it raised a few questions regarding the AI in RARR :

- Is the AI improved or tweaked in RARR, compared to vanilla C3C ? I think I read that somewhere in the thread but can't remember where... Maybe cost factor tweak ?
- As the AI advantage from having extra starting units on Semi-God mode makes the early game really tedious, do you think in-game difficulty change (with C3MT) could be a solution ? (again, by changing cost factor mid-game)

Thanks for your answers !

PhilB, thank you very much for your kind words about playing this mod.

In RARR I made no special tweaks and improvements to the AI compared to vanilla C3C, but I made tons of tweaks and improvements for the AI in my CCM mods. Here you can read more about it: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ccm2-epic-mod.625812/ and here: https://www.civforum.de/showthread.php?90564-CCM1&p=5938640&viewfull=1#post5938640

PhilB, I never made changes in difficulty during a Civ 3 game.

 

[PhilB]

Thanks Civinator for your answer.

I think I have spotted a problem with a unit : the Destroyer WWI doesn't have the bombard option.
I've just updated all my Heavy Frigate fleet before attacking Siam's coastal cities, just to find out they were totally useless. I believe it's an error, but I can be wrong.

Do you think there's a way to sort this out in my actual game ? If not I'll stick to my old Frigates fleet.

Thanks

 

[Civinator]

PhilB, I just made a control of all destroyers coming with tech Unionization in the standard biq of RARR 1.7. All WWI destroyers have the bombard option.
What destroyer is it, that causes this problem and what biq are you playing ?

 

[PhilB]

Sorry, I play on the world map biq.

 

[Civinator]

Sorry, I play on the world map biq.

PhilB, even in the corrected worldmap for RARR 1.7 (with playable Celts), that is posted here, all WW1 destroyers have the bombard option.
Are you playing the old worldmap biq and what destroyer for what civ doesn´t have the bombard option ?

 

[PhilB]

I play the Indians, it's just called Destroyer WWI. Got them after I learned Unionization.
I think I have the last biq but I'll double check.
Thanks for your quick answer anyway!

 

[Civinator]

I play the Indians, it's just called Destroyer WWI. Got them after I learned Unionization.
I think I have the last biq but I'll double check. Thanks for your quick answer anyway!

PhilB, yes the heavy frigate for India is upgrading to the destroyer WWI. I had a start on the worldmap biq with India and that unit has the bombard option in the RARR 1.7 Worldmap biq. The bombard entries in the civilopedia are hardcoded and are done by the game when that option is enabled.

At present I cannot explain, why you have this problem. If you post a save file with your upgraded WWI destroyers in your current game, I will have a look into that save file.

 

[PhilB]

I don't know what kind of bug it is... The bombard command just doesn't show.
Tell me if you find something.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UiseWariQcD2zcqMll8x0ti4M2w2PAcv/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xv0bNtvqy0UFje4TmjURnTjnLtBB20yw/view?usp=sharing

Thanks !

 

[Civinator]

PhilB, thank you very much for posting that save file and for reporting an error.

Indeed the Destroyer WWI cannot bombard despite the fact, that all hardcoded entries that the unit can perform bombarding missions are shown in the civilopedia for that unit. The entry in the editor to enable the 'Bombard' option was not enabled for this unit.

Unfortunately this cannot be fixed in your current game, but it is no game breaker. The error is noted to be fixed in the next version of the RARR biq.

 

[PhilB]

Great! I'm glad I could contribute to a better RARR!
As for my actual game, I'll just postpone my attack on Siam

 

[ynot56]

First, I like the AC's and think they are a great addition to the game. I also totally agree with keeping the wheeled flag.

However, once tanks come around, there is no reason to buy AC's anymore, the cost/benefit is not ... attractive (although I usually have plenty of AC's from upgrades of Calvary). I believe that one of the reasons for this relative lack of attractiveness is that the attack values of 9 and 10 for the early armored car and the standard armored car are a little low. The 9 and 10 values fall between the Horse Calvary, which has an attack of 8 and the later upgrade to Air Calvary gives an attack of 18.

In my opinion, an attack value of something between 10 and 12 for the early armored car and an attack value of between 12 and 14 for the later armored car would be more appropriate values.

BTW, I believe the defense and hit points are right on the money.

 

[Belofon]

First, I like the AC's and think they are a great addition to the game. I also totally agree with keeping the wheeled flag.

However, once tanks come around, there is no reason to buy AC's anymore, the cost/benefit is not ... attractive (although I usually have plenty of AC's from upgrades of Calvary). I believe that one of the reasons for this relative lack of attractiveness is that the attack values of 9 and 10 for the early armored car and the standard armored car are a little low. The 9 and 10 values fall between the Horse Calvary, which has an attack of 8 and the later upgrade to Air Calvary gives an attack of 18.

In my opinion, an attack value of something between 10 and 12 for the early armored car and an attack value of between 12 and 14 for the later armored car would be more appropriate values.

BTW, I believe the defense and hit points are right on the money.

In fact, there is reason to build early ACs - they are faster than tanks (not sure if later ACs are faster than WW2 tanks) and, as such, they are more useful vs distant/culturaly rich enemy cities with weak (adventurers/MS/rifles/trenchs/infantry/flaks) units in garrison.

As for attack values of ACs... well, I think that they were made such that they are lower than defence values of respective tanks (early ACs - WW1 tanks, later ACs - WW2 tanks). While at this point early ACs stats are OK, I can agree that attack value of later ACs isn't that impressive at all - IMHO, a value of, let's say, 12 will be better.

As the ACs have lower attack and defense values compared to tanks, the AI refuses to build ACs (at least in greater numbers)

Yes, I've heard about that. Basing on my own experience in RAR, though, in early MA the AI usually preffer to build faster horse archers/zealots(teutons, crusaders, etc) rather than stronger heavy horses/MDI/knights/cavaliers...
Unfortunately, I can't say anything about use of ACs by AI, since neither of my games with AI was that long .