Should we speed up the early game?

[Duke van Frost]

how about also doing the capture animal thing, allowing scouts ans hnters to catch animals. they could be used to build circuses (like fall from heaven) or odd food farms (lion meat anyone?) or animal pelt stalls where they sell the pelts. that would give early buildings AND animal hunting, as wel as something to do in the early game (i personally like the early game as it is, but thats just me i think )

I´m absolutely against copying the Circus system from FfH, we got enough from their mod, let´s do something on our own. And I also think that it is strange to have a fur resource and then sell furs from wild animals.

But to spice up the early Age I got an Idea concerning Goody huts:

What If we could implement different kinds of goody huts, not only Tribal Villages.
We could have fantasy like things like Old Ones Artifacts, Old Dragon Treasures etc.
This would have two effects at once: spicing up the early Age and giving more fantasy flavour to the mod from the beginning.

 

[Duke van Frost]

And more Barbarian states (cities)!!

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

ok ok, ill stop it with the FfH-ing it was worth a try...

I do like that idea about different goody huts. you could have a witches cottage which could only give techs, dragons hords which could only give gold, and ancient temples which could help with researching religeons, and tribal vilages could be all of them.

 

[woodelf]

Barbarian cities require unoccupied space AFAIK so if you over expand you'll get less barb cities. I wish they'd come sooner. Kael explained it once that they need a certain number of player cities/player before they spring up. Maybe Olleus can fiddle with the numbers to make more appear.

edit - post 6,666. That can't be good!

 

[Duke van Frost]

just wanted to this

I started a new game last evening (noble, aggressive AI etc.) and have to admit that you´re mainly right Ploe.

I could post a nearly complete description of my game here, but I´m too lazy to type that down right now, so here are some points:

About techs:

Spoiler :

02 (the turn number): I got Mysticism due to a goody hut
09: researched Stoneworks
18: researched Agriculture (everything fine until now IMO)
45: founded second city
47 (!!): researched Animal Husbandry (should be a little cheaper IMO, it´s a basic tech - we should make it 2/3 of the costs that it has right now - Research-Rate was still at 100%
59: researched Archery
66: the Wheel
67: 3rd city
77: Mining (would have taken Horsebackriding, because I started a war against Gilles, but that would have taken 38!! turns so I decide to research Masonry instead)
86: 4th city
91: Research Rate drops to 70%, because the money from goody huts had all been consumed
98: Masonry
101: 5th city
104: Research Rate at 40%
106: captured Brionne (6th city) - 90 Gold research bacj to 70% - Rest of Research for Chronicles
110: Research Rate 60%
113: Research Rate 50% - gained my first Copper Resource for Chariots
117: Research Rate 40%
120: 7th city
125: researched Revelation of the Old Ones (3 turns before that Gilles foundedOld Ones Worship)
captured Couronne (8th city)
127: Research rate 30%
128: captured Bordeleaux (9th city) - gain Fishing
131: captured Mousillon (10th city) - only Gold - destroyed Gilles
133: converted to Old Ones
138: captured Eppzhlsh (barbarian - 11th city)
140: I end the Game with about 3 turns to go until I would research Pottery

My conclusion:

After 143 turns I would have had 13 techs (one from a goody hut and research bonus from captured cities)

I was able to start construction on 1 Wonder (Mark of the Old Ones) and 4 Buildings (Watchstone, Barracks, Walls, Shrine) - that´s too little IMO, so yes, we need more early buildings.

Mysticism and Chronicles do absolutely nothing right now! Chronicles should get something like an early Library and maybe Standing Stones should be back at Mysticism and Mysticism could allow a new civic.

Stoneworks is a tech we putted in as an extra, but now one has to research one more tech in the early age, which doesn´t give an extra bonus compared to vanilla (but we should keep it nevertheless IMO - I like it), so others shouldn´t be made too expansive.

I would make Mark of the Old Ones cheaper, around 300-350 hammers

Animal Husbandry could allow for an early Market and/or a new economic civic called Barter (Tauschhandel in german), which could give the effects that freemarket got right now (+1 Trade route per city)

Oh, and I could only build Warriors, Archers and Chariots as Military Units, but the early warfare still was fun - But the aggressive AI wasn´t really aggressive, I think this was because of playing only at noble.

 

[woodelf]

Once a week I bring up the dream of an SDK or python addition of aggressive AI like CivIII. We have 2 choices now and CivIII had 5 levels of aggression. Why, oh why, can't we get more?

 

[Ploeperpengel]

I started a new game last evening (noble, aggressive AI etc.) and have to admit that you´re mainly right Ploe.

I could post a nearly complete description of my game here, but I´m too lazy to type that down right now, so here are some points:

About techs:

Spoiler :

02 (the turn number): I got Mysticism due to a goody hut
09: researched Stoneworks
18: researched Agriculture (everything fine until now IMO)
45: founded second city
47 (!!): researched Animal Husbandry (should be a little cheaper IMO, it´s a basic tech - we should make it 2/3 of the costs that it has right now - Research-Rate was still at 100%
59: researched Archery
66: the Wheel
67: 3rd city
77: Mining (would have taken Horsebackriding, because I started a war against Gilles, but that would have taken 38!! turns so I decide to research Masonry instead)
86: 4th city
91: Research Rate drops to 70%, because the money from goody huts had all been consumed
98: Masonry
101: 5th city
104: Research Rate at 40%
106: captured Brionne (6th city) - 90 Gold research bacj to 70% - Rest of Research for Chronicles
110: Research Rate 60%
113: Research Rate 50% - gained my first Copper Resource for Chariots
117: Research Rate 40%
120: 7th city
125: researched Revelation of the Old Ones (3 turns before that Gilles foundedOld Ones Worship)
captured Couronne (8th city)
127: Research rate 30%
128: captured Bordeleaux (9th city) - gain Fishing
131: captured Mousillon (10th city) - only Gold - destroyed Gilles
133: converted to Old Ones
138: captured Eppzhlsh (barbarian - 11th city)
140: I end the Game with about 3 turns to go until I would research Pottery

My conclusion:

After 143 turns I would have had 13 techs (one from a goody hut and research bonus from captured cities)

I was able to start construction on 1 Wonder (Mark of the Old Ones) and 4 Buildings (Watchstone, Barracks, Walls, Shrine) - that´s too little IMO, so yes, we need more early buildings.

Mysticism and Chronicles do absolutely nothing right now! Chronicles should get something like an early Library and maybe Standing Stones should be back at Mysticism and Mysticism could allow a new civic.

Stoneworks is a tech we putted in as an extra, but now one has to research one more tech in the early age, which doesn´t give an extra bonus compared to vanilla (but we should keep it nevertheless IMO - I like it), so others shouldn´t be made too expansive.

I would make Mark of the Old Ones cheaper, around 300-350 hammers

Animal Husbandry could allow for an early Market and/or a new economic civic called Barter (Tauschhandel in german), which could give the effects that freemarket got right now (+1 Trade route per city)

Oh, and I could only build Warriors, Archers and Chariots as Military Units, but the early warfare still was fun - But the aggressive AI wasn´t really aggressive, I think this was because of playing only at noble.

I like that idea about the bartering civic. And yes we definitly need some more buildings (but only a few-yes sort of early library for chronicles fits, hunting could make a sort of early training yard available or archery).
Instead of changing only techcosts there are a lot of files still open to mod like handicapinfo, civics etc.
Standing stones I'd say no cause they are the magical vortex keeping chaos at bay that's why it obviously needs the tech/event rawmagic as well as high magic. But yes we should have an earlier wonder as well maybe some sort of prophecy linked with mysticism.(PL we need fluff!)
Mark of the Old ones sure can be cheaper
Would you like to make the patch containing this or some of these changes after version 8c is up(in half an hour or so)? I think I got a little tired with xml
Next time maybe try Prince again and raging barbs
I just wanted to have noble checked because I wanted to know how far we get with mere xml changes- I now fear there won't be a way around reprogramming the AI on long term but for now we need to get as much aggressiveness out of this game as possible with xml(I think alittle bit can be tuned here still but not much).

 

[woodelf]

Now I need to start bumping my posts!

 

[Duke van Frost]

@ Ploe: I didn´t have a look at it, but has my idea about giving every leader at least one of military or production flavor been implemented for the last version?
If not, this may be a good idea to make the Ai better via XML only.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

I have alittle hope E.L.M. can tweak a little here for us.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

@ Ploe: I didn´t have a look at it, but has my idea about giving every leader at least one of military or production flavor been implemented for the last version?
If not, this may be a good idea to make the Ai better via XML only.

Yes woodelf made that and I checked it. Didn't work well though. The AI was up to date with weapons but still very peaceful and not caring about religion at all.
The flavors I believe just affect what techs the AI is going for but doesn't have any effect on behavior by itself. I made the Leaders alittle more unpleasant but as you see that also had a limited effect-well maybe stronger with religions but I want the AI aggressive already without religion at all.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

I can see what i can dig up on early religeoud wonders. they will most likely be elven or lizardmen based, but that should be OK.

...

Actually i just found something: there is a Hotek's Column in my map of Naggaroth, and also something labled 'the Monoliths'
There are also several wonders built by the lizardmen dedicated to the old ones, most reference the starts, sun or moon. IIRC, ther is one called the Alter of stars? Isle of Stars? i cant remember exactly, but its a little island west of Lustria, and it look quite important. i will find out more tomorrow.

 

[Duke van Frost]

I think it affects research s well as what it is going to construct in its cities, but I´m really not sure.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

I think it affects research s well as what it is going to construct in its cities, but I´m really not sure.

Yes can be construction as well but certainly not behavior.

 

[woodelf]

See, time to bump. This would help solve aggression!

Once a week I bring up the dream of an SDK or python addition of aggressive AI like CivIII. We have 2 choices now and CivIII had 5 levels of aggression. Why, oh why, can't we get more?

 

[Ploeperpengel]

See, time to bump. This would help solve aggression!

Put it in your sig!
No wait I'll do it...

 

[Gerikes]

Put it in your sig!
No wait I'll do it...

This is in the SDK, in function CvPlayerAI::AI_getAttitudeVal. This gets the value of the attitude towards the player (all those + and -'s in diplomacy).

	if (GC.getGameINLINE().isOption(GAMEOPTION_AGGRESSIVE_AI))
	{
		if (GET_PLAYER(ePlayer).isHuman())
		{
			iAttitude -= 2;
		}
	}

I would think just changing the number 2 to something higher would do in making them more aggressive against humans . If you want I can make that two a define that you can set in XML and you can play with it. Also, perhaps I can take away the human restriction so that they're more aggressive all around, or add just another one, like...

	if (GC.getGameINLINE().isOption(GAMEOPTION_AGGRESSIVE_AI))
	{
		if (GET_PLAYER(ePlayer).isHuman())
		{
			iAttitude -= [b]GC.getDefineINT("AI_AGGRESSIVE_DIPLO_PENALTY_VS_HUMANS")[/b]
		}
		else
		{
			iAttitude -= [b]GC.getDefineINT("AI_AGGRESSIVE_DIPLO_PENALTY_VS_AI");[/b]
		}

	}

	}

 

[Duke van Frost]

Didn´t somebody say some time ago that Rhye did a wonderful job in his mod to make the AI way more intelligent (declaring wars that actually make sense etc.) maybe somebody should have a look at his code or ask what has been done to achieve better results for the AI?

 

[woodelf]

Thanks for the support Ploep!

 

[woodelf]

Sounds like we can sick Gerikes on the problem. Yippee, my prayers might be answered.