First let me say thanks for taking time out to write all this. It is greatly appreciated
The primary concern I have here is the crash, is the game inoperative now? Can you localize the problem or even better email me your save game?
teturkhan@hotmail.com
Ok I just finished testing out a game with version 1.66. I played the world map on regent, regicide elimination rules. I've got a lot of critiques so don't take it the wrong way, just my opinion on things.
-Not at all, actually your post is the best kind I can hope for.
First off I had tried playing on monarch, and in that I got way behind on tech very quickly, much quicker than I would in a normal game. On monarch civs are much more likely to trade techs around easier, and I think the larger number of civs makes this effect even worse. Is there anything you can do about changing the value of communications with other civs? Within 5 turns it seemed everyone had contact with everyone else around the world except the americas. If it took longer to "know" who everyone else is that could slow down tech trading a lot.
-I noted this problem when I first made the mod and asked the guys at Firaxis about it. Unfortunately if two Civs borders are touching one another they will have contact, and since the city version has all the various factions borders touching the speed of initial contact is instant. Other than putting less cities so borders don't touch there isn't much that can be done I am afraid. I wish there was a diplomat unit that needed to travel to the capital of the other Civs to make first contact, but this is not the case
As for the tech rate, it is easy to fall behind especially when the AI is not willing to share their discoveries. Solutions I can think of are exploring for goody huts, trading resources (strategic & luxury) for them, and what works for me the best is conquering and waging war. When my armies are closing in on your enemies capital I find this to be a great way to squeeze a few techs from them in exchange for peace. The ancient era is meant to be one of warfare, and thus I placed less emphasis on tech research. Most games I play I put tech at 10%, use the extra money to build things, buy techs from other Civs, wage war etc.
Around the end of the middle ages is when things started breaking down and losing realism. First was the resource placements. For this I'm in favor of gameplay over realism to an extent. In my game I had control over all the saltpeter resources in europe by the time I discovered them, but it could have easily gone the other way, especially with 3 lumped together. I would suggest leaving strategic resources spread out away from each other, luxury and bonus are fine where they are though.
-I placed Saltpeter around most starting positions of Civs. In some places I grouped a few more than usual but for the most part it was pretty spread out. I agree with you that too much realism can hurt game play, but grouping of resources forces situations on players that can initiate them to desperate measures, like making unbalanced trade deals, or even to wage war for a resource they desperately need.
Also, I think you should create a new settler unit for each era. I like the idea of settlers being expensive, but by the middle to end game they aren't relatively expensive.
-Lots of work
One thing to consider though, if you have the latest BIX, you will notice much of the terrain is not suitable for building cities. I carefully went through the map and only allowed cities only where they appeared in real life (the major ones anyway). As the industrial and modern age come around most suitable places for cities should have been taken (no?).
Another suggestion, is there any way to make a synthetic resource? Meaning you research saltpeter, but if you don't have any then 2-3 techs later you research a tech, maybe not a required one, that acts as a saltpeter resource.
-Very good idea and it was proposed by my friend Lt. "Killer¨ M, sometime back. I will definitely look to implementing for the next primary update.
Put down one friggin huge ditto for rubber. I can get along without saltpeter and survive, but without rubber its game over. Keep rubber resources in their same general areas, but spread them out some more. IE, take the 4 rubbers in west africa and move them all over africa. This will encourage colonozation of africa, but prevent one country from monopolizing the worlds supply.
-The cool thing with synthetic resources is it will enable offer an alternate to rubber but a few turns later as you mentioned already. One thing though that works for me is I make peace with a Civ that I need a certain resource with, I bribe them, give them incredibly good trade deals; all the while building units that are dependant on the critical resource they have. Once I have sufficient build up I then launch an attack on the very Civ that was nice enough to share it with me. I am nobody's b*t*h, and hell if I will let them dictate the course of my game. This works for me almost all the time
The game crashed just as I was rolling my first bombers off the assembly line and I've got some problems here. When I think of the bomber in the game I think of a WWII B-17 which should probably have a much lower operational range than 35. 15-20 would be more reasonable. I shouldn't be able to bomb Bejing from Moscow with WWII units running around. I was thinking putting in a third bomber between bomber and the stealth with a range of like 50, the B-52 maybe?
-The stats for units were all based on real life facts. However I may have accidentally used a bomber from a later time (let me look into this and get back to you). The crash is something I need to isolate right away. As soon as I look at your save game I should be able to determine the problem.
Naval units. I'd like to hear your opinion on the reasoning for the extreme expense for these. It looks like you are aiming for each civ to really only have one fleet for all their naval activities. I like the idea of not having fleets of 20+ battleships crusing the atlantic, on the otherhand I would like to have at least one in a lifetime. My most productive sea city(venice) was producing about 100 shiels/turn. Thats 100 turns to build a battleship. You mentioned that resources would increase shield production late in the game, but I'm not seeing that or maybe I just didn't get far enough.
-Yes they are very expensive but actually based on real life costs. I did however enable Civs to generate way more money, almost insane about to help purchase them. I also made population worth much more shields (when you rush an order, you lose less population since its worth more). Give it a try and see how it works.
Ok that was a lot, but I think thats it for now. If you plan on putting out another bix update in the next day or two let me know and I'll just wait for that to try and test this into the modern era.
-key here is finding out what this bug is all about (waiting for your save game
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