TAM BTS v0.82 Released!

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

The following are results of my own play testing on the huge map:

1) Luxes...every major civ should have nearby access to two luxury resources without too much of a sweat.
a) Rome only has access to wine??? No silver or gold?
b) Egypt has no luxes unless they conquer Nubia for their gold? Shouldn't they have die and/or Incense or heck...the Gems they mined from the East...across the red Sea?
c) Carthage is actually well-healed.
d) Phonecians are also well-healed (except for needing to go to war or at least dig in to keep that Silver)
e) Persians are good to go.
f) Medians -> I don't consider them a major civ, but it's reasonable to get access to at least one if not two lux resources early on.
g) Assyrians -> I think they are actually better positioned than the Babylonians in terms of resources. (But where are the gems from the Standard map?)
h) Babylonians -> They have to spread themselves too thin I think to acquire the Opium and Incense (Oh wait where did that Incense go that they have access to on the Standard map?)
g) Aeetes...shouldn't be a major civ, but they have a wealth of resources...more than the Hittites for sure....
h) Hittites...Opium...Incense...Silver (Ok, there is technically silver, but you have to go to war with Phoenecians most of the time), Dye (War!!!)
i) I'm on the fence about the Lydians being major or minor, but they definitely have more access to Wine and Gold than the Hittites...
j) Greece and Illyria Wine and Silver, but maybe one more Silver, closer to the Mycenaen start area?
k) Thrace is good to go
l) The Scythians...well, they seem a little gimped to me, especially considering that they should represent a force that was able to put Aeetes on his heals, nearly destroyed Thrace, kept Decebal's people behind their mountains, etc...Where are their luxes? Fur...Silver...?
m) Decebal...the Dacians...one of the strongest civs in the game right now thanks to the resources at their disposal and their geographic location.
n) Germanic and Gallic tribes...I think some Fur is definitely in order for both start areas, not to mention some gold near France's present day border with Spain. Some Silver should definitely show up near the alps.
o) Rome...what? Just Wine? With the current economic penalties of expansion, Rome can't get another lux for a loooooooong time. See silver and gold comments from n, above.
p) Iberian peninsula looks good to me, although there could be some work on the resource placement there to aid in AI development of coastal cities.
q) Brittania is good.

2) Strategic Resources
a) Hittites need horses in range of capital's fat cross. Also where is the stone they once had nearby (see Standard map).
b) Is it just me or is the world almost completely devoid of Timber in the huge map?
c) That copper on Southern Italian Peninsula should be Tin.
d) Where is the stone that Illyria and Mycenae fought for?
e) Where are the Horses in Western Europe?
f) Minoans need copper.
g) Where is the Egyptian Iron? Nubians have a stronger resource position than the Egyptians...hmmm....
h) The Hittites start is just rough...only a human could cope with that, and it involves raiding for workers and crippling Hiram...something the AI has never done.

3) Food Resources
a) Egyptian where are their Oxen...Fruit...
b) Hittites...where are their Oxen...Sheep...Wheet?
c) I need to take a closer look at the Scythians...something is really holding them back, and I suspect it's the lack of food...

4) Geography
a) The AI has a hard time playing as Egypt on the Huge map, and I suspect this has allot to do with the lack of production from the Nile region.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

4) Technology
a) The Calendar...why is this tech so late in the game? (Relative to Copper and Bronze Working?)
b) Is it just me or does the pace of researching new government and economic civics, not to mention the respective buildings, really hold back the development of empires, much more so than what historically happened?

5) Colonies and/or Vassal States and/or Formation of Federations....
In the old days, military subjugation and economic and cultural power were the foundation of empires. Right now, the only path toward building your empire, so to speak, is by the sword, but the maintenance costs are too significant for this method. I would suggest a form of alliance or Federation, where one or more civilizations recognize the regional dominance of another civilization (maybe Hegemony is a better term?). For TAM, perhaps it could opperate more like a sharing of territory and resources, with open borders, and enhanced commerce from trade routes between the civs involved, and include a Defensive pact and enhanced diplomatic relations. Make it available with the Commerce Technology.

The Vassal state in TAM could easily be implemented with the Aristocracy Technology.

Colonies could be something that is also permitted by the Commerce Technology.

 

[graywarden]

kwarriorpoet,

Ok i can go back to sleep now, because im not needed as a tester anymore...... haha.... wow..... and the TAM Gods thought I was long winded..... haha...... great job.

Im not going to let Shyqpe respond for the most part, but I do know this, that the original maps were based on historical resources and not meant to be balanced for each civ. I also know that the "spirit" of TAM is to be historically accurate as much as possible, and that if a CIV is resource or strategically deficient, then it is your leadership that will overcome the natural odds.

So having said that, there is a lot of re balancing being looked at, but for other reasons.

1. The BTS engine changed the balance of the TAM vanilla (imported into TAM)

2. The added 6 civs changed the military balance, especially in the center around Rome.

3. The Civics were restructured at the end of TAM vanilla, and were never fleshed out for good play balance.

All these are being worked on now. As far as we are concerned, until TAM is labeled 1.0 its not really TAM....... haha....... its "Build a Better TAM"

Thanks again for the notes, and now I shall recline and eat grapes from the slave girls you captured for me.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

LOL

I worked quite extensively on adjusting many of the resources in the Standard Map, and some of the terrain too. This is going back to TAM 1.4??? I can't remember, but it was back in 2006 timeframe. Since then I never touched the Huge map.

My suggestions are humbily made of course. I honestly haven't spent any time with the huge map until I got a new computer that could handle it reliably.

I know you're not challenging my skills, but merely making a point concerning the design of TAM, which is by far THE BEST MOD for Civ 4. Only other MODs I play really are FFH and TR, but only when I've played TAM for a long time and need a break, lol.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that any smart player can handle the difficulties presented by any of the Civs, but I get disheartened when the AI bungles things so badly.

For example, it's nothing for me to take the entire Anatolian Peninsula, push into the roots of the Caucusus, and conquer the Phoenecians and the Asyrians. However, the AI gets crushed as the Hittites.

I am extremely greatful to have your ear, and I look forward to the improvements coming in the future patches.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

The following are results of my own play testing on the huge map:

3) Food Resources
a) Egyptian where are their Oxen...Fruit...
b) Hittites...where are their Oxen...Sheep...Wheet?
c) I need to take a closer look at the Scythians...something is really holding them back, and I suspect it's the lack of food...
[\QUOTE]

Strike that comment concerning Scythians. They actually have a decent start, better than the Germanic and Gallic tribes no less. I tested this last night. The AI is just stupid, but the map is fine

 

[baptiste]

As to your first comment, I recently played the Egyptians, and noted that I had to switch to the religion of the holy city prior to being able to construct the holy wonder. However, I was free to later switch to another religion and still maintain the benefit of the wonder. Was this not true in your game? I tried many times, and each time (built three religious wonders, animism, heliopolitan, and mesopotamian) I had to switch to the wonder's religion first.

I have been able to build olympian and zoroastrian religion's wonder while with egyptian gods as state religion. But for christian wonders (church of nativity and apolistic palace), i had to switch.
Playing on huge map with standard scenario setting (monarch difficulty).
I had the same thing while playing bouddica, tartessos, agamemnon and dido.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

I have been able to build olympian and zoroastrian religion's wonder while with egyptian gods as state religion. But for christian wonders (church of nativity and apolistic palace), i had to switch.
Playing on huge map with standard scenario setting (monarch difficulty).
I had the same thing while playing bouddica, tartessos, agamemnon and dido.

Interesting. Wonder if there was a bug causing the game to not immediately recognize that my Great Prophet was in a holy city, because with Heliopolital and Mesopotamian, and didn't have the option of building the holy city wonder, even after moving a Great Prophet to the holy city. I had movement left after the move, but didn't have the button highlighted. However, even after switching state religions, I did notice that I was not at first able to build the holy wonder, I had to click on another unit, then click on the GP to get the button to highlight.

Did anyone else have this issue?

 

[onedreamer]

There shouldn't be Holy Shrines in TAM except maybe for the Monotheistic religions.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

I actually like the holy shrines

 

[Whitefire]

Expert is overpowered.

I have a few other opinions, but I'll wait until I finish my current game to post them.

 

[Socrates07]

I have been able to build olympian and zoroastrian religion's wonder while with egyptian gods as state religion. But for christian wonders (church of nativity and apolistic palace), i had to switch.
Playing on huge map with standard scenario setting (monarch difficulty).
I had the same thing while playing bouddica, tartessos, agamemnon and dido.

Indeed, under mesopotamian religion I was able to build the religious wonder for both mesopotamian gods and olympian gods but was unable to build the jewish one until I converted to Judaism. Definitely some kind of bug here.

 

[graywarden]

There is no Holy Temple Wonder for both Judaism and Christianity. I am not sure at this point if it is a bug or if it was merely overlooked. Its been noted, and will be dealt with at some point.

 

[Socrates07]

There definitely is a Holy Temple Wonder for Judaism.
It is built with the name The Temple of Solomon although I can't find the TXT_KEY which gives it that name (the TXT_KEY in it's BuildingInfos entry (line 9877) doesnt seem to point to anthing)
Of course the reason why it can't be built without converting to Judaism is because the <statereligion> tag is set to Judaism.

 

[Mesix]

The nature cult is overpowered. I tried out a few of the other civics, but once I found nature cult there was no reason to use anything else.

The maps are set up so happiness resources are difficult to get. With the nature cult civic, there is no need for happiness resource. It turns every forest in your empire into a +1 happy national forest type mechanic without any wonder or worker tile improvement necessary.

It allows you to get cities of 20+ happy citizens very easily.

 

[graywarden]

There definitely is a Holy Temple Wonder for Judaism.
It is built with the name The Temple of Solomon although I can't find the TXT_KEY which gives it that name (the TXT_KEY in it's BuildingInfos entry (line 9877) doesnt seem to point to anthing)
Of course the reason why it can't be built without converting to Judaism is because the <statereligion> tag is set to Judaism.

Sorry I didnt mean they werent in the system, I meant they arent currently working. Im pretty sure they were working in TAM vanilla, its been too long though for me to be 100% positive about that.

 

[graywarden]

The nature cult is overpowered. I tried out a few of the other civics, but once I found nature cult there was no reason to use anything else.

The maps are set up so happiness resources are difficult to get. With the nature cult civic, there is no need for happiness resource. It turns every forest in your empire into a +1 happy national forest type mechanic without any wonder or worker tile improvement necessary.

It allows you to get cities of 20+ happy citizens very easily.

Mesix,

Yeah thats going to be addressed to. Its amazing the amount of things that were altered (in the engine) going from vanilla to BTS. I tend to use Cult of the Sun as long as I can afford to, but at some point, I have to switch to Cult of the Sea for the coin.

The AI uses Cult of War when its preparing for War, so sometimes thats a nice little warning...... haha

 

[baptiste]

Hittite Iron Forge : i tried hittites on eastern map, the building does not upgrade to copper weapons (i did checked that copper ressource appeared available in the cities with forges).
I never had this situation with other civs using forges.

 

[graywarden]

Hittite Iron Forge : i tried hittites on eastern map, the building does not upgrade to copper weapons (i did checked that copper ressource appeared available in the cities with forges).
I never had this situation with other civs using forges.

Thanks for reminding me about the Iron Forge, I forgot to check for the weapons upgrade problem. Hittites are on my list to Test next (already did once, but I will again)

 

[Socrates07]

Hey guys, it's really great to see this thread being so active, you won't see me for a week or two because i'm moving house, but i hope to see some more exciting development when i get back online

 

[GoodGame]

Thanks for keeping up the BTS development! I just got in my first TAM-BTS game (prince), and I'm impressed.

I had a couple of thoughts flavor/history-wise:

1. Great intro music!

2. How about adding glass-blowing, as the early art was considered a luxury, and not until about 1 AD through conquering the area of Syria did the Romans make it commonplace. I'm thinking that a Glassworker building could be added, and made available with the Furnace technology (though I'd be inclined to remove the Heroism tech requirement from the Furnace tech then). The building would do something like = +1 , +1 and also create a tradeable luxury good Glass; And probably require a Smithy already be built in the city (net would be +3 for a tradeable luxury)

Allowing glass should add some interesting side possibilities, including early researchers like Hero of Alexandria, and even some Steam-punk possibilities (not to go too hypothetical like artificial steam soldiers, but a wee bit of speculative like an early steam-engine).

3. Some Dyes should be coastal, and not require the Calendar technology. Namely the Mediterranean sea snail (whelk) that was used to make highly influential Tyrian Purple (Phoenician). I'd say at least the Fishing tech plus a workboat should be required to reveal and farm these. Not saying that the traditional CIV4 plant dye should be removed, just that there should be multiple sources. Map scripts should be altered to remove the amount plant dye, so dye isn't suddenly too easy to get.

4. Maybe add another flavor or two to the Sphinx wonder, so multiple civ's can build it to get an early Empire civic. Not to make it a national wonder, just to make it so a couple of civ's can snag the wonder. I'd think some other flavors might include one: from Assyria, perhaps a Roman Fasces one, and perhaps even a Terracotta army-inspired one.