[submod] Cross' Overhaul: 17 New Civs, Shia Religion, Civics Rework, Crusades and Much More!

[Crossphazer]

New Patch

• Merge latest changes from Leoreth's main branch.
• Move Sahel from Shia Minority to Periphery.

 

[Crossphazer]

@Tigranes you know that issue you reported, where the Olives on Crete didn't give the resource bonus when settled on?

Turns out it's not a bug, but an intended feature. The food bonus is not counted.
// Leoreth (edead): city counts as correct improvement wrt. bonus yields on small islands, except food

I'm not going to change that mechanic for the time being, as giving the food bonus would make a large difference for many island cities, and so I would have to validate whether I need to modify the presence of resources on certain islands for balance reasons.

 

[Tigranes]

I thought you forgot about it, so thanks for that update.
Can you also consider re-positioning some food resources around lake Chad, please? Starting location for Nigeria misses all the nearby food resources, and while humans can think of creative solutions, AI is not as lucky.

 

[Crossphazer]

I thought you forgot about it, so thanks for that update.
Can you also consider re-positioning some food resources around lake Chad, please? Starting location for Nigeria misses all the nearby food resources, and while humans can think of creative solutions, AI is not as lucky.

The capital location has the lake and camels as a food resource. The other resources are intended to be accessed with other settlements. The capital is not intended to be a super location like Amsterdam, Paris or London. I've seen the AI do just fine in autoplays, settling 3 or 4 cities. Sometimes they are overwhelmed by Native spawns or collapse, both of which are intended.

 

[Tigranes]

Oh, ok. Another observation: African workers and slave units look exactly the same. Is there any way to come up with a generic slave unit, that can be used across the centuries and continents, while different from ethnically diverse Workers?

Also, civs must be able to buy slaves even without Slavery/Colonialism. Sadly, it was the default human condition, until some modern civics became available. I find myself bribing civs as Nigeria in order to switch them into Slavery civic. Does not feel very realistic or fun...

 

[Crossphazer]

Oh, ok. Another observation: African workers and slave units look exactly the same. Is there any way to come up with a generic slave unit, that can be used across the centuries and continents, while different from ethnically diverse Workers?

Also, civs must be able to buy slaves even without Slavery/Colonialism. Sadly, it was the default human condition, until some modern civics became available. I find myself bribing civs as Nigeria in order to switch them into Slavery civic. Does not feel very realistic or fun...

If I recall, RFC Classical World has a non-African slave unit. I might use that, as it would be more generic.

In general I did not have trouble selling slaves, as many leaders have colonialism or slavery as their favorite civic. I guess if you got into the late 1700s or early 1800s you might have trouble, but before then, usually civs like Mamluks, Spain, Mughals or Portugal will buy slaves due to having Colonialism or Slavery as a favourite civic.

 

[Crossphazer]

New Patch

• Use "Aztec Slave" art defines for regular slaves
• Aztec slaves get new unit art.
• Slight buff to Spanish research costs.
• Gold in Spain expires in 1500 again. The two silver mines still expire in 400.
  • I'm going back and forth on this issue as I continue to fine-tune the Spanish tech rate.

 

[Crossphazer]

New Patch

• Add Balkans to probable Knights Templar locations
  • Still need to be Catholic to get Knights Templar in your cities
• Give most traditionally Catholic civs an aversion to building Mount Athos and the Hagia Sophia.

 

[IrishDragon]

Was looking back at history on a Mongol start from 3000BC. Is there a way to have a 'cleaner' conquests, and dividing of collapsing empires? The Roman Empire looks like this for example, after taking Pella and collapsing Macedonia gets divied out to Greece, Rome and Independents. They seem to have got conquerors in mesopotamia a couple of turns before, but didn't capture Greece until it collapsed in the 100s AD. Maybe they can't get conquerors in a region, unless they control the region next to it already?

Spoiler :

Also noticed Byzantium flipped Armenian and Parthian cities, not sure if that's intended

Spoiler :

It also seemed that the Greek spawn destroyed Knossus, which they refounded a few turns later, again not sure if intended

 

[Crossphazer]

Was looking back at history on a Mongol start from 3000BC. Is there a way to have a 'cleaner' conquests, and dividing of collapsing empires? The Roman Empire looks like this for example, after taking Pella and collapsing Macedonia gets divied out to Greece, Rome and Independents. They seem to have got conquerors in mesopotamia a couple of turns before, but didn't capture Greece until it collapsed in the 100s AD. Maybe they can't get conquerors in a region, unless they control the region next to it already?

Spoiler :

View attachment 714193

Also noticed Byzantium flipped Armenian and Parthian cities, not sure if that's intended

Spoiler :

View attachment 714194

It also seemed that the Greek spawn destroyed Knossus, which they refounded a few turns later, again not sure if intended

Based on those screenshots, and my own experience with autoplays, I would hazard that Greece had become a vassal to Rome (you can validate this in the replay log, there should be an entry about it). There is code which checks whether certain provinces are owned by Rome, or a vassal of Rome, before they can launch. For example, conquests of Anatolia or the Levant requiring control of the Greece region.

In your second screenshot, there are cities in Anatolia such as Taouion and Trapizon that are ceded to Byzantium. That is normal, as Anatolia is part of the Byzantine flip area, regardless of who owns it. It is only for areas like the Balkans, Egypt and the Levant that cities only flip to Byzantium if they are owned by Rome.

However, Byzantium won't spawn at all if Rome doesn't own any cities in Greece or Anatolia. So, particularly as a human player, if you want to avoid the Byzantine spawn, which includes a stack of units and flipping some cities in Anatolia and Greece, you just have to keep Rome out of those two regions.

Regarding Knossos and other Minoan/Mycenean cities, that civ is cleared (including cities) prior to the birth of Greece, similarly to what happens with Harappa and India. This is to simulate the de-urbanization of the Bronze Age Collapse and to prevent the Myceneans from interfering with the Classical era.

 

[Crossphazer]

New Patch

• Disable "Zulu" barbarian pikemen spawn.
• Narrow the Celtic (Irish) respawn from 1850-2020 to 1910-2020

The results of autoplays to 1867 have been pretty good lately.

 

[Tigranes]

Did you try 600 AD Zulu starts? Multiple errors:

 

[Crossphazer]

Did you try 600 AD Zulu starts? Multiple errors:

Pretty sure this is a base DoC bug. Occurs if Europeans meet the Toltecs and spawn a conqueror stack. Toltecs are usually dead so it's a rare issue.

Just pushed a patch to fix that issue.

 

[Tigranes]

Nigeria and Congo have very similar colors, both primary and secondary (golden-brown symbol on green flag). Coupled with the jungles, the whole thing looks very confusing. At least Ottomans have a different shade of green.

Also, doesn't it strike you as odd, that Congolese Pombo has strength 8, while much later Zulu "raider" has only 4 strength? All while Pedia is claiming them to be unparallel spearmen in Africa. I suggest renaming them back to Impi with 6 , making them different from the generic South African Native raiders with 4 .

 

[Crossphazer]

Nigeria and Congo have very similar colors, both primary and secondary (golden-brown symbol on green flag). Coupled with the jungles, the whole thing looks very confusing. At least Ottomans have a different shade of green.

Also, doesn't it strike you as odd, that Congolese Pombo has strength 8, while much later Zulu "raider" has only 4 strength? All while Pedia is claiming them to be unparallel spearmen in Africa. I suggest renaming them back to Impi with 6 , making them different from the generic South African Native raiders with 4 .

Yeah, the colour scheme is hard to see. I was using the colours of the existing Hausa flag that exists in another mod. And I can buff the Impi and give it its own name back.

New Patch

• Change Nigeria colors to white and green
• Replace Zulu native raider with strength 6 Impi.
  • Native Raider still exists, just not as a UU for Zulu

 

[Tigranes]

With so many civs it is normal to run out of colors. I hate to constantly bring this up, but here is another example of 3 purple-blue civs together. Iroquois colors match their flag colors nicely, but perhaps we can invert them and make white purple instead?

By the way, what was the total limit on civs alive at any moment again? I think I counted 33 on Zulu spawn, with 2 more to expect.

 

[Crossphazer]

With so many civs it is normal to run out of colors. I hate to constantly bring this up, but here is another example of 3 purple-blue civs together. Iroquois colors match their flag colors nicely, but perhaps we can invert them and make white purple instead?

By the way, what was the total limit on civs alive at any moment again? I think I counted 33 on Zulu spawn, with 2 more to expect.

White is being used by 3 other civs that can be active at the same time. I will play around with the shade of purple to make it stand out a bit more.

The limit on Civs is currently 40. It's possible that during decolonization in the 20th century that the limit might be hit.

edit:
New Patch: Brighten the purple of Iroquois

 

[Triquetra]

Suggestion: How do you feel about giving the Zulu an earlier start date as the people of Great Zimbabwe, with their name changing to Xhosa or Zulu in the appropriate eras?

 

[Crossphazer]

Suggestion: How do you feel about giving the Zulu an earlier start date as the people of Great Zimbabwe, with their name changing to Xhosa or Zulu in the appropriate eras?

Sure, that sounds good to me. I can make it the next thing I work on.

 

[Tigranes]

I know comprehensive city names will be eventually completed by Leoreth, but in a mean time could you please take a look at your 1867 autorun maps and take a note of important "canonical" cities lacking proper names. I am asking for Mississauga to become Toronto under Europeans (it was called York only for 40 years). Efes becoming Smyrna and Izmir (close enough). Panyu becoming Guangzhou. Dublin and Sao Paolo appearing as such. You got the idea... I am talking about the most iconic cities, not the correct name for every single tile for every single civ. Just enough to make major population centers to look familiar, similar to fixing Sens to Paris...