The Ancient Mediterranean MOD

[Ick of the East]

aagain, you don't see it under the right point of view. Christian nations almost never fought each other for religious matter, or with the religious "excuse".

Er...yeah. When did I imply otherwise? My point was that Christian nations had no problem going to war with each other. I never said that they fought over religion. I'm saying that a common religion did not keep them from fighting - as is done in the game.

 

[Shqype]

This is true since, it was impossible to play with the code when TAM basic versions were released, thus impossible to change the way the AI does its job...

On the other side, the xml files are full of AI Weigths, wich I didn't know much about back then... What I basically did during the groundwork phase of TAM was to simply copy-paste entries and modifying the tags that we knew about... As for AI weigths, they mostly remained unchanged... Now these serve to establish the leaders personalities, the way the AIs build, use the civics, train units, etc, etc, and, obviously, carry diplomatic relations with others... As for ressources trading, it's the same...

As an example, consider the alchemist building...

<FlavorType>FLAVOR_GROWTH</FlavorType>
<iFlavor>3</iFlavor>

The main feature of this building is to boost science, while giving +2 unhealthyness to the city... Of course, reseaching more tends to make your civ grow and prosper... on the other side, a FLAVOR_SCIENCE entry should replace this one, or be added, with a higher weigth than GROWTH. I tend to prefer the 2d solution, as the more precise you are with the way you define a building for the AI, the more it will be build in the right time, by the right civs... Used alonside the LeaderheadInfo file (wich is basically a long list of more thant 50 weights per leader), these weigths and the ones of all other entries from civic choices to unit training, can do a basic job as to how the AI civs behave...

Now that we have the SDK, it could easily come to mind to insert a new kind of weight, let's say FLAVOR_CIVILIZED, wich could be used to reduce the importance of certain things (may it be ressource trading or religious converstion) for civs that were considered more "barbaric" at the time... With this, the Germanic tribes would then probably build Alchemist laboratories waaayyyy later than Egypt would , wich certainly makes sense, and would in fact slow down these civs...


In fact, TAM weigths all need to be re-examined and changed

That is absolutely correct. Each building, each unit, each technology, has its own way of weighing the use to the AI. It can be tweaked so that certain leaders of civilizations go after some technologies quicker than others. The resources too can also be adjusted to have a value which can affect whether or not they will be traded.

In regards to Gaul declaring war on Phoenicia, each leader (and thus, each civilization) can be tweaked to adjust how they will declare war. The way I understand it, when the leaders were done originally the vanilla leader entries were simply renamed, so Viratio acts like Isabella, Caesar acts like Caesar, etc. etc.

For TAM, we can go in and re-examine each leader and how exactly the leader should act. Gaul can be adjusted so that they only declare war on enemies close to them (and do not do overseas expansion), but Rome and Carthage can be made so that they will do overseas expansion, etc. All leaders can have their war and peace values adjusted such that they become more irritable and go to war more quickly. And, certain factions that were known for being warlike (such as the Iberians, Illyrians, and Gauls) can be made more likely to declare war with little provocation and attack their neighbors.

For v1.8 alot of balance changes were made to the units and techs and all, but for v1.9 we can make alot of changes to the AI and how TAM will play out.

 

[Pvblivs]

After all TAM 1.8 plays very nice very good. When we can make some civs some kind of wilder and others more like superpowers, I think the game will feel even better. Looking forward to playing this !

 

[Balam]

Mid-way through my second game (Rome, Prince), and I have to say--for some reason, the only consistently aggressive eastern power is Lydia (both games, both angry for some reason at everything). The rest have sort of been sitting around, waiting for me to kill them (and Arminius makes a nice dog, by the way).

Please bring back missionaries! I keep looking to build them by reflex and can't. And I couldn't get legionary until around 120 AD or so (I fought the first half of my war (started around 80 AD) with Carthage with nothing but axemen; I couldn't (like others in this thread) get Legions and Republic in time to be historically accurate.

I agree on the beefing up an eastern power (Maybe Persia/Babylon)--leave Greeks as is, as I'm not convinced they're weak (they were an aggressor in my last game). The east isn't "damaged" enough to allow Rome to take over there until much later (probably around 250-300 AD).

Just my two cents...

 

[thamis]

Hmm?
On the way to the First Crusade, the Western Christians sacked Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Christians.
And before that, the Christian Normans invaded and conquered Christian Saxon England. And after that, Christian France and Christian England were at war almost constantly up until 1815.

Ooops. Gotta walk the dogs. Probably many more examples.

Yes, there are many examples. Remember that Constantinople was Orthodox and the Western Europeans Catholic. Also, sacking Constantinople wasn't seen as a good thing to do by many religious scholars at the time.

This Christians liking each other thing is for gameplay, I think it would make it more interesting.

 

[Psycadelic_Magi]

I have some ideas about adding a bit of asthetic flavour... Firstly paved roads- simple enough and i dont really know why no-one's tried making any (mabe require stone so they're not everywhere).
And also (if someone has the time) I think a state-religion-affects-city-appearance system would be pretty cool- like they have in FFH; say if you have the greek pantheon your city buildings feature marble columns etc and so on... I know its not completley accurate to suggest religion defines culture type but i think it would make the game alot more visually interesting.

 

[Sabertooth]

Sorry to ask a stupid question that's probably already been answered numerous times in this thread, but: where do I extract the zip file? Civ 4 has two folders on my computer: one under C:\Documents and Settings\TIM\Mina dokument\My Games, and another under C:\Program\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4...

Thus far all the mods I've downloaded go into a MODs map under the first path. Should I just extract TAM into that folder?

 

[Maniac]

Personally, I don't like the idea of the free smithy or free buildings in general, but someone proposed a solution that is certainly a good one: smithy should allow the engeneer specialist. I reported this in v1.5 or 1.4 btw

Hmm, I don't understand. How will this make the AI keep all their units up to date re weapon technology?

 

[thamis]

Sorry to ask a stupid question that's probably already been answered numerous times in this thread, but: where do I extract the zip file? Civ 4 has two folders on my computer: one under C:\Documents and Settings\TIM\Mina dokument\My Games, and another under C:\Program\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4...

Thus far all the mods I've downloaded go into a MODs map under the first path. Should I just extract TAM into that folder?

Either folder should work. We usually install it into the MAIN folder (the 2nd path) though.

 

[thamis]

Hmm, I don't understand. How will this make the AI keep all their units up to date re weapon technology?

Right now the AI doesn't build smithies because the AI doesn't understand the python-scripted promotion and only sees the -2 health.

 

[Maniac]

Right now the AI doesn't build smithies because the AI doesn't understand the python-scripted promotion and only sees the -2 health.

But if as a consequence of the engineer the AI builds the smith in all cities, won't this hurt the AI in another way? -2 health in all cities, while a smart human builds only one smith in some city where the health penalty won't matter due to mediocre terrain surroundings.

 

[thamis]

Well, the smithy needs more balancing. The health penalty must be reduced.

 

[Kael]

But if as a consequence of the engineer the AI builds the smith in all cities, won't this hurt the AI in another way? -2 health in all cities, while a smart human builds only one smith in some city where the health penalty won't matter due to mediocre terrain surroundings.

You could boost the AIWeight to account for the python effect the AI isn't aware of then apply a cannotconstruct block just for AI players (not isHuman()) based on whatever health/production criteria you decide would be an appropriate reasont hat the AI shouldn't build the building.

 

[Drogear]

Well, the smithy needs more balancing. The health penalty must be reduced.

Plz dont reduce healt penaltys! Its to easy having top health at the moment. More unhealth variabels are needed to force people to use more of the +health buildnings. As now many of these never get used. I very rarly use the well or sementary in my games, ok I rarly play until the very late stages.

 

[Pvblivs]

Well, the smithy needs more balancing. The health penalty must be reduced.

Does it? I think the benefit is very great. I did'nt find that, on Prince, the smithy was very limiting. I just had to build more health buildings. Even in games where I placed my city not on rivers I would build a smithy there and it was not a difficult decision. Only one smithy can give permanent strength updates according to your resources, you just have to move your unit through.

What I do think is that this building should be much more expensive. For the effect that it has we should even consider to make it more unique. Maybe there can only be built one per available state-of-the-art-weapon resource. Maybe the list of smithies is remembered internally (in build order, so the oldest is the one consuming the first resource) and checked in the beginning of each turn wether a smithy does work or not depending on the number of available resources. A smithy that isn't working is displayed differently (grey) and has no effect.

Just consider what a smithy does. Or you attach smithies to barracks. Per each 4 barracks one smithy can be built in a city where already a barracks exisits.

 

[Ceeser]

If you only want one smithy (or a few) per civ, just make it a national wonder. then it can still have the negative health benefits, but the AI will build it as well as the human player. Making it fairly expensive also gives credence to giving it an engineer slot.

 

[Mesix]

And also (if someone has the time) I think a state-religion-affects-city-appearance system would be pretty cool- like they have in FFH; say if you have the greek pantheon your city buildings feature marble columns etc and so on... I know its not completley accurate to suggest religion defines culture type but i think it would make the game alot more visually interesting.

I think this sounds like a great idea. It may not be 100% accurate, but it would add a lot of flavor to the game. How difficult would this be to implement?

 

[onedreamer]

But if as a consequence of the engineer the AI builds the smith in all cities, won't this hurt the AI in another way? -2 health in all cities, while a smart human builds only one smith in some city where the health penalty won't matter due to mediocre terrain surroundings.

how would it be smart to build smithies only in some cities ?
1- you will miss the chance to use engeneers
2- you will have to move your troops to another city once built in order to get a promotion. If you loose that city then you'll have to waste time building the smithy somewhere else. And in time of war it would be bad. All this to save -2 unhealth ? Not sure it would be so smart.

 

[onedreamer]

Well, the smithy needs more balancing. The health penalty must be reduced.

I'd rather also add for the smithy +15% production on land units. And carpenter +50% production on naval units and 15% on buildings, consequently removing the bonus of timber for building ships faster.

edit: however if you want to make the smithy more rare (not sure why though), I'd make it require a metal (any) in the city radius, like in the Civ3.

 

[Maniac]

edit: however if you want to make the smithy more rare (not sure why though), I'd make it require a metal (any) in the city radius, like in the Civ3.

Then civs who trade for their metals won't be able to build a smith and thus won't get the weapon promotions.

Radical idea re health: just scrap the health system and let each health resource give a percentual bonus to food production.