Suggestions and Requests

[1SDANi]

One thing that's always annoyed me is how if you build a two cities on a small body of water and one of those cities connects the small body to a large body of water, the city that doesn't connect the two cannot build units that require large bodies of water despite having access to one. Would it be possible to implement this into the large body calculations?

I'm torn between posting this here, in bug reports, and modding help, so I just put it here.

 

[TJDowling]

One thing that's always annoyed me is how if you build a two cities on a small body of water and one of those cities connects the small body to a large body of water, the city that doesn't connect the two cannot build units that require large bodies of water despite having access to one. Would it be possible to implement this into the large body calculations?

I'm torn between posting this here, in bug reports, and modding help, so I just put it here.

I mean can Duluth build ocean-going vessels?

 

[1SDANi]

I mean can Duluth build ocean-going vessels?

Can you even get Duluth a connected to the ocean?

 

[merijn_v1]

No, the Great Lakes cannot be connected to the oceans (on the new map).

Can you give an example where you think this should be the case? I cannot find any small body of water that I think city next to it should be able to produce ships. Except the Black Sea maybe, but I'm pretty sure that is large enough for cities next to it to build ships.

What you are suggesting is that every city that could be connected to an ocean, it should be connected if there is a bridge city. I don't think that is desirable. For example, Göteborg can make certain cities in mainland Sweden ocean connected. Or certain cities in the Andes can become ocean connected via Lake Titicaca and a city SW of that lake. Or the African Great Lakes can all become ocean connected.

 

[Enyavar]

Black Sea is large enough.

Bodies of water needed to be at least ten tiles large to count as a ship-worthy ocean, in vanilla. (if I remember correctly, that is).

I found it a good thing that you can already build harbors (for example at the four-tiles Baikal lake) in CoD. Really great! But the water-tile infrastructure stops there.
I'm also against the idea of producing aircraft carriers in Chicago, or producing any ships in inner Africa.

 

[Leoreth]

I don't get what the goal or problem is here. Where does this discussion even come from?

 

[1SDANi]

In that case nevermind. I was under the assumption that the ships required large bodies of water so the AI wouldn't spam units into lakes. It didn't occur to me that it was supposed to prevent the building of ocean going ships in ports with shallow or narrow waterways.

 

[Leoreth]

Well it's both at the same time, isn't it?

 

[1SDANi]

Well it's both at the same time, isn't it?

It is, but the latter notion didn't occur to me. Hence my confusion over why water tiles linked via cities didn't count.

 

[Publicola]

I'm taking a 'Great Courses' class on the history of India, and I was fairly stunned to discovered that Hinduism is generally regarded as a late-developing religion. It's based on ancient Vedic practices in India, of course, but Hinduism as we know it is a synthesis of many traditions (including Buddhism and Jainism) that took form between 500 BC - 300 AD. Per the wiki:

Scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion[note 3] or synthesis[6][note 4] of various Indian cultures and traditions,[7][note 5] with diverse roots[8][note 6] and no founder.[9] This "Hindu synthesis" started to develop between 500 BCE and 300 CE,[10], after the end of the Vedic period (1500 BCE to 500 BCE),[10][11] and flourished in the medieval period, with the decline of Buddhism in India.[12]

In terms of this game, that sounds like Vedic religion should be represented with the default 'pagan temples' and 'no state religion'. Buddhism could be founded by the first Vedic civ (India or Harappa) to build a Vedic temple -- or perhaps require the construction of two temples, or a temple + library in the same city, since founding Hinduism is not longer a prereq). Hinduism itself would be better suited to Ethics or Theology (late classical or early medieval) as its founding tech.

I have no idea how much this would affect the game, such as various UHVs that require an early and widespread Hindu religion, or the Hindu URV that's geared to the ancient world. But Leoreth's been making a lot of changes to make DoC more historically accurate, and this feels like the same sort of thing.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

But Leoreth's been making a lot of changes to make DoC more historically accurate

Wait what? Since when?

 

[Leoreth]

I think the difference between what is called Vedic religion and modern Hinduism is continuous and mostly arbitrary. Please don't make too much of the fact that the Indian pagan religion is called Vedism.

 

[Publicola]

I think the difference between what is called Vedic religion and modern Hinduism is continuous

Agreed -- with the lack of a named founder, and with the considerable borrowing from ancient Vedic practices, the development of Hinduism had quite a bit of continuity.

and mostly arbitrary.

I don't think this is accurate.

Of the Upanishad, only 13 'Principal Upanishads' date from before the synthesis period, and even the oldest of those could not have been written before 800 BC. The other 200 or so 'minor Upanishads' all date from the synthesis period or later.

Of the epics, the Mahabharta was compiled mostly after 400 BC; the Bhagavad Gita dates from roughly 200 BC. The Ramayana dates to 700 BC at the absolute earliest, and was mostly composed between 400 BC - 200 AD. Likewise, the Puranas all date from after 300 AD.

In other words, the primary elements of Hindu theology (not practice, but codified and organized religion) date from the classical and medieval period. Genealogically, the ancient Vedic practices informed the rise of both Jainism and Buddhism, which flourished in ancient India for several centuries. Then the brahman (priestly) caste undercut Jain/Buddhist popular appeal by reforming Vedic religious practice to incorporate their insight and traditions. Both Buddhism and Jainism thus faded from India -- between the rise of Hinduism and the arrival of Islam, Buddhism all but died out in India until its revival in the 1890's (!) -- while Hinduism began to flourish.

I think treating Buddhism and Hinduism as practically prehistoric religions, or treating Buddhism as descended from Hinduism, does a disservice to both.

 

[Steb]

I agree with Publicola, and would like to add to the argument with a gameplay perspective regarding both Hinduism and Zoroastrianism.

Currently, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism almost always appear at the same time as their civilizations (India and Persia). This was a good thing when there were no individual pagan religions, because it gave those civs unique identities that were distinct from their neighbors. But now, it would look perfectly fine to have a Mazdaist Persia or a Vedic India.

Having Hinduism and Zoroastrianism appear on spawn makes these religions glorified pagan religions to some extent. Sure, they can spread to other civilizations. But they remain closely associated to their civs, to the point that they feel like extra features for Persia and India rather than separate phenomena like the other religions. Moreover, founding a religion should be an momentous event in a game, and having religions appear automatically on spawn removes a lot of that. It would also add to diversity if the holy city can vary instead of automatically be the capital.

If Persia's spawn date is changed to 550 BC, it would make sense to spawn Zoroastrianism at the same time, but if it is kept earlier, it would be good to require Persia to do something to found it. As for Hinduism, considering the timeline of the important features of that religion, a spawn date in the Classical era, like Publicola suggests, would be both more accurate and more interesting from a gameplay perspective.

Islam is an exception to the above, in large part because the existence of the Caliphate as a major state is inseparable from the emergence of Islam.

 

[Enyavar]

I agree at least partly here, as I have recently made suggestions in that direction. Page 257, this same thread:

I'm arguing that vedic temples should not be abandoned when hinduism spreads

Modelling historical religions in a game so that their shared concept is still understandable - that is HARD, and we better respect that.

I have lots of ideas on how to improve early religions, and most of them are impossible because developments that lasted 250 years(!) are over in only 10 turns around year 0 AD. I played all the ancient civs and the playthroughs always felt compressed and ahistorical.

So, yes, I think that every religions' temple/monastery should have different prereq techs and obsolete techs, and maybe some more religious events like spontaneous monastery founding, or temporary effects that weaken or boost a religion, or events on unusual religious coexistences in your cities, or some kind of model of the shia/sunna shism, without splitting yet another religion...

Well, all these aspects have to be thought through and be put into a easy to understand concept. Then they need to be coded, and tested, and bugfixed and I understand why Leoreth is not jumping onto every idea even if it is a good one.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

This might be unpopular, considering there recently seems to be a trend to expand the late game, but how about we take some turns from the 21st century and give them to the pre-Medieval time instead?

 

[Leoreth]

Agreed -- with the lack of a named founder, and with the considerable borrowing from ancient Vedic practices, the development of Hinduism had quite a bit of continuity.


I don't think this is accurate.

Of the Upanishad, only 13 'Principal Upanishads' date from before the synthesis period, and even the oldest of those could not have been written before 800 BC. The other 200 or so 'minor Upanishads' all date from the synthesis period or later.

Of the epics, the Mahabharta was compiled mostly after 400 BC; the Bhagavad Gita dates from roughly 200 BC. The Ramayana dates to 700 BC at the absolute earliest, and was mostly composed between 400 BC - 200 AD. Likewise, the Puranas all date from after 300 AD.

In other words, the primary elements of Hindu theology (not practice, but codified and organized religion) date from the classical and medieval period. Genealogically, the ancient Vedic practices informed the rise of both Jainism and Buddhism, which flourished in ancient India for several centuries. Then the brahman (priestly) caste undercut Jain/Buddhist popular appeal by reforming Vedic religious practice to incorporate their insight and traditions. Both Buddhism and Jainism thus faded from India -- between the rise of Hinduism and the arrival of Islam, Buddhism all but died out in India until its revival in the 1890's (!) -- while Hinduism began to flourish.

I think treating Buddhism and Hinduism as practically prehistoric religions, or treating Buddhism as descended from Hinduism, does a disservice to both.

Let me explain what I mean by arbitrary. Of course both Hinduism and Buddhism share a common ancestor in the Vedic religion, but only the emergence of Buddhism (and Jainism, which I don't know enough about to know exactly how it fits into the picture) makes it necessary to differentiate the two. Considering that Hinduism is a concept imposed in the 19th century by foreigners, it is not as if there could ever be any definite cut off point between Vedic religion and Hinduism, or even a need to distinguish the two except to emphasise the exclusion of Buddhism.

Compare this to how Christianity is handled in this mod. You could argue that the mod implies that early Christianity is equal to Orthodox Christianity but that is an overly rigid reading of how things work. Rectifying this for "correctness" would only complicate things and take valuable content out of the game for no other benefit, when it is already possible to read the representation within the game as congruent with history.

 

[Enyavar]

This might be unpopular, considering there recently seems to be a trend to expand the late game, but how about we take some turns from the 21st century and give them to the pre-Medieval time instead?

That is actually very popular with me. I have no idea how to mod the turns and the scaling of dates, but having roughly fifty more turns in the early game would be nice (on normal). Needless to say is that research times should be longer then, but production times should remain as is.
Since the game has to be rebalanced anyway with the larger map, this could be done together?

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, that was going to be my reply to this. I think the larger map may require a modest increase in the turn number (let's say 20%), and I was going to mostly distribute that towards the early game. Not much use in trying to rebalance everything before that.

 

[TJDowling]

Can you even get Duluth a connected to the ocean?

Definitely on the old map. I guess not on the new map.