Suggestions and Requests

Leoreth said:
On inflation, the root of it lies in how commerce grows polynomially throughout the game, while most forms of upkeep cost grow linearly throughout the game. As technology improves, cities have better commerce modifiers across the board, leading to a compounding effect for income growth. While as I explained before, city and civic upkeep grow in relation to population, the amount of commerce produced by one point is much higher late in the game. Likewise, one unit will always cost one gold per turn, and while the number of units grows as the game progresses, this growth in number is in no proportion to the growth of income.

Inflation costs are always a percentage of your income, and this percentage grows over time, so there are additional costs to account for how overall upkeep costs make up a smaller percentage of your overall income.

When coming up with your interpretation, you are making the assumption that "commerce" is a property of capitalism, which is unfounded. Commerce in the game is an abstract representation of all forms of economic activity, including agriculture. Commerce is a property of all periods of human history, and periods of economic prosperity will lead to greater stability while periods of economic decline will lead to instability. I don't really follow the assertion that this is a phenomenon unique to history under capitalism, which is a very recent development. For example, recount instability in the Roman Empire or the effects of economic contraction in various Chinese dynasties. You are right to point out that food shortages are often interrelated with these economic crises, but as I pointed out this relationship is already represented in how food is correlated with population which is correlated with commerce.

Another important concern here is that food production is a very clear function of the terrain surrounding a city, and it will usually gradually grow as the population grows to both consume and produce it. There is very little to do to improve food production besides the obvious tile improvements and population growth. Which means once the optimal population level for a city has been reached, there will be no growth in food production anymore, and little available action to improve this. Likewise, very few events in the game will disrupt food production. In conclusion, there is very little variance in food production, making it uninteresting as an economic indicator in stability, and where it is this is already captured in commerce. Contrast this with commerce, where buildings, technologies, variance between specialists and cottages, as well as cottage growth, can influence the commerce that is produced independently of population growth.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for explaining the inflation mechanic. The main reason I don't like it is simply because it's confusing to players who don't know what it is in the game. In the real world, inflation is a specific, economic phenomenon which governments, especially in the modern era, have a lot of control over (if they care to control it). If it was really inflation, increasing the "tax" rate in the game (in actuality, it's government budget surplus that is hoarded and not spent) should keep still or decrease inflation, and decreasing the tax rate and increasing science and culture should increase inflation. Spending government money on anything (units, buildings) should increase inflation. Etc. What the inflation mechanic is in the game (a % of civ commerce) is a civ maintenance cost. Which is why I like the idea of folding it into civic costs. Civic costs basically become something like % of population (old civic costs) + % of commerce (old inflation costs). Or better yet, just leave inflation and civic costs as it is and just call inflation something else, like Bureaucratic Costs or something like that. This is obviously a minor issue, though.

Improvements can increase commerce, but the major thing that stagnates or decreases commerce growth IMO is stuff like war or switching worked tiles to specialists (although I suppose this depends on which tiles you're giving up and which specialists you're choosing), and I find that these are also the major things that decreases food crop yield. Commerce has certainly been important to ancient civilizations way before capitalism, but what bothers me, I think, is the question of how strong was the connection between economic commercial recession and social instability. That connection is strong in the modern age of capitalism and post-industrialization when most of the population isn't farmers, but in feudal and ancient times when freedom of movement and social mobility was probably very restricted and most people were farmers (i.e. relatively few people were job-seekers or heavily dependent on commerce the way people are today), I'm not sure that connection was that strong. But, what you said is true that through food -> population -> more tiles worked -> commerce, so they're already all connected. And if the issue of AIs collapsing due to economic recession is no longer a major one, this is obviously a minor detail. To be honest, I actually kind of like the challenge for the human player of worrying about a stagnating commerce/economy giving me instability points and the reward of a growing economy giving me stability points :p


Enyavar said:
This. At the start of some games, I garrison a Spearman in the capital. Then I have the tech for the upgrade to Heavy Spearman, then for Pikeneer, then for Firearms and eventually Infantry. Okay, at some point I will sacrifice the most outdated units as statistics-fodder in unwinnable fights (still doing the save-reload routines), but a Longbow garrison has no business protecting cities in the late game.

My suggestion: If a unit is two times outdated (e.g. a Spearman when you have the Company tech and could build Pikeneers), then it's no longer seen as a valid garrison in the cities. Just like the Scout/Explorer or the siege units. And the entire cavalry line should be outdated with the digital age.
Click to expand...

Along with that, one thing that bugs me is how the game doesn't allow you to build a unit that is "one-time" outdated. Sometimes that jump is big. If I'm making spearmen one turn and then the next turn I'm forced to make heavy spearmen (double the hammers needed) and can't ever go back to creating spearmen, man I must have some stuck-up generals who will not accept anything but the latest and most advanced military lol. You also have the similar but weirder case of wanting to self-pillage your copper/iron because you want to continue making lower end units because they're cheaper. It would be great though, of course, if you have the option of filtering this in your city build menu. Default can be units and one-time outdated units are visible in the menu and can be built, and a filter button when toggled filters out the one-time outdated units if you don't want to see them in the city build menu.

I uninstalled BUG from my My Games folder and reinstalled it into my Beyond the Sword Mods folder, but didn't get the stability icon in my scoreboard at first. Then I went to the BUG options screen, the Scoreboard tab, and in the Advanced Layout section unchecked Enabled, and then was able to get the stability icon back.
 
Last edited:
I think you're overthinking this. Abstraction exists. Words mean different things in different contexts. It's fine.
 
ozqar said:
Canadian mounted police would be offended. And other mounted police too.

I like this general idea though!
Click to expand...

I thought hard about mounted police, when writing my suggestion :)
It all depends what the troops in a city are supposed to represent. The garrison is, I believe, not the military police charged with preventing unrest. It symbolizes the military stationed to deter enemy invasions. No disrespect to the RCMP, but the Mounties could only give token resistance if China/Japan/Russia invaded Vancouver with tanks and infantry.

The cavalry line ends with Cavalry and Gun Boat, the latter is an air unit that can't serve as a garrison for whatever reason. The Cavalry Unit doesn't even represent mounted police units. In the mid-Global Age, even the last people would know that even well-equipped cavalry and rockets/tanks/missiles don't fight on even odds, and the people would be rightly furious if their government told them they'd be safe from invading forces because the cavalry protected them. I think, Digital Age is even generous.
 
Enyavar said:
The garrison is, I believe, not the military police charged with preventing unrest.
Click to expand...
I thought it was very close to that, especially when you think that vanilla Hereditary Rule (and DoC Monarchy) allows garrisons to increase happiness. That happiness is not the citizens being really happy about the troops, but the troops preventing riots and unrest. Sure, archers and swordmen wouldn't be able to enforce order upon modern day people, but cavalry armed with guns surely would.
 
Hey Leoreth, I was wondering, if I were to make a 1900 AD scenario, would that be something you'd be interested in including in the mod? Obviously assuming it was of high quality. Just wondering if that would be a wanted contribution or if it's something you'd rather do yourself if at all. I'll probably end up making it anyways even if you wouldn't wanna include it tbh.
 
Not before the way scenarios work is rewritten as explained in the v1.17 outline. Every scenario is a pain to maintain but even moreso the later its starting date is.
 
All this talk about outdated units pacifying civilian populations inspired me to throw together a little modcomp that makes "We demand military protection" unhappiness a bit harder to vanquish.

Here you go.

As of now it's just a proof of concept, I'll probably fiddle a bit more with it before integrating it into Sunset or pull requesting it into DoC if Leoreth likes it.

Here's the relevant code:

Spoiler Outdated :
Code: 
int CvCity::getNoMilitaryPercentAnger() const
{
    int iAnger;

    iAnger = 0;

    if (getMilitaryHappinessUnits() == 0)
    {
        iAnger += GC.getDefineINT("NO_MILITARY_PERCENT_ANGER");
    }

//KNOEDELstart
    else
    {
        CLLNode<IDInfo>* pUnitNode;
        CvUnit* pLoopUnit;
        int iGarrison;

        iGarrison = 0;

        pUnitNode = plot()->headUnitNode();

        while (pUnitNode != NULL)
        {
            pLoopUnit = ::getUnit(pUnitNode->m_data);
            pUnitNode = plot()->nextUnitNode(pUnitNode);

            iGarrison += pLoopUnit->getUnitInfo().getCultureGarrisonValue();
        }

        if (getPopulation() > iGarrison)
        {
            iAnger += GC.getDefineINT("NO_MILITARY_PERCENT_ANGER");
            iAnger /= iGarrison;
        }
    }
//KNOEDELend

    return iAnger;
}

Edit: Never mind that, this code is much more to my liking:

Code: 
int CvCity::getNoMilitaryPercentAnger() const
{
    int iAnger;

    iAnger = 0;

    if (getMilitaryHappinessUnits() == 0)
    {
        iAnger += GC.getDefineINT("NO_MILITARY_PERCENT_ANGER");
    }

//KNOEDELstart
    else
    {
        CLLNode<IDInfo>* pUnitNode;
        CvUnit* pLoopUnit;
        int iGarrison;

        iGarrison = 0;

        pUnitNode = plot()->headUnitNode();

        while (pUnitNode != NULL)
        {
            pLoopUnit = ::getUnit(pUnitNode->m_data);
            pUnitNode = plot()->nextUnitNode(pUnitNode);

            iGarrison += pLoopUnit->getUnitInfo().getCultureGarrisonValue();
        }

        if (getPopulation() > iGarrison)
        {
            iAnger += GC.getDefineINT("NO_MILITARY_PERCENT_ANGER");
            iAnger *= (getPopulation()-iGarrison);
            iAnger /= getPopulation();
            //iAnger /= iGarrison;
        }
    }
//KNOEDELend

    return iAnger;
}
 
Last edited:
Dear Leoreth,

I was obsessed with RFC as a kid. I found this mod a couple of months back. This is absolutely brilliant.

I am sure some of these things have already been suggested, but here is some suggestions for new mechanics and civilizations if, when and to what extent you would want to incorporate them. Most of the following is in order to make sure that England's fall from superpower status is graceful, but simultaneously does actually happen (as we know, it has a nasty habit of pulling a Russia and teching up uncontrollably fast, especially as a player).

Australia:

Start date potentials: 1850 (Gold Rush has created budding new Australian identities), 1890 (push for independence under Henry Parkes begins), 1901 (Federation).

Yellow/Gold Boxing Kangaroo, or Australian CoA, with mid-green background (look up Australian Green and Gold).

Name: Federation of Australia, The Australian Republic,

Territorially conditional names: Australasian Federation, Australasian Empire (if New Guinea, NZ, and Fiji are controlled, dependent on government).

Leaders:

John Curtin – led Australia during WWII, a well regarded Prime Minister. Insubordinated the British military by withdrawing Australian troops from Libya/Egypt, to defend Papua New Guinea, signalling Australia de facto independence, followed shortly by the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942. Died in office. 41-45.

Sir Robert Menzies – united a coalition of conservatives and economic/political liberals to form the Liberal Party( which governed with the Country party). Held office for the longest time, shaping the modern political landscape. Presided over the post-war boom, 39-41, 49-66.

Bob Hawke – finished the shift toward free trade and free markets, floated the Aussie dollar, and implemented various social programs, including pushing for Aboriginal land rights, 81-91

Bonus – Beauty, rich and rare... boundless plains to share: Immigration experienced as in New World countries. Materials consumed by Textile and Mining companies produced in double quantity.

UU: Digger – Replaces Infantry. Can Attack like infantry, but has a 20% bonus to defence, in addition to building trenches in half the usual time.

UB:

Goal 1 – The mining boom: Sell 3 copies of textile industry resources by 1930, 3 copies of mineral and jewellery resources by 1970, and 10 copies of mineral and jewellery resources by 2010.

Goal 2 – Populate or Perish: Have 5 cities with at least 14 population by 1970

Goal 3 – Great Southern Land: Ensure no other nation (exc. Independents and natives) has a presence in Oceania or Papua New Guinea in 2030, unless their capital is in Oceania (ie Polynesia).

Core – all of modern Australia

Historical – Papua New Guinea (Eastern part of New Guinea). New Zealand, Fiji.* Additional Pacific Islands** Western New Guinea***

*Special Decision if New Zealand/Fiji is part of England or Netherlands (ie NOT POLYNESIA) to be annexed – this is provided for in the real Australian Constitution btw.

**Special decisions if non-European/American powers attempt to take over Pacific Islands, making them historical territory, or if they settle these islands themselves.

***If the Dutch lose control of Indonesia, and there is significant unhappiness in Western New Guinea, may gain historical area here.

Special traits:

Begins in a vassal relationship to England (simulating commonwealth status). Very strong mutual relationship between these countries, which can only be broken by war.

South Africa:

Start Situ – 1830, Bloemfontein tile. Population from Cape Colony reduces, and start with 4 voortrekkers and 3 settlers.

Core Area: Modern South Africa.

Historical: Greater Rhodesia (Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe), Namibia, *Mozambique

*Mozambique, if Portugal decides to sell it into the commonwealth, may be annexed by South Africa. Otherwise, not a historical region

Bonus: De Beer’s - Experiences migration from India, Malaysia and Europe to core territories at lessened rates, even when cities are occupied. Doubled effects of Mining and Jewellery corporations.

Leaders:

Paul Kruger – United several Boer factions into the South African Republic in the Transvaal region. Instigated several conflicts with the British, and eventually lost.

Jan Smuts – Fought in Boer war for Boers, and in WWI for South Africa. Led South Africa during WWII.

Nelson Mandela – Ended Apartheid. Very Charismatic. First Black president of SAF. Unfortunately, not much else was practically achieved apart from a hopefully permanent reconciliation of racial divisions.

Quick note – while it should be obvious, I think Apartheid was horrible, and do not support the system. However, the advocation for such an abhorrent system does not detract from the leadership skills of Smuts or Kruger. Don’t @ me.

UU: Voortrekker – Replaces worker. Has same strength as a musketman. Receives 25% bonus to defence, and an additional 25% in home territory. Can build improvements at 75% speed.

UB: Mineral exchange or something (replaces forge). +25 percent cash from settlement.

Goal 1: Kill at least 10 British or Dutch units before 1920.

Goal 2: Be independent in 1950, controlling 95% of your core territory.

Goal 3: Make 100 gold per turn from jewellery industry by 2000, without any of your citizens being unhappy, and with Apartheid ended (ie have either individualism or egalitarianism, and constitution.

Begins independent. If it loses a war with Great Britain/Netherlands, it gains all of its core territory from Britain, and becomes a vassal state of that power, with a relations boost. Capital is moved to Pretoria, Cape Town, or Bloemfontein in that priority (Executive, Legislative, Judiciary). Kruger is ousted, and replaced with Jan Smuts.

Malaysia:

This country represents A unified Malay/Yue country. Might start sometime in early 2nd millenium, but rises again similar to India from a weakened portugal or Britain.

Core Area: Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Aceh, southern peninsula of Thailand.

Historical Areas: Southern Sumatra, Palawan (southwestern Philippines tile), Bali*(East Timor Tile, hard to get), *Hong Kong/Macau

*Hong Kong/Macau - if Both Malaysia and Hong Kong/Macau were owned by England or Portugal respectively. //REASONS FOR HONG KONG/MACAU – Yue/Cantonese peoples are prominent in both of these places. Also, Singapore and Hong Kong both have the same theme of trade hubs in South Asia, thought that as one nation, they might be interesting.

*Bali was historically Malay. Would be unlikely to gain control of it as an AI or player, but should be there for the sake of Malaysia having something to do, like pacific islands for uk, even though few would settle them.

Bonus: 50% bonus from trade with foreign nations. May receive immigration from India and China, even when cities are occupied.

UU: IDK

UB: Central Business District – replaces customs house, has an additional 50% production from trade routes.

Goal 1: IDK

Goal 2: Build 3 Trade wonders by 2020

Goal 3: Gain 150 commerce from trade by 1960, 250 by 1990, and 350 by 2010 (change these numbers for a realistic but difficult challenge).

Begins in a defensive pact with either Portugal or great Britain.


Changes:

Canada’s start date, befitting status as a vassal, is somewhere around 1850, once Lord Durham’s proposal of dominion status is accepted.

It could also be interesting to have the US begin as New England in Boston as a vassal of England in 1620, but this is just a fun side note, not a serious proposal. Basically, it would be two pioneers, one setting boston and one New York/Philadelphia.

Tamils, India, Malaysia and Mali when granted independence from UK/France, get defensive pacts rather than vassal status.

Polynesia has historical cores on all pacific islands.

Polynesia can reappear once some pacific islands have been colonised by a Eurasian/African power, excepting Japan.

Trench warfare – Friendly infantry and Machine Gunner Units can build trenches, which double any fortification bonus to units in the tile. Requires road/railroad/highway/romanroad in a tile.

IDK, Polynesia should be reborn in some form like Iran or Mexico in the very late game. Not necessary, but for fun.

Once again, thanks for the hard work Leoreth, look forward ton whatever you do.
 
Imp. Knoedel said:
All this talk about outdated units pacifying civilian populations inspired me to throw together a little modcomp that makes "We demand military protection" unhappiness a bit harder to vanquish.

Here you go.

As of now it's just a proof of concept, I'll probably fiddle a bit more with it before integrating it into Sunset or pull requesting it into DoC if Leoreth likes it.
Click to expand...

Yo @Leoreth , what do you think? Yay or Nay?
 
I agree that garrison happiness from super outdated units is a problem, but this seems to be too complicated to me.
 
A couple of suggestions regarding classical wonder resource requirements:
-The Great Library and Great Lighthouse should require cotton (so Greece doesn't just build them immediately in Athens)
-The Great Cothon should require ivory (likewise)
-The Oracle should require wine (so Babylon doesn't just build it before Greece spawns)
 
I'd prefer if resource requirements or speeding bonuses concerned only resources that were actually used in building the wonder. (Corn being an acceptable exception for precolumbian stuff.)
 
If LAF1994's suggestion is in regard to the UHVs and not simply about historical replication:

Great Library and Great Lighthouse: With the right strategy, Egypt can consistently beat Greece to the Great Library. The Great Lighthouse is iffier IMO, and I could see Stone either being a prerequisite or a production-enhancer.

Oracle: The Oracle is not part of Greece's UHV, so I don't see why they need to be given a leg up on producing it. Besides, the Oracle is an important piece in both the Egyptian and Babylonian UHV games, and nerfing their ability to get it would compromise their UHV games.

Great Cothon: This one I agree with. Carthage gets screwed in the UHV game very often because Greece goes for the Cothon and has a head start on it.
 
I wrote this in another thread, but I think something like this mechanic might be a more elegant solution than several resource restrictions.

KeeperOT7Keys said:
I don't know that other players think but I think at some point in the game some civs just keep building all the wonders (usually the player), I think adding culture limits and resource conditions were kind of good ideas to restrict this.
but to really solve that I think we should have a some kind of global culture limit as well, if you ever played civ4col you might think this as a version of founding fathers. Basically each wonder would require some amount of global culture to start building, if you reach that threshold and build the wonder this required amount is deducted from your global culture.
We can remove this culture limit for the civs that originally built the wonder, this way civs who built the wonder can have a slight advantage.

I believe this change is kind of required since we included lots of unique wonders for unique locations, like Chateu Frontenac, I don't think we will ever see them built by their original builder with the current mechanic, since they are not usually the tech leader. For example US will usually build Chateu Frontenac instead of Canada etc.
Click to expand...
 
As long as we're tossing out ideas, how about adding a temporary Papyrus resource to Egypt, good for speeding up production of both regular libraries and the Great Library? The resource could be placed where the Cotton currently is, and at some point in the Medieval era the Papyrus could disappear and be replaced by Cotton. This already happens with the Egyptian Copper, which expires and is replaced by Iron.

Egypt lags in the early tech race, and though Great Prophets and the Oracle can help them research Philosophy quickly, Navigation is longer to get and Greece is very apt to build the Great Lighthouse just as Egypt is discovering it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Nikas Kunitz
Russia and Rus civilizations thread: suggestions and discussion.
Replies
7
Views
2K
Apple111111
A
Leoreth
New Map City Names Development Thread
2
Replies
27
Views
5K
Leoreth
Leoreth
L
A Proposal to improve Crete
2
Replies
22
Views
2K
SultanRedSnake
SultanRedSnake
Hickman888
The Phoenicia Thread
Replies
6
Views
1K
1SDANi
1SDANi
T
Religious Victory Thread
Replies
9
Views
1K
Si No Hay Paz
Si No Hay Paz
Back
Top Bottom