Suggestions and Requests

[1SDANi]

I've always kinda liked the idea of a "social event" system that'd pop once enough culture is generated, allowing you to make choices to help address your nation's sources of instability, be it by enacting laws or by engaging in diplomatic actions that wouldn't make sense to place in the trade menu or that'd be too easy for players to abuse. Said laws would be in a "reforms" tab of the civics page, and would only exist for as long as you still have the civic that they required to be enacted.

 

[Dracosolon]

Random ideas on China:

UP - Mandate of Heaven: Reaching a new era grants a temporary maintenance/upkeep bonus.
Alternatively, for more of a challenge: Being first to reach a new era grants a temporary maintenance/upkeep bonus (Though this might be too self-reinforcing, which is bad for China).
This bonus would be temporary because it would decay by 5% every X turns until going back to 0%.

Reasoning: The current UP is fine (though it's hard to use it to its full potential given how fast you reach your happiness limits), but I've seen many attempts at a Mandate of Heaven-themed UP so I thought I'd try too. The big problem is that this is a concept that mostly has to do with internal conflicts, which aren't really represented in DoC outside of the abstraction of stability. But a chinese stability boost wouldn't be terribly interesting since 1) Human China doesn't have much stability troubles in my experience 2) AI China should have stability troubles and collapse repeatedly and 3) a stability-focused UP doesn't sound that fun for a civ that does very little conquering. If stability is out, maintenance/upkeep is the next most thematically appropriate thing, and it's certainly useful for China. The decaying part I think also hints at the cyclical nature of Chinese history without going overboard with forced collapses, etc.

UHV 3: Start a golden age in four different eras before 1800 AD.

Reasoning: The basic idea is to put more pressure on the player's choices between bulbing techs vs triggering Golden Ages. If the player fails a Golden Age in one of the earlier eras (Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance), they'll have to scramble to reach Industrial before 1800 AD, which seems like a nice alternate history goal and would make the post UHV 1 & 2 game more interesting.

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

Sometimes powerful civilizations that have vassals end up collapsing to the core, but they keep maintaining its vassals. So, why keep vassals, even when your controlled territory is falling apart? Many times in history, powerful empires have lost control of their vassals when trying to keep themselves whole. My suggestion is to allow capitulated-vassal civilizations of a civilization that have collapsed to the core cancel the capitulation. Since these nations have lost most of their territory and beligerant power they don't have any force to exercise control or protection over the vassal nation (and don't even control parts of their territory anymore). That should allow the vassal civilization to free itself and return to its sovereign status. Also, would allow the vassal civilizations to have more time in game develop themselves or be conquered by other nations without being vassals for a long time.

 

[Dracosolon]

Makes sense, though shouldn't a collapsed master quickly lose their vassal from the land & population ratios?

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

India’s dynamic names needs some adjustments. The Nanda Empire, which is know to be the first indian empire, from Antiquity is not represented and the Maurya and Gupta Empires are dependent of which religion the player are converted at the moment, instead of the era. In other words, if my state faith is Hinduism, the dynamic name automatically is Gupta Empire. Historically the Gupta and Maurya empires have favored many religions depending of the ruler at the time, so to the game it would not be good restrict these names to the state religion. So, my suggestion is to give India the same system that China have: changing its dynamic name according to era and researched techs. This is an example of how could be their dynamic name system:

• Initiates with Indian Mahajapanadas
• If the player or AI founds 3 cities (or have cultural control over its core region), stills in Ancient Era and have Despotism or Monarchy as the government civic, the name changes to Nanda Empire.
• Entering in Classical Age, having more than 5 cities and Despotism or Monarchy as government civic the name changes to Maurya Empire.
• This one have given me doubts in it should be implemented or not. After the fall of the Maurya Empire came the Shunga Empire, which was the dominant power in north india and the Satavahana Empire which dominated central and south India. Also both empires lived only a small period of time. I suggest put the Shunga Empire name in the list because it was dominant in Mauryan core, controlling its capital Pataliputra. Also, it could just move from the Maurya to the next great indian empire. The conditions would be: Still in Classical Age but maybe have research Artisanry too, since this period is marked by great cultural advancements.
• The Gupta Empire name would be unlocked when the player reseaches Scholarship and use either Despotism or Monarchy. This tech should represent the scientifically advancements that many scholars have made during the Gupta Empire.
• After the Gupta Empire came an series of dynasties that ruled north India for a brief time. They didn't extended their power to whole India which made me think that is not better put them represented in the game. That would require many triggers in a same age just to show their names for 3 or 4 turns.
• The next great power in north India was the Pala Empire. Although they didn't control the whole India, they are already in the game. They should be triggered by having researched Feudalism or entering medieval age, and using Monarchy or Despotism as civics.
• After that came the muslim dominance in India under turko-afeghan dynasties, which India should already be collapsed.

 

[mccp77]

Small suggestions after playing a ton of marathon America games all the way to 2020 recently. I'm not sure how many have already been made but my sample size is >5, so here goes:

1. Please remove Scotland from the British core and add an independent city it has to conquer there (or just have the Celts settle it in the new version). It should slow down England's mideival development. And Britain needs (1) a mideival nerf and (2) to collapse post-1950 (never does).

2. In the new map please try to keep a close eye on luxury balance in Europe. France in the old map has 3 wines but nothing else, so is at a huge disadvantage vis-a-vis Spain. The luxury balance seems to be the #1 determinant of success in the middle ages in marathon which can snowball.

3. Portugal needs to spawn with more defensive units. In my marathon games it falls to Spain 100% of the time, and then Spain just declares war on repeat on France ....

4. Maybe Russia needs to collapse at some point if it overextends? It also never collapses in the late late game.

5. Modern civs simply don't respawn in a realistic manner. So in one game Germany conquered France and Spain. Then in ~1975 it spit out France. That left it with two big production centers separated by another country. I don't know how to fix this, but maybe distance from an unstable civs capital should determine who gets spit out first?

Again, I play a ton of marathon America, so I apologize if man of my suggestions are modern-game focused. And if the new map will completely invalidate any of these then I am very sorry!

 

[Leoreth]

2. In the new map please try to keep a close eye on luxury balance in Europe. France in the old map has 3 wines but nothing else, so is at a huge disadvantage vis-a-vis Spain. The luxury balance seems to be the #1 determinant of success in the middle ages in marathon which can snowball.

I am, and I think France is on par here with most other European civilizations. At least they do have excess wine that can be traded, which is not the case for e.g. Germany or England.

Spain's situation may be a bit deceiving because its additional happiness resources (gold, silver, dye) are meant to expire, most of them before Spain even spawns, as they did historically.

 

[Dracosolon]

Excess wine is a good trading resource but mostly to the Arabs (for ) or the Turks (for Silk, Cotton, etc). Alternatively for Marble (Byzantium or Arabia), which is needed for the medieval wonders you want, including Notre-Dame. European civs don't have enough excess resources worth trading.

I don't know if the French AI can trade effectively though.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah but European civs being happiness resource staffed until they can colonise is both intended and historical.

 

[Dracosolon]

Oh no I meant that if you're the French player you don't really want to trade with your direct neighbors in the medieval era, you're better off scouting to find better deals east.

A lack of happiness isn't necessarily a problem anyway, it can even be an incentive to keep Monarchy which is desirable.

 

[uminacas]

Is there a reason why Mexico starts with Juarez instead of Santa Anna? Historically, it would be first Santa Anna and then Juarez. If it's because of gameplay reasons, then I understand it.
Also, the diplomatic soundtrack of Mexico needs better songs, and the two Portugal diplomatic songs for Afonso and Maria have a noticeable delay on the beginning that I find a bit annoying. Locally, I fixed those problems, I changed Mexico's songs with better suited ones and removed the empty silence at the beginning of Portugal's songs. Problem is that I don't know how to make pull requests, the best I could do is uploading to Mediafire the changed archives on their respective "Assets>Sounds>Diplomacy" folder (it's just that folder). I just need to know if you are OK with that.

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

I would like to suggest that the ottomans begin with the turks state religion instead of directly Islam. Since most of the european civilizations have this system, I believe this could be the same to the ottomans. In many gameplays, the turks convert to diferent faiths, being the most present in core regions their favorite. But the ottomans always begin with Islam and rarelly change this aspect. If the ottomans need the turks to spawn and historically they came from the Seljuk Empire, why not give them the alternative of inherit seljuk's faith too?

 

[Leoreth]

European civilizations do not have such a system.

 

[LloydRoughton]

Firstly I want to say thanks for this great mod I'm enjoying since years now. The newest updates are really great ( among others this new civ slots/reborn system and diplomatic changes which result in a far better late game experience than before). In this context I would like to know how many defense pacts and vassals are possible for each civ and I would like to see further adjustments there regarding Civs defense pact and master/vassal choices (maybe is possible to make it more area and/or historical limited?). For example in my recent game there was Poland reborned and became quite immediately a vassal of India despite India had no conquered city or influence in Europe at all. Or another example would be defense pacts which are not really "reasonable" (like Korea make defence pact with Argentina despite the distance both civs have from each other and the limited power both have.If Japan attacks Korea, Argentina is absolutely not able to help Korea!).
Concerning the reborn system I would suggest to give some civs (mainly colonized civs like China, India (Pakistan), Indonesia,African civs particularly Mali and Congo) an favoured or exclusive reborn slot after maybe 1900 to image the decolonisation process more adequate. Maybe its also possible to make the historical areas for colonizing powers vanishing so this civs would have a much harder struggle to upkeep their colonies.
And one further wish of mine would be regarding the timeline. Just expand it to 2050 please ( we are now in 2023 already!) and so besides expanded late game fun, technologies like genetics,robotics or even science fiction achievements like mars habitat etc. would be in a more reasonable timeframe.

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks! I agree that the diplomatic AI has some issues. Instead of messing more with it myself, I want to first address it by merging a mod with much superior AI in general (i.e. Advanced Civ). Maybe some DoC specific adjustments are still needed after that but that would be the order. Since such a merge is quite a lot of work, and focus is on the new map right now, it won't happen for some time.

Regarding the timeline, many speculative technologies have been added to leave something to do for civilizations that are ahead in tech, so that there is always something interesting to discover in the late game. Finishing the tech tree should be an aspirational goal and not something to always expect before the end of the game. So using the new technologies as an argument to extend the timeline would just reproduce the problem that the new technologies were meant to solve.

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

European civilizations do not have such a system.

Oh sorry. I through that system existed, since in many gameplays Byzantium have spawn with diferent religions and missionaries, based on the most influent religion in the core. In Europe, if Catholicism was not found and/or was not influent in the civilizations core, they begin with Orthodoxy. Because of this I through that this was part of a system and made my suggestion based on that.

 

[Leoreth]

No, it's simply that Protestant civilizations fall back on Catholicism if Protestantism has not been founded yet, and likewise Catholic civilizations fall back on Orthodoxy if Catholicism has not been founded yet. The prevalent religion has no impact on it.

 

[LloydRoughton]

Ok,I fully understand your outlined proceeding in dealing with other topics first .Implementing the new map ( very excited to test it soon hopefully!) alone is a huge project and merging the mod with a much superior AI sounds really promosing! So I hope you keep up your tremendous work and maybe will come back at a later stage to deal with this diplomatic AI issues if still persistent then. And in relating to the timeframe I take your point even so I'm not really convinced nor satisfied with it. In my opinion this problem with technological runaway civs could be eased with the help of combined measures like the mentioned intensified decolonization process, tweaking civilizations modifiers (maybe it needs therefore additional late game modifiers for all/certain civs) and generally through further increased research costs for the digital era.

 

[Leoreth]

Well we can't all be satisfied

 

[LloydRoughton]

Sad but true.
Just another try: Is it possible to make civilizations reborn indefinitely or at least extend it really to the finish date 2020? Actually, I can't remember it ever happened in my recent games that a civiliztion was reborned after 1950.