TAM v2.00 Beta (for Civ4 Vanilla v1.74)

[dyerbods]

Did you conquer Tartesso in the early start? Palace +25% defence bonus was introduced to avoid easy and quick initial conquer of rival neighbour civs. It may become a 50% or be removed at all, depending on feedback. (although Iberian slinger is a power unit at the beginning)

Do any AI civs choose Organized religion civic/(any)Religion or stay with a cult in your game?

I tend to favour economic expansion of military agression during the early part of a game. I didn't attack Tartesso. Instead I quickly spread east and west and cut Tartesso off from the rest of Iberia and they still only have two cities to my six.

Iberia is the only civ with Alphabet of the 13 I've met so far so I can't answer youe second question yet.

 

[Whitefire]

I dislike the new religious civics. I don't see any reason to switch out of Cult of the Sea once you get Fishing. The lack of state religions also makes the diplomacy side of the game extremely boring. Wars are rarer than normal and diplo wins are easy.

The pop-up when new religious civics are available says they give +20% but everything else says 15%.

I dislike the changes with the wonders. Although I don't know if it's because they're different or they're poor ideas. I'll think about it some more.

 

[ambrox62]

1) I dislike the new religious civics. I don't see any reason to switch out of Cult of the Sea once you get Fishing. The lack of state religions also makes the diplomacy side of the game extremely boring. Wars are rarer than normal and diplo wins are easy.

2) The pop-up when new religious civics are available says they give +20% but everything else says 15%.

3) I dislike the changes with the wonders. Although I don't know if it's because they're different or they're poor ideas. I'll think about it some more.

1) There are reasons to switch out of Cult of the Sea, depending on Civs and resources. Cult of War prepares a better army, cult of fire boosts wonder/building production. I frequently switch cult. Cult of Sun seems a bit lower the others.
Diplo wins aren't easy at all. I never reach them.
The lack of state religions is under investigation. Next xml patch will fix it.

2) Tips, Pedia and whatever text will be fix in the final release

3) I think because they're different. Now wonders follow their historical timeline:
BUILDING Year
BUILDING_STONEHENGE -2500
BUILDING_PYRAMID -2500
BUILDING_SPHINX -2500
BUILDING_DODONA_ORACLE -2000
BUILDING_GREAT_ZIGGURAT -1200
BUILDING_ORACLE -1000
BUILDING_HEROIC_EPIC -800
BUILDING_NATIONAL_EPIC -750
BUILDING_HANGING_GARDEN -600
BUILDING_KROISOS_RICHES -550
BUILDING_AGORA -500
BUILDING_CIRCUS_MAXIMUS -500
BUILDING_ARTEMIS_TEMPLE -450
BUILDING_PARTHENON (Zeus) -433
BUILDING_HYPOCRAT_OATH -430
BUILDING_PLATO_ACADEMY -400
BUILDING_MAUSOLOS -350
BUILDING_ARISTO_THEATRE -350
BUILDING_COLOSSUS -300
BUILDING_GREAT_LIBRARY -300
BUILDING_GREAT_LIGHTHOUSE -280
BUILDING_GENIUS_ARCHIMEDES-250
BUILDING_ILLYRIAN_CITADEL -250
BUILDING_GOLGATHA 30
BUILDING_HADRIAN_WALL 130
BUILDING_HOLY_EMPIRE beyond 550

About effects, main goal was to reduce massive culture and GP spread in mid-late game. The seven (historical) ancient wonders are more valuable now.

 

[baptiste]

After completing 1 game fully (as Egypt) and playing the 2nd around 200 AC (as Rome), both huge map, at this point different points were difficult or clearly nice :
- more "round" graphics, nice
- nice new ressource (salt), nice not to have +2 hammers from hills, but it weakens productive trait
- watermill stays too powerful imo (unchanged from previous version)
- religion : clearly a problem without the ability to build temples without organized or divination, so cultural victory becomes very hard, happiness not easy to manage, strange relationships between nations. With that, cultural trait loose a lot of its interest.
The strenght of founding every religion becomes too strong, cultural victry seems very far. I'll try to manage with monarch, but seems very very difficult without +50% from religious great temples.
- the IA comes very late to seafaring, so sea domination is too easy if the humain player is not technologically backwarded
- ia still builds far too much horse archers/chariots, very weak defensively. Mounted javelineer/war chariot underestimated by IA (except hittite).
- tons of unused siege towers and rams are kiling IA economy

 

[ambrox62]

1) - watermill stays too powerful imo (unchanged from previous version)

2) - religion : clearly a problem without the ability to build temples without organized or divination, so cultural victory becomes very hard, happiness not easy to manage, strange relationships between nations. With that, cultural trait loose a lot of its interest.
The strenght of founding every religion becomes too strong, cultural victry seems very far. I'll try to manage with monarch, but seems very very difficult without +50% from religious great temples.

3) - the IA comes very late to seafaring, so sea domination is too easy if the humain player is not technologically backwarded
- ia still builds far too much horse archers/chariots, very weak defensively. Mounted javelineer/war chariot underestimated by IA (except hittite).
- tons of unused siege towers and rams are kiling IA economy

1) Yes, I agree. It should be weakened or it should appear a bit later

2) All religious civic/building issues will be fixed in the next XML patch

3) AI military and tech management is the same from previous versions. We'll try to improve it as well, following your feedback.

Thanks

 

[Whitefire]

I still find Babylon's UU overpowering. You should get rid of the +15 city attack bonus.

 

[GoodGame]

Started a fresh game as Arminius (germans).
This start on the normal med map makes me think they need to be able to do something with all that darn forest. But short of some kind of woodsman hut / camp anywhere tile improvement, i thought about chopping it, and then had to wonder why that pottery (a perfectly reasonable requirement for Copper Work) was moved to require such advanced research into farming technology? I'm thinking it'd make much more sense to put it back after The Wheel, as in the vanilla game. Pottery should just require a river bank and some skill, no? The Wheel should be enough of a requirement, not Flax and farming.


EDIT: to be continued


Continued: Well Rome is a freaking tough opponent in the med for Germany, but a nice challenge. Trying to get a foothold in the Southern Alps felt like real history! Not much to note other than it'd be appreciated if the northern border of the med normal map was two more rows tall.

Seems to be very difficult to generate culture other than through holy sites, especially if your civ gets stuck in war and tactical research.
I'll have to check out all the options, but I had little chance to both wage war against Rome and try for a culture war against the neighbors.

I like the 'Religious" civics. They have a nice customizable trait feel to them and add some "national religion" feel that I like. Much better than just a +1 happy, +1 culture religion. Also cool that Despotism isn't the worst government trait in the game.

 

[monolith94]

The Hanging Gardens might be a little overpowered in this new release, especially when compared to other not quite as valuable wonders...

 

[ambrox62]

I still find Babylon's UU overpowering. You should get rid of the +15 city attack bonus.

Babylon was a powerful civ in the ancient era. When you reach copper working, spearmans get rid of its archer's UU

 

[ambrox62]

The Hanging Gardens might be a little overpowered in this new release, especially when compared to other not quite as valuable wonders...

The seven ancient wonders should be the better wonders. HG are a powerful wonder, but it's not alone

 

[ambrox62]

1) why pottery (a perfectly reasonable requirement for Copper Work) was moved to require such advanced research into farming technology?

2) it'd be appreciated if the northern border of the med normal map was two more rows tall.

3) Seems to be very difficult to generate culture other than through holy sites, especially if your civ gets stuck in war and tactical research.
I'll have to check out all the options, but I had little chance to both wage war against Rome and try for a culture war against the neighbors.

Thanks for your valuable feedback

1) Pottery stays where it was in the previous TAM releases. It didn't move itself on techtree. It stays on the path toward copper-working, although it could be moved as you suggested. We'll think on it.

2) People skilled enough to modify (or to create new) scenario maps are welcome. Now we are focused on gameplay tuning.

3) Life is cruel...
More seriously, TAM would be a thought, fun and challenging mod. Real wars require a tremendous effort; civs at war shouldn't have many resources to go easy for culture and knowledge

 

[baptiste]

Yet 2 games terminated (gave up on third one with Darius, crashing every 5mn...). 1 time and 1 diplo victory. A few more feedbacks :

Good points :
- cities need a lot of building as to develop, not allowing very specialized city. Seems more realistic to me. Nice point.
- imperial roads, needs tech + building improvement, good point.

Questions :
- why many leaders have been weakened (1 trait instead of 2) like Kroisos, Darius, Nubian, Hiram, Hittite... ? Only few leaders have 2 (cesar, hammurabi, hatshespout and agamemnon)
- why some civ are not present on huge map ? teuta, tartessos, kroisos for instance. It makes few competition for hittites and rome, making them easily strong.

Improvable things :
- fire catapult is too strong imo (it was yet before) with +100% attacking cities. they crush very easily spearmen even without "softening" them before. overpowered.
- with a map with so much land, 51% land possession for domination victory is very high. diplomatic victory is reachable with 60%+ of the world population, but domination seems close to impossible
- starting point + weak neighbors + 2 leader trait + military trait + nice UU makes Cesar very very strong. Not such a threat when managed by the IA, but too strong imo when managed by a human player
- most IA build too much useless units, weakening their economy. Was the same in 1.97 and before.
- barbarians stay clearly far away in tech, having nearly no evolution through the game. should be more challenging with stronger units in the mid-late game, or even mounted units

@GoodGame : for culture point, the best solution is to build wonders like stonehedge or the one that gives burial mound to each city. it helps alot.

 

[thamis]

Only a few leaders have two traits, and that is the civilized nations. All "barbarians" have only one trait. Rome has three to give it a boost.

 

[ambrox62]

Patch #1 uploaded successfully!

See post #1 to download

 

[onedreamer]

I dislike the new religious civics. I don't see any reason to switch out of Cult of the Sea once you get Fishing. The lack of state religions also makes the diplomacy side of the game extremely boring. Wars are rarer than normal and diplo wins are easy.

The pop-up when new religious civics are available says they give +20% but everything else says 15%.

I dislike the changes with the wonders. Although I don't know if it's because they're different or they're poor ideas. I'll think about it some more.

I wrote the new civics, but the religious ones weren't intended to work this way. For some reason they were implemented thinking that cults of particular Gods are not part of a religion. Instead they should require a state religion and there shouldn't be any organized religion civic

 

[dyerbods]

I don't find the Cult of the Sun or the Cult of Fire very tempting. Cult of War provides land unit experience - something that can't be got otherwise until Urbanisation or Epics. Although you can get Cult of Fire quickly, it takes a while to get cities big enough to benefit and then only locally. The income from Cult of the Sea grows faster and helps with research and maintenance, which seems more important as hammers are more common than coins on land plots.

How about having Cult of Fire increase worker productivity, or allow idle workers in cities to add hammers (but not when building units)? Perhaps the Cult of the Sun could add happiness to cities based on food available?

 

[ambrox62]

@Dyerbods
Useful feedback, thanks.
Is your report first or after patch #1?
Cults tuning is a complex issue because we should find a balanced setup between start-mid-late game.
Patch #1 re-tunes cult effects, also resolving all previous cult/state religion issues.

 

[Shqype]

3) I think because they're different. Now wonders follow their historical timeline:
BUILDING Year
BUILDING_STONEHENGE -2500
BUILDING_PYRAMID -2500
BUILDING_SPHINX -2500
BUILDING_DODONA_ORACLE -2000
BUILDING_GREAT_ZIGGURAT -1200
BUILDING_ORACLE -1000
BUILDING_HEROIC_EPIC -800
BUILDING_NATIONAL_EPIC -750
BUILDING_HANGING_GARDEN -600
BUILDING_KROISOS_RICHES -550
BUILDING_AGORA -500
BUILDING_CIRCUS_MAXIMUS -500
BUILDING_ARTEMIS_TEMPLE -450
BUILDING_PARTHENON (Zeus) -433
BUILDING_HYPOCRAT_OATH -430
BUILDING_PLATO_ACADEMY -400
BUILDING_MAUSOLOS -350
BUILDING_ARISTO_THEATRE -350
BUILDING_COLOSSUS -300
BUILDING_GREAT_LIBRARY -300
BUILDING_GREAT_LIGHTHOUSE -280
BUILDING_GENIUS_ARCHIMEDES-250
BUILDING_ILLYRIAN_CITADEL -250
BUILDING_GOLGATHA 30
BUILDING_HADRIAN_WALL 130
BUILDING_HOLY_EMPIRE beyond 550

Ambrox, nice rundown of the years these wonders came into existance. I'm curious why you have the building tag instead of the building name with the year, though. So, did you do research for each wonder to find when it came into effect?

 

[Shqype]

Questions :
- why some civ are not present on huge map ? teuta, tartessos, kroisos for instance. It makes few competition for hittites and rome, making them easily strong.

Whoever made the huge map needs to change this. A large map should have every faction available on it. These guys should even be on standard if possible. I understand the desire to take some of them out on smaller maps, but the large should definitely have every single civ!

 

[ambrox62]

did you do research for each wonder to find when it came into effect?

Yes, of course, although it isn't possible to know construction's date of some wonders exactly (mainly the oldest ones). Some results were really surprising.

I used TAGs instead of descriptions for convenience (search/copy/paste in XML files)