The Renaissance

[Paasky]

Here's a little project I've been working on, and which is fairly complete except for graphics (as usual with my projects).
The map is 50x60, and is roughly from Turin-Trieste and Trento-Rome in size: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=8&ll=44.257003,10.810547&spn=3.493627,6.899414&t=h&om=1
The timeframe is 1000AD to 1500AD. Victory types are time, domination, conquest & cultural.

Screenies!
Tech Tree: http://www.civfanatics.net/paasky/images/ren_002.jpg

The Po Estuary: http://www.civfanatics.net/paasky/images/ren_006.jpg

Tuscany: http://www.civfanatics.net/paasky/images/ren_007.jpg

Veneto: http://www.civfanatics.net/paasky/images/ren_008.jpg

Units: http://www.civfanatics.net/paasky/images/ren_009.jpg

Buildings: http://www.civfanatics.net/paasky/images/ren_010.jpg

Wonders: http://www.civfanatics.net/paasky/images/ren_011.jpg
(The trades are national (1 per civ) and world (2-5 allowed) wonders, which create exotic resources like fur, silk, gold etc)

Civlist:
Ancona
Bologna
Ferrara
Florence
Ferrara
Mantua
Milan
Modena
Papal States
Parma
Pisa
Ravenna
Siena
Turin
Trento
Trieste
Venice
Verona


This is still a beta version, but I haven't had a single crash during my hours of testing. The AI handles the scenario very well, and winning isn't going to be a cakewalk


Installation
The file is here: http://www.civfanatics.net/paasky/files/Renaissance.rar

If you can't open the .rar file, you'll nedd a better unzipper than windows/winzip. I suggest winrar, which I use: http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm
After installing, right-click the Renaissance.rar and click Extract files...

Extract the Renaissance folder into C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Warlords\Mods
To play, open Warlords, then click Advanced, then Load a Mod, then load Renaissance
You can also edit the shortcut to Warlords by adding mod= Renaissance into the target field.

The mod currently shows texts only if you play in english.

The easiest nations to play as are Pisa, Genoa, Milan & Venice, as they're far away from other civs. The Papal States are not playable, they would be too easy

 

[Paasky]

I just uploaded v0.6B, it adds horses into the map... Stupid mistake to forget, but it's fixed.

 

[LaCiencia]

Wow! do you always have a surprise? downloading ... man my agenda is full

 

[Jet]

Awesome!

Played about 120 turns as Bologna. I grabbed Imola and Vignola, then build up some Spearmen and took Cesna from Modena. Running mostly Caste System and Representation. Built up (a little cluessly) Bologna for science and Vignola for military, and took Ravenna, (carelessly dragging in Papal and a couple other states. Don't know if it was a Vassal arrangement or a Defensive Pact.) Finally enlarged Cesna's borders enough to grab iron. At this point I had to switch to Emancipation, and tried Environmentalism and HR for good measure. I noticed the AI had enormous cities. Was working on a Castle for Knights when Pisa and his eighty vassals declared and I started getting overrun by Lancers. Whipped a few Pikemen, but it wasn't enough.

Looked around in cheat mode to get a sense of what the AI was doing with its cities. Many were enormous and/or with a number of unhappy citizens. Different from the usual civ dynamic, but cool.

I noticed Pisa was researching Future Tech and the other top civs were in Music, Physics, Philosophy. Seemed too fast since I was only 120 turns in.

You must have noticed this yourself but it was clear that Pisa was attacking me with Lancers because it hadn't built Castles. I know that in Fall From Heaven they had trouble getting the AI to build buildings that were required for units. I think they resorted to DLL changes to fix it.

The game effects of Emancipation and Environmentalism seem a little off in this context. Maybe Emancipation could give a flat +X happy instead of forcing everyone into it - then the choice of civic in the Labor column would be more interesting. Environmentalism, maybe you could eliminate it as an option, or cut back the happy bonus.

Again, great! I'll play more when I have more time.

 

[Paasky]

I haven't touched the civics yet, but I doubt I'll do much except remove a few of them (emanciation, enviromentalism, universal suffrage & representation were unheard of those days).

As for Knights: Maybe I could make them cost 2x more and have castles reduce the cost by 50%? If the AI then knows how the building works...

The problem with research is this: the more population you have, the more you get to research. So big civs will research faster. I have no idea how to fix this though...

 

[Jet]

Hmm. You might try playing with maintenance costs. City maintenance (and civic maintenance??) scales with population.

You could also make techs more expensive, of course.

 

[Paasky]

Making techs more expensive just makes it more hard to research them, but the maintenance per person could be raised.

 

[LaCiencia]

Making techs more expensive just makes it more hard to research them, but the maintenance per person could be raised.

Wonderful. Excellent behavior and balance

Maybe my only remark is to make the game a bit shorter, if you couldn't bit the other guys before 1800, you hardly will gain as for that date everybody is even except for the civ size and vassals.

 

[Paasky]

That's a small bug in the scenario file, it starts at turn 120, when it should start at turn 1. The game is 300 turns, 1000-1500. How long is a game of civ on the normal speed (in turns)?

 

[Shqype]

Uh ... isn't 1000-1500 AD more of a late Middle Age timeframe instead of a Renaissance timeframe?

 

[Head Serf]

You may want to move the timeframe to more like 1300 to 1600 to be closer to the actual time of the Italian Rennaissance.

 

[Paasky]

Yeah well, that would mean removing Pisa as a nation, as their demise started around 1200. And the scenario isn't all about the Renaissance: The tech-tree has Classical Arts (which is usually held as the start of the renaissance) in the middle. So it's about 50/50 medieval & renaissance.

 

[Justinian519]

I haven't touched the civics yet, but I doubt I'll do much except remove a few of them (emanciation, enviromentalism, universal suffrage & representation were unheard of those days).

What about Venice? It was a republic.

 

[Paasky]

Not in the way modern Republics are described. It was a republic for the rich merchants, while everyone else were poor peasants. In terms of rule, Oligarchy would be a more realistic term, although at the time it was revolutionary, and the the full name of Venice was "The Most Serene Republic of Venice"

The Venetian governmental structure was similar in some ways to the republican system of ancient Rome, with an elected executive power (the Doge), a senate-like assembly of nobles, and a mass of citizens with limited political power - which eventually disappeared entirely, but which originally consisted of the power of citizens to grant or withhold their approval for each newly elected Doge.

Hmm... It seems I am wrong But it isn't representation, I'll just rename it into Republic.