RtW: Add-On Pack 2 Release!

[DoubleRD77]

You said it is to balance the game out. But how does it make sense that playing as the german army, you are actually punished when getting a higher tech. As the modern infantry will cost more to make than german advanced infantry, when you get no benefits from it. That should be addressed

 

[Dale]

Except that the gain that other nations get from going from advanced to modern becomes too much. It's a catch 22 situation. I either bump up modern infantry and the jump for all but 1 nation becomes too much from advanced to modern, or leave Germany stuck with a more expensive infantry unit.

Which in effect is what happened after the war. Their training was no different, their tactics were no different, and their weapons were no different. The only difference was that they became post-war infantry. At least nearly every other country had a noticeable difference between end-war and post-war infantry in either tactics, weapons or training.

So it sort of has a historical context, at least at lot more context than a huge jump from adv to mod for every other nation.

 

[Chamboozer]

I can understand the need to balance out the final tech unit in the game, because every civ uses it, but why not go to greater lengths to make unique units historically accurate? For example, German PzKpfW II's had very weak primary weapons, but were useful against infantry because of its advanced machine guns. Give it a +25% against infantry and reduce it's strength, then BAM! it's historically accurate, and it also gives you the ability to increase the strength of other countriy's infantry because Germany now has a viable anti-infantry weapon besides it's own foot soldiers.

If you tell me that you have tested similar things and found no evidence of it being able to work, then I will believe you, but surely you can understand why I can be so adamant about these types of things.

 

[Dale]

One thing I want to avoid is complicating units with different bonuses, attack/defense mods etc. War grognards who are used to playing HoI or other heavy war games would eat it up, but the most important thing is to keep the mod generic/easy enough for the average player to get enjoyment too.

If all they have to watch is strength then it is easy enough for them. But if they need to think about strength, terrain mods, domain mods, combat mods etc then it gets too complex for them.

And there's a LOT LOT LOT more of them than us grognards. I estimate about 50,000 regular players from emails and website visits I get, and one of the common themes as a plus is the ease at which a new player can pick up RtW and have fun, and how it continues to provide fun long after other mods do.

 

[Chamboozer]

I agree that that's an important aspect, but it's really civilization they're playing. There's no difference between a +25% bonus and a promotion they might use on a unit. It'd be different if there were hundreds of different unit types, or if each unit got a +2% vs. X, +13% vs. Y, +6% vs. Z, +10% forestonahillifyouhaveartilleryfortifiedwithhorses defense. You get the idea?

 

[danrh]

I can understand the need to balance out the final tech unit in the game, because every civ uses it, but why not go to greater lengths to make unique units historically accurate? For example, German PzKpfW II's had very weak primary weapons, but were useful against infantry because of its advanced machine guns. Give it a +25% against infantry and reduce it's strength, then BAM! it's historically accurate, and it also gives you the ability to increase the strength of other countriy's infantry because Germany now has a viable anti-infantry weapon besides it's own foot soldiers.

If you tell me that you have tested similar things and found no evidence of it being able to work, then I will believe you, but surely you can understand why I can be so adamant about these types of things.

For myself I have upped the base generic infantry to 10/15/20, replaced the current tank structure with light/medium/heavy type in early/improved/advanced eras as well as adding light/medium amphibious tanks and airborne tanks. Light tanks have a -50% penalty against other tanks but all tanks have +25% against infantry and artillery. My testing has been nowhere near as extensive as I'm sure Dale's is but the balance still seems reasonable at least through the early years. Thanks the save issues with AOP2 I've not gotten into the end game and I was planning to wait for the final AOP3 before incorporating my changes there.

Dan

 

[Chamboozer]

For myself I have upped the base generic infantry to 10/15/20, replaced the current tank structure with light/medium/heavy type in early/improved/advanced eras as well as adding light/medium amphibious tanks and airborne tanks. Light tanks have a -50% penalty against other tanks but all tanks have +25% against infantry and artillery. My testing has been nowhere near as extensive as I'm sure Dale's is but the balance still seems reasonable at least through the early years. Thanks the save issues with AOP2 I've not gotten into the end game and I was planning to wait for the final AOP3 before incorporating my changes there.

Dan

I was thinking of making my own modification of this mod which added light tanks as a separate unit class, +25% against infantry (fluctuating with unique units). It would have a modern version too, Modern light tank.

Base (non unique) ones would be

Light Tank
15 4 +25% vs. Infantry, 500

Improved Light Tank

20 4 +25% vs. Infantry, 500

Modern Light Tank
25 4 +30% vs. Infantry, 500

 

[danrh]

I was thinking of making my own modification of this mod which added light tanks as a separate unit class, +25% against infantry (fluctuating with unique units). It would have a modern version too, Modern light tank.

Base (non unique) ones would be

Light Tank
15 4 +25% vs. Infantry, 500

Improved Light Tank

20 4 +25% vs. Infantry, 500

Modern Light Tank
25 4 +30% vs. Infantry, 500

The ability to do things like this is one of the best things about Civ4. The exceptional base that Dale has provided with RtW is a fantastic place to build from. I understand Dale's concerns about keeping the main RtW simple for non-grog types but given the interest and various private mods popping up I wonder if it might be worthwhile getting together to compare notes on a grog friendly . Sangeli seems to have a fairly advanced mod based on RtW underway.

Dan

 

[Chamboozer]

One of my close friends has a great interest in British military in WWII, and I can do the German side, if you like. I don't have any experieice modding Civ IV, but I modded SW: Empire at War which uses XML too.

 

[ACGandolf]

The instructions say that Pack 2 requires BTS patch 3.17. 3.17 came with a new (and much better version of RtW - thanks), but I want to get Pack 2.

Does pack 2 work with 3.17? Quo Vadis?

Also, does Pac 3 work with 3.17?K

Thanks for all the good work!

 

[Dale]

The instructions say that Pack 2 requires BTS patch 3.17. 3.17 came with a new (and much better version of RtW - thanks), but I want to get Pack 2.

First post (this thread) says 3.13 not 7.

Does pack 2 work with 3.17? Quo Vadis?

No, it breaks 3.17.

Also, does Pac 3 work with 3.17?K

Yes, AOP3 is for 3.17 only.

 

[DoubleRD77]

Perhaps you can demand that Firaxis give you millions of dollars to fund this project. Then you should really be able to make the mod take off. Tell them it is for the greated good of the world. I am sure they will understand and cut you a check.

 

[ACGandolf]

Thanks

I will get the add on pack 3 beta

 

[DoubleRD77]

The saves are great in the new mod pack. Every single save has loaded properly, and I have not had to do any gimmicks to get them to work. The game only crashed once after a long time. I was able to load it back up and everything worked fine. I was able to conquer the world as Germany on the second highest difficulty level. Though at one point I was a bit worried I could not hold the Eastern front and the Americans nearly sacked Britain.

The only thing I have a few issues with is the german infantry and tanks, but I suppose that is for the greated good of the game. The AI is a bit better now than it used to be, that is for sure. As Germany my Romanian allies sent a huge portion of troops and sacked my home city of Orlando, Florida. I really have difficulty picture Romanian troops raiding my home At least they helped me though. This mod pack is much better ^======^

 

[The_Colonel]

:Hey Dale

Excellent Mod.

I have a problem with loading saved games in RTW Pack 2. I've read some of the other replies and it sounds like this is happening to more than just me. Do you recognize this as a problem with Pack-2 or is it something I can do something about on my end?

I reinstalled CIV BTW and the patches in their right order. I then plugged in the zipped file for ADD-ON 2 and put the folder in the right place. And I"m still screwed.

I've also tried to load the autosaved games and I get the same problem.

If I recall, the first RTW add-on had the same problem initially and it took a patch to fix it.

What do you think about a fix for this problem?

By the way - masterful job on this Mod. You're the Man


________________
The Weak Shall Perish

 

[Jaythekiller]

you need to download AOP3 only way to get it work with 3.17 (see post 211)

 

[Dale]

I've just started playing RTW (almost through my second game) and the greatest problem I have noticed is the tech tree (This might've been mentioned, but I don't have time to look through 11 pages checking...).

Advanced Infantry and Heavy Tanks can easily be got by the close of 1940, I think it should be drawn out a bit longer (from a gameplay perspective, does anyone have an insight on what is historically accurate here?) but my main issue comes from 1941 atom bombs...

As far as I can tell the teams use their science resources together so techs research a lot quicker, thereby once the teams really take off in 1941 (Romania + Bulgaria to the axis, USA + USSR to the allies) techs research at a frightening pace (as the British I was getting 1 a turn). It is all too easy to get atom bombs in 1941 (even with my science slider at 0% for the duration of the year!) and while I can refrain from using them I see chain reactors in half the cities I take, which is certainly not historically accurate and even more so is horrible from a gameplay perspective. I had a couple of ideas to alter this:

1) Make technologies take longer to research in general
2) Reduce science bonuses of Universities/Laboratorys slightly
3) Remove Atomic Bombs and maybe a couple of associated technologies from the tech tree and maybe have them on an event trigger? On the global map (I haven't played it) maybe the fall of Germany could allow nuclear technology to be researched by the players country (if youre one of the allies) and something similair for the axis (since Germany was researching the bomb too)

In short I feel it is far too easy to get a highly advanced army (I mean modern infantry and jet fighters as the war is just getting going? makes no sense and barely gives the player a chance to use the unique units, that tech too should be postponed until 1944 at the earliest?) and especially atomic technology. I guess this stems from the turns in RTW only being a fortnight rather than 1 or more years and I know the scientific pace increased during the war but things need to be seriously slowed IMO

Are you running AOP2 on 3.13 or AOP3 BETA2 on 3.17? It's very important, because in AOP3 techs take ~2-3 times longer to research.

 

[deanej]

You're probably running the retail version then.

 

[Chamboozer]

Are you running AOP2 on 3.13 or AOP3 BETA2 on 3.17? It's very important, because in AOP3 techs take ~2-3 times longer to research.

That can't be right. I've got Atom bombs in 1940 as germany, AOP3 BETA2. Albeit it's in Open Play and I have a few more cities than I might have otherwise, it still seems very much too fast.

Also, the Atom Bombs themselves build way too quickly. Their cost needs to be multiplied by 1.5, or doubled. Takes 4-5 turns (less than infantry) in most of my cities for a weapon that destroys russian stacks of 100+ units in two hits.


And about those Russian stacks, I noticed that in the newest version the USSR does not even build one single tank. They'll send stacks of 100+ infantry, and maybe 2 or 3 planes, but never an armored unit. Perhaps the enlarged build times are dissuading them?

 

[danrh]

That can't be right. I've got Atom bombs in 1940 as germany, AOP3 BETA2. Albeit it's in Open Play and I have a few more cities than I might have otherwise, it still seems very much too fast.

Also, the Atom Bombs themselves build way too quickly. Their cost needs to be multiplied by 1.5, or doubled. Takes 4-5 turns (less than infantry) in most of my cities for a weapon that destroys russian stacks of 100+ units in two hits.


And about those Russian stacks, I noticed that in the newest version the USSR does not even build one single tank. They'll send stacks of 100+ infantry, and maybe 2 or 3 planes, but never an armored unit. Perhaps the enlarged build times are dissuading them?

I really don't think open play mode can be used as a yardstick in a mod like this. The capacity for expansion at the expense of many of the much weaker neighbours must give the human player quite an advantage.

Has anyone played the separate Europe or Pacific scens yet? I have only been playing the global one. It must quite a challenge balancing the stats to give good results for the regional maps AND the global one? One thing that is already obvious is the ease with which one can cover ground in the global scenario. My German carrier aircraft can start making strikes on the US east almost as soon as they leave their ports in Europe.

In my games the USSR had quite a few T-26s but the T-34 never made an appearance and I know they researched the appropriate tech. Of course by that stage I had already seized all of the European Soviets

Dan