Slower expansion

[Sarisin]

Barbarian world generates barbarian cities form the games start based on the amount of players in the game. So though you are generally right that in normal gameplay the barbarians wont appear until there are a certain amount of cities int eh game, with barbarian world you can expect many more right form the start.

That's true, and I've found (in epic speed games anyway) a barb city will pump out a Goblin or Warrior much faster that you can, so you need to keep a defender around your capital city if a barb city is nearby or it will be Game Over very early. The elves are often taken out of a game early because they send their elven scouts out exploring and leave their city without a defender.

Also, I find the lairs spawn skeletons and lizardmen fairly early making them hard to explore, but also sending a unit your way.

Finally, it always amazes me how fast Acheron the Red Dragon is built and I find more often than not that sucker shows up in the barb city close to me!

 

[Willgar]

Could somebody provide the code needed to force it so that new cities can only be founded inside your cultural border please?

 

[Lord Tirian]

Yes, it does mean that you'll need to expand through military means, which you might not be interested in...

This could be fixed by allowing a very limited number of settlers.

AFAIK, it should be possible to have a python script that spawns a settler in your capital every X rounds, depending on the game speed. This way, it would allow non-military expansion at a very slow rate.

Cheers, LT.

 

[JeffSteel]

Hmm, perhaps you can get a settler from an event. It would fire in a city which has reached its health or happiness caps. It would be more likely to fire the farther past the caps the population goes (people moving out in search of greener pastures) and less likely to fire the more cities there are which you own that haven't reached the caps (easier to just move to a different city than to venture into the unknown). You choose to do nothing or get a settler at the cost of 1 population point in the city the settler appears in (some people packed up to found a new city as settlers).

 

[Tarquelne]

1) only allow settlers to found new cities within 1 square of a cultural border but make the minimum distance between cities 4 squares. This will slow down rapid expansion.

I really like either can only found within (or within-1-square-of) borders OR minimum space 4. And indeed something might need to be done to change culture rates/border expansion for the first idea.

Wish I knew how to code those - I wouldn't tell you how to do it, I'd just do it and upload.

 

[Willgar]

I really like either can only found within (or within-1-square-of) borders OR minimum space 4. And indeed something might need to be done to change culture rates/border expansion for the first idea.

Wish I knew how to code those - I wouldn't tell you how to do it, I'd just do it and upload.

My coding experiance is 6502 and a bit of pascal but that was 20 years ago so i am a tad rusty

 

[it-ogo]

The perfect way to slow down the exploration is to start each barb city with an archer or two.

And btw we need a mechanism to fix a garrison in a barb city (/barb fort/lair). Now archers are often leave the scorp clan forts and walk around so the fort is much easier to attack. Maybe as a first step the fortification bonus should be checked by barb AI, not only the total number of guardians.

 

[Willgar]

The perfect way to slow down the exploration is to start each barb city with an archer or two.

And btw we need a mechanism to fix a garrison in a barb city (/barb fort/lair). Now archers are often leave the scorp clan forts and walk around so the fort is much easier to attack. Maybe as a first step the fortification bonus should be checked by barb AI, not only the total number of guardians.

Dont have a problem with exploration, my desire is to have less of the map covered with cities. Would love to play a game where cities are less common and there is travel between your empire and your neighbours. Most of the games i play seem to end up with with 30 plus cities, every inch of space filled up and borders pressed up against each other.

I would like to play a game where there is a much slower expansion and wars require a major commitment. I enjoy the mechanic behind the Kurio's, with settlements but the number of cities allowed does not scale well on smaller maps.

The orginal post was all about the idea of placing a mechanic which makes expansion uniformally slower and have been very interested in the responses you guys have made. Enough to make me look at the game source code (scary ) and even start to try some tinkering of my own.

I still am aiming for cities only to be allowable either within or on the edge of a cultral boundry - think this will help...

 

[Sarisin]

Dont have a problem with exploration, my desire is to have less of the map covered with cities. Would love to play a game where cities are less common and there is travel between your empire and your neighbours. Most of the games i play seem to end up with with 30 plus cities, every inch of space filled up and borders pressed up against each other.

I would like to play a game where there is a much slower expansion and wars require a major commitment. I enjoy the mechanic behind the Kurio's, with settlements but the number of cities allowed does not scale well on smaller maps.

The orginal post was all about the idea of placing a mechanic which makes expansion uniformally slower and have been very interested in the responses you guys have made. Enough to make me look at the game source code (scary ) and even start to try some tinkering of my own.

I still am aiming for cities only to be allowable either within or on the edge of a cultral boundry - think this will help...

I certainly applaud your efforts, Willgar, as I think this expansion-happy feature of FFH/Civ4 Vanilla is also not a good feature of the game. I've tried many things within the game itself (I am not a coder or whatever), and it all comes back to a full map just like you said. I even go out to raze cities to open some space, but all that does is raze the Armageddon counter as the civ's have Settlers good to go to take up the newly opened space of the razed city.

I will look forward to see what you (or anyone) comes up to limit AI expansion in the game.

 

[it-ogo]

I still am aiming for cities only to be allowable either within or on the edge of a cultral boundry - think this will help...

Your idea has enough much problems. What about sea maps etc? Your restrictions will be strongly annoying in many particular cases. They are too artificial, IMHO. Also remember that the new gameplay would need strong shift of priorities towards culture generation. AI will be unable to handle it and become even less successfull.

Generally this problem is very common. Usually it is recommended to customize game: decrease number of players. There are some map scripts which provide limitations to resettlement: rainforest, erebus. Also you can strongly increase maintenance from the number of cities (it's easy - xml is enough for it) but again AI will lose.

 

[Willgar]

Your idea has enough much problems. What about sea maps etc? Your restrictions will be strongly annoying in many particular cases. They are too artificial, IMHO. Also remember that the new gameplay would need strong shift of priorities towards culture generation. AI will be unable to handle it and become even less successfull.

Generally this problem is very common. Usually it is recommended to customize game: decrease number of players. There are some map scripts which provide limitations to resettlement: rainforest, erebus. Also you can strongly increase maintenance from the number of cities (it's easy - xml is enough for it) but again AI will lose.

Given up on sea maps a long time ago as i have never seen the AI conduct a successfull intercontinental invasion by sea. I do take your point that it is artificial but i am just keen to explore a different game mechanic other than the rush to fill up every bit of space. Also, not suggesting this is a game mechanic is for everybody - just something personal for myself but due to my limited knowledge of game mechanics and programming was really looking for the opinions of more knowledgble people.

anyway, i keep tinkering....

 

[Mailbox]

The unfortunate thing about city settlement is that all the code is in the SDK so simple mods that change it have to include a changed .dll, which is a pain to keep up to date.

 

[wig]

What about giving dungeon, ruins, etc, a cultural border? This would help keep areas of the map open, as well as simulating the unease most civs would feel settling next to dangerous neighbors. Barrows might have a small cultural border, while dungeons could have a large one. Perhaps you could even have monsters that only wandered inside the cultural border?

The concept has a lot of questions. I'm not a programmer, so I don't know if this is possible or practical to implement. There are some other concerns as well, such as how this would impact your initial settler, and what happens when a lair is destroyed.

But it sure would be cool

 

[shapecharge]

What about giving dungeon, ruins, etc, a cultural border? This would help keep areas of the map open, as well as simulating the unease most civs would feel settling next to dangerous neighbors. Barrows might have a small cultural border, while dungeons could have a large one. Perhaps you could even have monsters that only wandered inside the cultural border?

The concept has a lot of questions. I'm not a programmer, so I don't know if this is possible or practical to implement. There are some other concerns as well, such as how this would impact your initial settler, and what happens when a lair is destroyed.

But it sure would be cool

Wig,
Got to say I really like this Idea, not really limiting the amount of cities or where one can build but basically requireing you to clear out the monsters in a untamed wilderness before you can settle there, I think this would slow down expansion, where you might eventually end up with alot of cities but not until much latter in the game simulating the world becoming more civilized over time.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

That could be done if we implemented Jeckel's JCultureControl modcomp (or something similar), which I've been wanting for a while. Presumably you would want these improvements to be Barbarian owned, and have Barbarian Cultural Boarders.

It would be possible to change the ownership in python in addition to removing it (and the boarders), so for instance Letum Frigus could change to Illian boarders when they enter it and trigger the event that gives them Aggressive. Hmm...once improvements have owners, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to make the unit they spawn belong to those owners. Letting certain civs take over certain improvements that spawn units for them could be cool.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

nice idea about lairs etc. having barbarian cultural borders around

 

[shapecharge]

My thoughts(and I believe what Wig was saying as well) excatly with the borders only disappearing after the dungeon, lair ect.. is explored and destroyed, including even like goblin forts having a 1 square radius border along with barrows and dens (got to tame the bears before you can settle the forest), and ruins, dungeons ect..having the 2 square radius (fear of wandering monsters keeps the settlers away till soliders/adventurers can clear the dungeon) Epic Dungeons having a three square Radius (Just thier reputation keeps people at Bay). i think this would be an easier fix as you would just have to assign them radius like starting Barb cities that dissappear when razed, without having to tinker with the AI (please modders correct me if its not that easy). It might also cause the AI to explore dungeons more often, like it takes barb cities so it can expand, giving it a chance to get those caged units and cool items that I always thought gave me a huge advantage in the early game over the AI, since it always seemed to leave dungeons and ruins alone.

 

[Willgar]

How about this idea:

1) you cant build settlers!
2) instead you have a counter like GP counter which increases in each city based on the population of the city (1 point per pop)
3) when it reach a threshold (just like the GP) it produces a settler
4) the counter then resets with a higher threshold and the process starts again
5) unhealthy cities and unhappy citizens also increase this "settler counter"

any thoughts on this idea chaps?

 

[Hanny]

This thread interested me http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=256539&highlight=hinterlands

The thing i find most annoying is the almighty land rush that happens every game coupled with the high number of cities that the AI spams. Maybe this is a valid tactic but i am seeking a slower game style with less micro management of 30+ cities (my current large map game i have nearly 40).

I would like to see parts of the map as wild areas and "crusade" style wars waged between distant kingdoms not just every nations borders pressed up like sardines. So i started thinking how this could be possible and here is my idea:

1) only allow settlers to found new cities within 1 square of a cultural border but make the minimum distance between cities 4 squares. This will slow down rapid expansion.

2) Give each city a culture bonus based on its size - say 1 per population. This will prevent complete stagnation of expansion.

3) Only barbarian cities of size 6+ can be captured, if captured below this population, the city will auto raze the generate new barbarian troops and population and the next nearest barbarian city

Well that's it! not sure if it's balanced correctly or even if it would work as i hope but would greatly appreciate any feedback.

Some thoughts for you, to get what yopur after with little or no work.

use the advanced start and pick no settlers, the AI isa poor picker and wont have many citys so not the best way to get what your after, but you can then use the WB to edit.

Or, edit the diff and speed files.

Pick Marathorn speed, on a huge map, edit the speed of game file, reduce culture, great person production, and unit time to build by 50 points or so, or simply copy past from the epic/normal to the marathorn file the ones you want to reduce, ie make culture spread quicker, units build at a quicker rate, ( so use a smaller number than the 300, ie 150 for example) while leaving improvements and growth as they are, this makes buildings that store food much more important. Open up the difficulty file, make the AI unit multiplier 1, this gives them twice what it usually starts with, so it gets 2 settlers and you get 1, add some defrense units to the Ai and take away its scout at start. Pick 8 civs only, play as good v 6 evil and a neut, or vica versa, less civs means more space between empires, each AI will be 2 city and yours one.

next open up the unit xml file and increase the cost of settlers by 25% or so, this makes them cost more and take longer to build. Open up the difficulty option and change lair spawn to 6, this makes lairs produce units quicker and means they are quicker to become gaurded by barbs, as will goody huts. If your really down on expansion, make the settler unit dependent on a tek or resource.

If you dont want to have anyone build settlers, then pick the no settler option, and instead add the settler unit to the goody hut rewards, copypast from settler difficulty to the one your using, this is now the only way to get settlers in game, so replace 3/4 of the rewards with settlers.

Just some thoughts for you.

 

[Willgar]

Thank you Hanny will give it a try