Suggestions and Requests

[Orbii]

I think the inflation rate has been scenario adjusted already, but I will check again. But the GP thresholds are a good point. Do you have a rough estimate of the number of GPs that these civs would have generated at this point? For 600 AD as well.

I can't provide the best statistics, but 5-8 Great People between 600AD and 1700AD is pretty typical for the civs still alive in 1700AD (a dedicated player can spawn more than 10, with say, China, Byzantium, and Arabia). Most of the starting infrastructure of 1700AD civs seem to have this amount of GP's, through a combination of settled GPs and wonders placed that would usually be GE-rushed.

Meter reset is most noticeable with France and Japan because they essentially need 4-5 Great Artists for their culture UHVs, both of which check before 1700AD and are competed in the 1700AD scenario (although without the actual culture points reflected in the cities, which is a good thing). This means that in the 1700AD start they can pursue fundamentally different early GP strats than are required in 600AD; this feels really good when playing as 1700AD Japan though, as in a 600AD start you'll be running up at 20-30 turns/GP by the time you're able to generate things other than Great Artists.

Using the condition of 1700 Japan as a more thorough examination, the game assumes at least six GP spawned: 1 GM settled in Kyoto, 1 GE used to rush Itsukushima Shrine (there's no way Kagoshima is building that normally), and 4 Renaissance GAs to check the culture UHV. However, Japan will spawn a GP out of Kagoshima in 4 turns or so due to the meter reset + Itsukushima Shrine, and continue to do so at such a rate. That means Japan gets 6 free GPs, and one of those free GPs snowballs your reset GP engine.

Edit: My reply got folded into the quote.

 

[Leoreth]

Okay thanks. I don't want to factor in the UHV requirements too much because if you start France or Japan you don't necessarily want to go for a UHV so that would be unfair. I think we all understand that a 600 AD UHV is different than one from 1700 AD for these civs. I consider the already fulfilled goals freebies that allow you to still compete for the others. And to be fair, Japan at least has a lower tech level in that scenario than the usual human would manage from an earlier start.

 

[Steb]

I'd like to have more data before claiming this, but it might just be the starting techs. I started a 1700 British game, discovered all the remaining Renaissance techs first, and still got to enter the industrial era circa 1750, a few turns after France. I didn't do anything special like use great people or even trade techs. By 1800 I was well into the industrial era and able to build many wonders that have been built much later.

I think that's too early. Getting to the industrial era in the mid 18th century should be possible, but the exception (due to beelining, bulbing, etc.) rather than the rule.

 

[Leoreth]

Well then, I'd like to hear proposals what the starting techs should be or what should be changed.

 

[Vectors]

At the same time, what determines the trade threshold for techs? As Japan, my UP wasn't very useful when 2 countries were willing to trade, and 8 thought they didn't want to start trading the tech away yet.

 

[freethink]

Well then, I'd like to hear proposals what the starting techs should be or what should be changed.

I think for one, I think the East Asian Civs should have more techs in the beginning because as its stand its seems that they are doomed to fall behind regardless of what they do (except Japan possibly). China I think should have Geography and Exploration.

 

[JHLee]

IMO, the biggest reason that causes insane European tech rates is the over-development of their cities and tiles.
The 1700 AD grants fully developed tiles, cities stacked with buildings (plus some GP buildings and/or Nat. Wonders to boost), and tons of towns/villages.
In a 600 AD scenario the AIs would never have such highly developed lands.
Especially the cottages, they would never ever develop their cottages so big.
Not France, not Germany, not even England, and certainly not Russia.

The key to appropriately nerf the Euros, IMO, is to nerf their initial city/tile development.

 

[Steb]

When translating tech quotes, I found that several of them are spurious, misattributed or even outright fake. This is especially true of the quotes ported over from the base game, of course.

• Smelting: "Wealth falls on some men as a copper down the drain." - Seneca. Not found in the entire body of work of Seneca. It's attributed to Seneca in a random book about copper.
• Engine: "You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I have no time for such nonsense." - Napoleon. Doesn't exist in French, which is very suspicious. Probably fake.
  
• Nationalism: "A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him." - Napoleon. Another spurious Napoleon quote.
• Biology: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, but the one most responsive to change." - Darwin. Darwin apparently never said this in those words. It should be easy to find an actual quote from Origin of Species.
• Combined arms: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." - Aristotle. In Metaphysics, Aristotle said something like "The totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts." Euclides said something closer to the wording we have: "the whole is greater than the part"
• Academia: "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle. According to Wikiquote, this is disputed, though there is a similarish quote in the Nicomachean Ethics: "It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs."
• Compass: "The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides. There's no indication anywhere that Euripides said that.

I'd be happy to find suggestions for replacement quotes if you think it'd be a good idea to.

 

[Leoreth]

I noticed the same thing when searching for the sources I have added to most quotes. If a source is missing that's already a sign that it's probably an apocryphal quote.

I think some of the sources you found are cases where some oral tradition entered into the public consciousness (e.g. the Aristotle stuff) in that the best remembered quote is some corruption of the actual source. I think it's fine to keep them.

I don't want to replace any of them on principle, but if a good replacement is available it's of course better to have something that can be sourced. So let's see on a case by case basis.

 

[Steb]

All right. Here's my suggestion for Biology, from Darwin's On the Origin of Species (last sentence of the first edition):
"From so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

 

[Leoreth]

Sounds good. Does that mean there is no equivalent of the current quote in OtOoS?

 

[Visard]

All right. Here's my suggestion for Biology, from Darwin's On the Origin of Species (last sentence of the first edition):
"From so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

 

[Publicola]

I don't mind changing around the quotes for techs added by the mod, but are we really getting rid of quotes from Leonard Nimoy?

 

[Steb]

Sounds good. Does that mean there is no equivalent of the current quote in OtOoS?

It seems not. The quote is from 1963, see the first item in https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin#Misattributed

 

[JHLee]

Some suggestions about the Chinese area.

1. Starting spot


Why start on the only non-riverside spot when literally every other tile in the BFC is by a river?
Of course the human player can spend 1~2 turns to move to other more preferable locations,
but the AI will always settle on the starting spot.
Why not move it one tile down?

2. City & Resource Locations in 600 AD & 1700 AD Scenario (especially regarding the Confu. Holy City)

- Xian should be moved 1S in both scenarios, as with the starting spot of the 3000 BC scenario.


- Kaifeng should probably be replaced with Luoyang, which is a much older city and the captial of many dynasties including the Han and the Tang Empires.
(Not too sure about this, because Kaifeng was also a huge city from the Song era -in which Kaifeng served as capital- and on, probably bigger than Luoyang in the later eras)
- Nankin (600AD) and Shanghai (1700AD) should be replaced with Qingzhou (2N of Nankin), and Qingzhou should be the Confu. Holy City.
The accurate location of the San Kong. With the lack of Qingzhou in the current version, Nankin and Shanghai are (wrongfully) represented as the holy cities.
Qingzhou as a city would also represent the importance of the Shandong area, which was a major economic powerhouse due to its location at the mouth of the Yellow River.
Not too mention that the close-packed Kaifeng, Nankin, and Hangzhou in the 600 AD makes limits tile uses of each others.

- Move Kagoshima in the 1700 AD scenario 1N1W to Nagasaki, so it won't be settled on Gold and would dispute over the Pearls with Hangzhou.
- A mild suggestion: move the fish 1N1E of Hangzhou 1N, to include it in the BFC of Hanseong and therefore create a cultural border dispute over the resource, as it would be the case with the pearls between Nagasaki and Hangzhou.



3. Core/Historical Area of China


Currently, the row in the pink box turns to core area after China is resurrected after its destruction from Mongolia.
(Not too sure about the Mongols, but it is definitely not core from the beginning, and definitely becomes core after resurrection)
But why should the Mongols, or any resurrections, have to do with anything about those tiles becoming core?
The development and Sinification of the Yangtze riverside was not the result of Northern invasions.
And human players would never have those tiles as core because they would be defeated after collapse.
I suggest that it become core somewhere between 1000 AD and 1300 AD (so the timing is not too much different from the current version).
This would also allow more diverse city placements from players who want their cities to be in core.

Also, in the current version Taiwan is Chinese historical area from the very beginning.
IRL, they were inhabited by distant relatives of the Polynesians until the 13th century when Ming refugees fled to the island from the Mongolian horde.
Therefore I suggest that Taiwan become historical area only after the Mongolian invasion.
This could be implemented by either a fixed date (somewhere between 1200 and 1300),
after China loses a city to the Mongols, or after their resurrection from their collapse from the Mongols.


4. Core Area of Japan

Why is the southern area of the Japanese islands not core until the 1800s or so?
I can understand the late transformation into Historical Area of Hokkaido,
but Kyushu and Shikoku should be Japanese core at least by 1600, when the Tokugawa Shogunate was established IRL.

 

[JHLee]

5. Historical Area of Korea

Korea has the smallest number of tiles in Historical+Core Area in the game,
when IRL the Goguryeo Kingdom disputed with China and the Khitai over Liaodong and parts of Manchuria,
and the Balhae Kingdom controlled the Northeastern coasts of the Korean peninsula after the fall of Goguryeo.
I suggest that the Korean Historical Area be extended to cover the Liaodong penninsula and southeastern tiles of Manchuria,
so that it will
(a) encourage the Korean AI to expand towards these area, creating a dispute with China, Mongolia and later on, Russia.
(b) ensure the 4 cities needed for the Korean Historical Victory be inside their Core/Historical Area.

.
.
I would also like to make vast changes to the map of China, Mongolia, Manchuria, and Korea to better fit with the actually geography of these regions,
but it is a big job and would take much more time and effort.......

 

[Leoreth]

It would be more useful to focus your attention on the new map.

 

[Enyavar]

Will the new map replace the old map entirely or will it still be possible to play on the old/small map?

 

[Leoreth]

In the short to mid term, it will replace the current map. I have been thinking about making the mod compatible with different kinds of maps but I don't want to make that a requirement for the new map.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Would there be an interest in systematically shortening Varietas Delectat file and/or folder names in order to make life easier for Steamers and other people with long install paths? I propose a concerted community effort to rename all Varietas Delectat folders to be as short as possible while still making sense. The Varietas Delectat folder itself could be renamed to VD for instance, and for all the civ folders we can just take the 3 letter abbreviations already in use for text strings and Modifiers.py.