Some improvement, but discovery and mapping of whole world is still too early

[Pazyryk]

Some folks like having the whole map revealed very early (say turn 150) and some even want the whole map revealed at the beginning. If you are one of those folks, you’re going to hate this entire post.

For me, exploration is the most fun aspect of the game. I quickly loose interest when this phase is over, which is all too soon in my opinion. Also, I know it is kind of stupid to mention “realism” in a fantasy game, but the fact is that the much of real world remained a mystery (from any one civ's point of view) until very recent history. In Civ4 (and FFH and Wildmana) we have:

• Whole large continents or interconnected continents circumnavigated by little boats. I mean really!… imagine if a pharaoh of Egypt put out two little reed boats, one reaches the Atlantic and takes a left, the other a right, and they meet again at the Bearing Straight after circumnavigating all of Africa, Eurasia and the Americas (OK, maybe only Africa and Eurasia if your map doesn't have a “sea bridge” to America).
  
• Columbus reaches the New World. He is initially confused about the place, thinking it is India, but then offers to trade maps with the local natives (“these pathetic primitives don’t even have Agriculture!”) and wham!, no need for any further effort and no need for all that confusion about whether California was an island or not.

Again, I don’t really care about realism in a fantasy setting. Yes, maybe Erebus is just a small continent, much smaller than Eurasia. But my point is that exploration should be hard. There should be blank areas on maps for a long time. Erebus should be a dangerous and mysterious place.

Here are some of the problems (starting with the worst, in my opinion) that lead to premature termination of the discovery/exploration phase of the game:

1. Map Trading. All that hard work balancing animals and barbs (which is most excellently balanced in Wildmana) is pointless when you don’t have to explore anyway. It’s not at all realistic (see my Columbus example above… or just ask yourself: Did Greeks or Romans have Cartography? If so, why did they not have complete maps of Eurasia and Africa?). But this is not my concern here. What happens in a game is that once several civs get Cartography, then all AIs trade maps amongst themselves so that everyone has exactly the same knowledge, at least within a continent. I only need to trade some pathetic little tech to some pathetic little civ to gain this knowledge. It’s like an instant “reveal map” button that is almost free (or picked up as change in a tech exchange). Things that are free are not valued. Suggestion: remove map trading or move it to Astronomy. You might say Optics, but then you just create my “Columbus” scenario above (basically, premature completion of the Age of Discovery about 5 turns after making the first caravel).
   
2. Explorer. These are just too effective and too early. Yes, sometimes they get eaten by those pesky lizards. But with some care and luck (and that exploit where you pick skeleton crew and then longshorman) you can circumnavigate your home continent. I’d say I'm successful at circumnavigating my home continent in well over 50% of my games with just 2 explorers. Suggestions: delete this unit and change fishing boats to 1 movement. (I know a lot of folks hate the idea of fishing boats exploring and have suggested some kind of hard mechanic to prevent this. I don't agree. I don't see any reason at all, based in lore or realism, why they shouldn't be able to explore. But they should suck at it, which my 1 movement should ensure.)
   
3. Other naval exploration. More hazards needed both on coasts and at sea (I have high hopes for the Deep Ocean coming in 8.21). Galleys and caravels should be at constant risk, less so for galleons, frigates, and even less for queen-of-the-lines. You should need Astronomy and Iron for really safe travel.
   
4. Birds. These would have been first on my list except for the recent fix (can’t re-base to non-team cities; thank you Selphi!). However, they still act as an important map revealer that is a little too early. Also, hunters are pretty powerful and well-balanced without hawks. Suggestion: move hawks to Animal Mastery. (I think this is a better fix than trying to tweak visibility, etc. I like hawks, but I think advanced cartographer birds should come later down the recon line.)
   
5. Early scouts and “safe time”. Just some tweaking of the “safe time” needed. In general, I think exploring on land in Wildmana (after this “safe time”) is just about perfectly balanced. It’s darn hard, as it should be. Regarding the “safe time” that happens at the beginning of the game, I’ve kind of learned to depend on this as a crutch. I always make a 2nd scout as my first production, knowing I will have a little while to explore with perfect safety. I guess my only objection is that I can almost always map a major portion of the continent during this time, and sometimes (maybe 50%) get all the way to the other side of a very large continent. (Should an early scout from Greece have a 50% chance to reach the east coast of China? I don’t know. But Erebus doesn’t seem very dangerous by comparison.) Suggestions: I wish the transition from “safe time” to full on “crazy dangerous” started a little earlier and was a little less sudden… it feels a little arbitrary and a little too reliable. In general, more hazards (animals, etc.) that stay (usually) outside of cultural borders (I don’t particularly want more hoards attacking in my culture borders).

I know there has been some implementation of hinterlands (in RiFE?). I haven't tried this so I don't really know. I'm all for this but I thought I'd keep my list above restricted to existing features.

For all those who don't like exploration, maybe there should be an option to reveal the whole map at the beginning.

 

[aimlessgun]

I do like exploration, but I think it's mostly fine atm.

In terms of realism, I think the most unrealistic thing is the creation of accurate maps: the exchange of how to get someplace isn't something that needs high technology generally. If Columbus had met a technologically advanced, continent-spanning mega-empire when he hit the new world, getting knowledge of California geography wouldn't be unrealistic at all. The maps would have sucked but the general idea would probably have been sound.

Work boats at 1 movement sound fine. Explorers nerfed somehow sounds fine, though increased # of threats should do the trick on them probably.

More hazards would be fine if they didn't invade cultural borders. Frankly 10 privateers simultaneously converging on my fishing resources every 15 turns or so is excitement enough for me in the resource maintainence department. Maybe less pegasuses (pegasi?). There seems to be way too many of these harmless buggers, replacing half of them with more dangerous stuff would help.

Lowering safetime should be fine as long as it applies to things that aren't going to come after your cities (though with the animal enrage mechanic, that might not be possible?).

For map-trading, maybe an option could be put in that doesn't allow it until astronomy. I'm sure you've considered self-disciplining yourself and simply refusing to map trade, though self-imposed rules always carry a certain dissatisfaction in games.

No map trading would do a couple of things to me personally: would hamper a traderoute based economy since I'd have to manually find all these cities to be trade partners with, and could deprive me of a bunch of cash in the early-midgame (last game when I first sold my maps I got 730 gold from one civ alone, ended up with 1500 gold from all the civs I knew).

-Lastly, a suggestion for you. Play on maps with islands! I guess optics ain't all that late in the game, but at least there will be mysterious uncharted areas of the world until then. Maps like tectonics>mediterranean have lots of little islands but all the civs on one landmass so the computer doesn't have to muck around with incompetent sea invasions. Archipelago with snaky continents and low sea level seems to put most civs on one big super continent also. I really love finally being able to get out to the islands and going through all the dungeons (and there are a LOT of dungeons/forts on them).

 

[graywarden]

We had similar issues on the The Ancient Mediterranean mod with exploring work boats.
by fixing those within cultural borders, this put a lot of the previous post complaints to a much smaller issue. With Triremes and Galleys contained to coastal waters, the the map trading part of the equation is contained as well.

In the "TAM" mod on a HUGE map with 18 civs, I tested many games going the full time length without ever discovering the whole world, or getting a world map in the last 50 turns. This one little item made a big difference in the natural progression of map/exploration.

 

[Pazyryk]

@Graywarden,
If work boat exploration was a problem in Civ4 and TAM, then how can explorers (a Wildmana addition, I think), not be a problem? They are available at the same tech, have higher movement, and can explore rival territory.

Also, was Cartography (or whatever allows map trading) a later tech in TAM? If it was a very early tech as in FFH, then it is hard for me to imagine how you could have had significant blank areas on your map for very long (unless TAM had a much more difficult diplomacy, or you were intentionally denying yourself map trades). Also, I know map trading won't always reveal very large areas of wilderness (although it will if anyone has visited in the past). But even "civilized" areas should be at least somewhat mysterious to distant civs long after Cartography.

@aimlessgun,
A better analogy might be to Marco Polo rather than Columbus. He had contact with Mongolia, China and Japan. Certainly one of these would have had "cartography". So, with the MapTrade mechanism in place, Itally trades maps with one of these civs, then France, Spain, Portugal, England, etc., trade maps with Itally, and so on. No need for for further exploration by any civ.

On trade routes, you only need a visible trade path to one of the other civ's cities, not all, to establish trade route to all their cities (in fact, you don't even need to do this much of the time; I'm not sure but I think it is a combination of your map plus their map).

I usually play Perfectworld2 (with Break Pangeas off and Start Anywhere on). They are beautiful variable maps that are sometimes a pangea and sometimes several isolated continents (I like the surprise), with unsettled small and large islands. If there is a civ on an isolated continent, then I will have their map within several turns of contact (doesn't matter if they are primitive and don't have Cartography... only one civ needs it for a map trade).

No need for me to use self-discipline, I usually mod out Map Trading and Explorers but sometimes I forget. So putting these first on my list is based on actual play testing: removing just these two really adds to the exploration experience. I know people always hate removing "features", but when a feature makes some aspect of the game trivial then removal should be considered.

 

[wapamingo]

I agree with the original poster with regards to Map Trading and general exploration pace. I find that there is a certain charm lost when I get the whole map, which is very easy to get.

I suggest:

Remove Explorers, or confine them and Fishing boats to 1 movement. Confined fishing boats only to operate within cultural borders.

Remove Map Trading or move Map Trading to late tech (Trade is not far enough, in my opinion). Can you create different levels of Map Trading? Maybe at tech X, you can only trade base territory, while at tech Y you trade territory map + city locations? Maybe not even worth it. I don't know, just throwing it out there.

Allow some "natural" map exploration to occur as trading expands. That is, if you have trade in any one of your cities with city X and you do not know the location of city X, reveal that city and its city plots to you. Actually, I never payed attention to this - do I have to know the location of the city for it to trade with me? If that is the case, then disregard what I said.

 

[Breez]

[*]Birds. These would have been first on my list except for the recent fix (can’t re-base to non-team cities; thank you Selphi!). However, they still act as an important map revealer that is a little too early. Also, hunters are pretty powerful and well-balanced without hawks. Suggestion: move hawks to Animal Mastery. (I think this is a better fix than trying to tweak visibility, etc. I like hawks, but I think advanced cartographer birds should come later down the recon line.)

I woudl rather see birds have a 1 sight range at XXX, then 2 at YYY then 3 at ZZZ Letting you have them early but they would not be very darn good at all... maybe also progress their flight range in teh same way soooo
XXX = Flight Range 2 Sight range 1
YYY = Flight Range 3 Sight range 2
ZZZ = Flight Range 4 Sight range 3

 

[Fafnir13]

Bird could be removed from the game as a buildable unit and used instead like the floating eye. They would be summoned by a a non-magical ability that all hunters, rangers, and beastmasters get. Maybe hunters would have to spend an upgrade on getting the ability.
This would certainly help to maintain recon units as the source of intel. As it is, I ignore them most games, grabbing hunting only for the birds once it's beaker cost is relatively small.

Random thoughts on Sidar: The divided soul ability would make an interesting replacement for the bird spell. Less overall scouting ability, but much better survivability.

 

[Pazyryk]

I have mixed feelings about removing birds altogether. They are a bit of a micromanagement headache having to build them (for trivial cost), rebase them, and then select the hawk unit (rather than the hunter) every time you want to do a reconnaissance flight.

An alternative would be to have a "Falconry" promotion for recon line units (at Animal Mastery if you follow my advice above). This promotion allows "Reconnaissance Flight" ability which has the exact same graphics and effects as the current hawk reconnaissance. It would actually "cost" you something significant in using a promotion slot (not sure if that is more or less significant than the current 30 gp production plus 1 more unit support cost). To take the idea one step further, you could have Falconry I, II, III (available at different tech levels) that have different scouting effects as Breez outlines above.

Edit: Sorry Fafnir13, I almost restated your idea verbatim.

 

[aimlessgun]

I like birds from a concept standpoint. Due to the hassle they're not something I use every turn but getting rid of them would be a little uncool. Who's going to quickly ferry items around the map for me if not my birds?

A better analogy might be to Marco Polo rather than Columbus. He had contact with Mongolia, China and Japan. Certainly one of these would have had "cartography". So, with the MapTrade mechanism in place, Itally trades maps with one of these civs, then France, Spain, Portugal, England, etc., trade maps with Itally, and so on. No need for for further exploration by any civ.

On trade routes, you only need a visible trade path to one of the other civ's cities, not all, to establish trade route to all their cities (in fact, you don't even need to do this much of the time; I'm not sure but I think it is a combination of your map plus their map).

I usually play Perfectworld2 (with Break Pangeas off and Start Anywhere on). They are beautiful variable maps that are sometimes a pangea and sometimes several isolated continents (I like the surprise), with unsettled small and large islands. If there is a civ on an isolated continent, then I will have their map within several turns of contact (doesn't matter if they are primitive and don't have Cartography... only one civ needs it for a map trade).

Well the euros at that time were no great shakes at making maps anyways...I think Ptomely's AD 150 map which had a well shaped Europe and included stuff like Sri Lanka and Thailand/Vietnam was a high point until well past Marco Polo's time. Then of course there's the debate over whether Marco Polo even went to China, and even if he died he wrote a LOT of fantasy (if you want a good laugh read his travels through Indonesia and India. Apparently there are unicorns, among other things).

Brings up a big issue about mapmaking/trading, is that people are liars or sloppy or they exaggerate. But Civ has no way to give you 'realistic' AKA wildly inaccurate maps that still give you a lot of information.

Take the 'isolated island civ' example. Even if they don't have cartography then can tell you "our island is this many paces to walk around. There are fish in the north, clam and sheep in the west, and gold in the south." Then you, having cartography, can sketch a really rough map out of that with lots of valuable information, but the only option in civ right now is to just give you the completely accurate 'real' picture.

Anyways I'm just going on about trivialities, civ isn't equipped to handle stuff like this so better to discuss actual solutions like moving maptrades to a later tech hehe.

 

[aimlessgun]

You know, if you really wanted to be hardcore about it, make it so your map only consists of what your cities/units can see. No fog of war: when your units leave, it just goes back to black. So the onus is on the player to map out the world themselves

 

[Valkrionn]

You know, if you really wanted to be hardcore about it, make it so your map only consists of what your cities/units can see. No fog of war: when your units leave, it just goes back to black. So the onus is on the player to map out the world themselves

That could make a good gameoption, honestly.

 

[Pazyryk]

I may be hardcore but that sounds masochistic. It would be a nice mechanism for some particular region, though, like a Dark Forest that simply won't be mapped (or Sidar lands, or the Nox Noxis owning civ's land).

 

[Calavente]

Well, it could be really hard to remember wher you want to build your strategic cities.
plus no real interest in exploring the wilderness.

I don't know if it is doable, but :
-is it possible that in the fog of war, nothing changes ? : nor the creation of new cities (already done) nor the discovery of new ressources ? If your hunter didn't know there was iron there, How could you know there is some, years later, without even going there, just by discovering smelting? (it is even more tru for the map of the other civs : how could they tell you there is iron if they don't know about it, even if you know smelting, and even more if you don't even know it ?)

- how about 3/4 kinds of maps ?
-citys plots,
-(city + shortest path between the cities) : to enable trade to the cities
-(give contact with 3rd civ shows the shortest path toward the nearest city of that 3rd civ, as known by the 1st civ).
-culture map,
-explored map : wilderness...Etc
each map being more expensive, needing a new kind of trust between the civs
and each map type needing a new tech.

 

[Tarquelne]

We had similar issues on the The Ancient Mediterranean mod ... This one little item made a big difference in the natural progression of map/exploration.

That sounds great. To my taste that'd be a huge improvement. (Maybe a module...)

Going to the Workboat unitinfo and turning on "NoRevealMap" seems to work.

For me, exploration is the most fun aspect of the game.

My wife loves exploration. She'd tend to lose interest after the map was revealed, too.
How much so? She's played the Civ games since Civ1 came out, and she never made it to the the Railroad tech until several years after Civ3 came out.

 

[Pazyryk]

The "workboat fix" is totally pointless when you have explorer units (available at fishing, has a longer range, and can enter rival territory). Yes, I remember circumnavigating my continent with workboats in vanilla civ4 (and "vanilla FFH", I think). There isn't much reason to consider this in Wildmana because explorers can do that better at the same early stage.

Edit: I'll also note that fishing is now available for research without exploration. I think that is a great change from the resource perspective, but having the explorer unit available from your 1st tech researched is extreme.

My wife loves exploration. She'd tend to lose interest after the map was revealed, too.
How much so? She's played the Civ games since Civ1 came out, and she never made it to the the Railroad tech until several years after Civ3 came out.

The funny thing was, there were still significant "blank spots" on the map at this stage in the real world. I've been playing since civ1 and, if I remember correctly, all had map trading. I've always had much of the world revealed by 1 AD (whole world in earlier versions due to suicide galleys; in civ4 any distant continents had to wait until about 5 turns after I had optics).

 

[Tarquelne]

Remove Explorers, or confine them and Fishing boats to 1 movement.

I move them to Optics, or where ever it is Privateers are.

 

[Pazyryk]

I think Galleys are plenty sufficient for early coastal exploration. It takes sailing (which isn't a 1st tech but still could be very early), they have ~50/40 chance against unpromoted lizards, and you can't get past another civ without DoW or having cartograpy + OB agreement (which is no longer guaranteed since you can no longer bribe them with mana). Even for the Galley, I'd like to nerf their exploration effectiveness a little by:

1. Removing their automatic Sentry promotion (leave it as a possible upgrade) to make things a little more hazardous. I don't see why these very early boats should have better visibility than a Queen-of-the-line.
2. Addition of some coastal feature that acts as barrier. Not a "hard limit" (e.g., tile-type that can't be passed). Maybe instead some kind of lair (Siren's Lair?) that operates like a goblin fort. One galley has no chance to pass, but a good number of triremes could overcome.

 

[Valkrionn]

I think Galleys are plenty sufficient for early coastal exploration. It takes sailing (which isn't a 1st tech but still could be very early), they have ~50/40 chance against unpromoted lizards, and you can't get past another civ without DoW or having cartograpy + OB agreement (which is no longer guaranteed since you can no longer bribe them with mana). Even for the Galley, I'd like to nerf their exploration effectiveness a little by:

1. Removing their automatic Sentry promotion (leave it as a possible upgrade) to make things a little more hazardous. I don't see why these very early boats should have better visibility than a Queen-of-the-line.
2. Addition of some coastal feature that acts as barrier. Not a "hard limit" (e.g., tile-type that can't be passed). Maybe instead some kind of lair (Siren's Lair?) that operates like a goblin fort. One galley has no chance to pass, but a good number of triremes could overcome.

#2 is pretty much why I added Reefs in RifE; Slow movement, damage units that end the turn in them. Not as much of a block as your lair idea, but similar in concept.

 

[DonQuigleone]

You know why ships couldn't travel far in real life? Storms. What if the further you were away from cultural borders the more likely you are to get caught in a storm...

 

[graywarden]

You know why ships couldn't travel far in real life? Storms. What if the further you were away from cultural borders the more likely you are to get caught in a storm...

Storms are a good idea, but they should not be linked to cultural borders, because the presence of or the non-presence of a civilization should not have a direct effect onto the forces of nature. Unless of course you are building a global warming model, but i believe the reason the fantasy realms are as popular as they are, is that they take us away from the REALITY. Realism in a Fantasy makes it believeable..... so maybe a mixture of the reef feature, some naturally occuring storms, and some tweaking of the various units that speed up discovery too much.