Suggestions and Requests

[freethink]

Okay, good to know that you are calm about this.

This forum for many reasons, has been a pinnacle of my young adulthood.
That being said however explosive it might be, I would like to see changes to the climate change situation (could there be a way in game to counter it)

Also pretty sure that Greenland is melting right now even if that is .
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/30/greenland-ice-sheet-florida-water-climate-crisis#:~:text=Greenland's ice is melting faster,tons of ice since 1994.


PS: I am going to shamelessly advertise and ask for contributions on looking for new additions to the natural ambient sounds! I have figured out how to make changes to them via XML
(is this going to be my first modding work ever? I am not sure)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10CaWhN9UTG5-4jutIDgSxUNGlJEotYfWXT66ITPeCfk/edit?usp=sharing

Group hug for everyone that has been posting here for at least five years. (10 for me? )


I know I am being a brat, I am nostalgic for the Y2K emojis

 

[mrrandomplayer]

I'm glad embassies are gone, but is there a tech point at which you no longer lose contact with civs you're not near? If there isn't one, I feel like it would make sense to have some tech in the Global or Digital era (maybe Radio?) keep civs in contact permanently.

 

[RustyBrick]

I thought the United Nations did that

 

[Leoreth]

The tech that prevents losing contact is Electricity, because it also represents telegraphy. It has been like this ever since the original RFC, but I agree that it's not properly documented. Maybe a special effect entry for the tech and a loading screen hint wouldn't hurt.

 

[Hickman888]

The tech that prevents losing contact is Electricity, because it also represents telegraphy. It has been like this ever since the original RFC, but I agree that it's not properly documented. Maybe a special effect entry for the tech and a loading screen hint wouldn't hurt.

Something strange also happens when you research electricity, regarding foreign cities you have dumped into, that I have always wondered about. Before the tech, foreign cities that you can "investigate" are dark on the map, and don't reveal any tiles in your line of sight (but you may still investigate and see the units inside the city). After the tech, cities are "revealed" in your line of sight, and also begin to reveal the 8 tiles surrounding the city as well. Here's a picture that shows what I'm talking about.

Spoiler Investigate City :

Does this just represent better spy networks, or what?

 

[Leoreth]

I'd have to check what exactly is causing that but I am pretty sure that Electricity somehow unlocks that espionage effect for free. Not sure if it's a BtS or RFC thing.

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

I'd have to check what exactly is causing that but I am pretty sure that Electricity somehow unlocks that espionage effect for free. Not sure if it's a BtS or RFC thing.

IIRC it's a BtS thing (I haven't played vanilla civ in a while) and I remember somewhere being stated that Electricity unlocks that.

 

[Derdan]

IIRC it's a BtS thing (I haven't played vanilla civ in a while) and I remember somewhere being stated that Electricity unlocks that.

The things you learn about this game after playing for over a decade...

 

[need my speed]

IIRC it's a BtS thing (I haven't played vanilla civ in a while) and I remember somewhere being stated that Electricity unlocks that.

I thought it was Satellites, but, yes, it's a default feature from Beyond the Sword.

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

Another thing: The Philippines are outside Catholicism's historical area. Whenever I conquer or settle it as an East Asian civ, that religion either doesn't spawn or goes away.

Speaking of which, maybe Catholicism and Protestantism should have a grasp in southern China due to European colonization. But there should definitely be Protestantism in Korea, as nowadays 20% of South Korea's population is Christian and especially Protestant.

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

I have some issues with certain techs:

-In the base game, first to discover Liberalism gets a free tech, in this mod its equivalents are Civil Liberties and Civil Rights. Shouldn't that bonus go to either of those, Printing Press or Physics?

-Scientific Method does more harm than good to Science unless you're the first to discover it or have a lot of universities. Either Monasteries should obsolete later or there should be a small science bonus for all, like +10% science in all cities.

-As for Representation, usually no one gets the free Statesman because America spawns with that tech. Either they should get a free one if no one has researched it first or the next one to discover it should get the Statesman.

 

[freethink]

Another thing: The Philippines are outside Catholicism's historical area. Whenever I conquer or settle it as an East Asian civ, that religion either doesn't spawn or goes away.

Speaking of which, maybe Catholicism and Protestantism should have a grasp in southern China due to European colonization. But there should definitely be Protestantism in Korea, as nowadays 20% of South Korea's population is Christian and especially Protestant.

Should it be though?

I think the Spanish conquest was a bit of a fluke, I don't think it was predestined to happen. Honestly I don't think even think it should be in Spain's historic territory as the conquerors events already assures AI Spain will go there. But there is no way in 3000 BC or even 600 AD that the Philippines becoming a Catholic country was a given, due to its location.

 

[Cosmos1985]

Should it be though?

I think the Spanish conquest was a bit of a fluke, I don't think it was predestined to happen. Honestly I don't think even think it should be in Spain's historic territory as the conquerors events already assures AI Spain will go there. But there is no way in 3000 BC or even 600 AD that the Philippines becoming a Catholic country was a given, due to its location.

This is really quite the can of worms to open. How much of what happened in world history was "predestined to happen"?

 

[Leoreth]

To answer the original request, I plan to make regions more granular (including a separate Philippines region that doesn't exist right now) in the new map to be able to be more accurate about religion spread, among other things.

Predestination about religious spread, especially where it was spread through colonial empires, is an interesting topic to cover. I do think the game could be a bit more flexible in that regard. That said, in the case of the Philippines it is mostly a moot point right now, because there is no native civ on the archipelago and nobody else who will settle it besides Spain.

 

[Dracosolon]

Leoreth, this is as good as any an opportunity to ask: do you have some sort of general design philosophy over how much historical "railroading" you want in this mod, and how you judge if there's too much/too few of it?

 

[Leoreth]

I do, but I am not sure if it is answerable in those terms. Too much or too little cannot really be judged for something that isn't quantifiable. I like to approach this from the perspective of player experience goals. In a historical strategy game the player generally expects two things: first, to play in a world that plausibly reflects real world history, and second, to be able to have influence over the world with the gameplay decision they make.

I want to satisfy both expectations, but they inherently contradict each other: if the player can influence the world, they are theoretically capable of producing a world that does not reflect real world history. Another conflict is between historicity of processes and historicity of outcomes. You can easily force historical things to happen but then the artificiality of these events will be apparent to the player, which in itself is not historical. Conversely, you can accurately reflect some historical processes but they can fail to produce the same outcomes as in real world history, which also feels wrong.

In the best case scenario, game rules and goals are designed in such a way that the player wants to play historically. That is in my opinion the ideal experience for the player: you feel rewarded for sticking to history by positive outcomes, or you don't feel punished for picking optimal strategies by ahistorical outcomes. Around that, you can buffer the freedom of the player by scripting the AI to stick more closely to history, which players usually more readily accept, and by using elastic mechanics like expansion stability that allow you to stray from history to some degree with only small penalties, or to a larger degree only if you are good enough to overcome the penalties. The gradual nature of the penalty, and the sense of accomplishment from overcoming its more serious forms, makes the existence of a penalty that forces you to behave in certain ways less limiting and less frustrating.

Still, sometimes heavyhanded scripting is necessary. I'd like to keep the instances where this is used as infrequent as possible, and instead pick the most high impact situation to apply them. The most prominent examples of this are civ spawns that are guaranteed to happen, or the few big conqueror events that exist. I also usually try to exhaust other, less invasive methods of making certain outcomes happen, before resorting to scripting. And even when scripting is necessary, I try my best to make it context sensitive so it isn't completely jarring.

Two important design principles I have learned over time come to mind in this context. The first is what I call the Inertia Rule, which basically says that consequences of scripted events tend to stick around much longer in the game than they did in actual history, because of the number of years covered by a single turn. The second is that we only know one history (our history) on which to base the design of a historical game. That is important for several "what if" scenarios where railroading needs to be enforced because we know what follows the true course of history, but have no idea what follows all the alternative courses of history, so there is nothing to put into the game for those.

A common example for that is the recurring request to make the spawn of most medieval European civs conditional on the stability and existence of the Roman civilisation. On the surface, this makes sense: historically, these nations only existed because the Roman empire collapsed and various other states started filling its power vacuum. The fact that the game ignores that makes is less historical in process, but there is still not really any other option. European civs would go on to shape the remainder of history not only in Europe but most of the world. If they did not spawn, they would have to be replaced with... what? The only answer is nothing. So will northern Europe remain continually empty? That is also not historically plausible. Even if the Roman empire had not collapsed as it did historically, states and cultures in Europe would have continued to evolve, and e.g. native cultures in the Americas would have continued to evolve without European colonisation, but we don't know how. Any guess how they might have is also inherently ahistorical. Plus, if you imagine the perspective of, let's say, a player starting as Inca or America: they expect Spain and England etc. to be around, otherwise they're not having a historical experience.

One last thing that I didn't mention so far are ahistorical goals: I see those as a good tools to represent civilisations that did not reach their full potential because they fell to foreign domination. In that case, the ahistorical goal is a form of challenge, where the conditions of the civ accurately reflect history and the challenge exists specifically to overcome them as a sign of player skill.

 

[DanLT3]

This is a really good post about your design philosophy of the mod. You should put in the welcome thread.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm worried about people picking it apart and using it against me.

 

[Mosguito]

Just wondering is it ok to make “city movement” possible? Sometime settlement distance limit can be disappointing e.g, playing as China from 600bc, having Nanjing and not being able to build Shanghai later.

I guess it would be better if players can move settled city like about 1 tile for some pop and building maybe stability lost, or just simply disband city during peace. It can represent “town-to-city” competition in a small area. Some evolution in human settlement, I think.

Also, is it possible to have some food transportation between cities? This will help a lot in simulating a more modern world.

 

[Mosguito]

Just wondering is it ok to make “city movement” possible? Sometime settlement distance limit can be disappointing e.g, playing as China from 600bc, having Nanjing and not being able to build Shanghai later.

I guess it would be better if players can move settled city like about 1 tile for some pop and building maybe stability lost, or just simply disband city during peace. It can represent “town-to-city” competition in a small area. Some evolution in human settlement, I think.

Also, is it possible to have some food transportation between cities? This will help a lot in simulating a more modern world.

Or just completely remove city distance limit?