The Test of Time 1003

[Horem]

А кто на русский язык этот мод переводил?

If I understand correct. Tipok did Translate to Russian.

 

[Goyota57]

Thank you very much Horem and again, great work !

 

[Kodimus]

I'm really liking most of what I see in the mod so far, but I had some questions about the rationale behind a few changes.

1) Why is it very common to find barbarian encampments guarded by heavy chariots from the beginning of the game?

2) Why were the default game speeds deleted? Wouldn't it have been better to replace the slower speeds and leave the others alone? Even with the faster speeds the pacing should be better due to the yield changes you've made to buildings.

I'm enjoying the mod quite a bit, but those two things have confused me a great deal, so any insight you could share would be wonderful.

 

[Horem]

1) I did not want barb camps to be such pushovers in the early game. Giving them a decent defending unit (for horse camps atleast) was the best solution I could come up with.
2) The default gamespeeds are still there, Just removed from the loading (Configuration Database). The gamespeeds I added are not that much different to the vanilla ones tbh, I'd go as far to say they are near identical (Just different names). The pacing doesnt really come from the gamespeeds in ToT, but the way I am handling Tech/Civic costs(see ToT_Rules.sql). It makes the gamespeeds seem like they are extreme. You may see alot more yields from the new buildings, but they have limited impact due to other changes. I am also still juggling/balancing the mod, sadly this will probably be an on going thing untill the End of Time

 

[Kodimus]

1) I did not want barb camps to be such pushovers in the early game. Giving them a decent defending unit (for horse camps atleast) was the best solution I could come up with.
2) The default gamespeeds are still there, Just removed from the loading (Configuration Database). The gamespeeds I added are not that much different to the vanilla ones tbh, I'd go as far to say they are near identical (Just different names). The pacing doesnt really come from the gamespeeds in ToT, but the way I am handling Tech/Civic costs(see ToT_Rules.sql). It makes the gamespeeds seem like they are extreme. You may see alot more yields from the new buildings, but they have limited impact due to other changes. I am also still juggling/balancing the mod, sadly this will probably be an on going thing untill the End of Time

#1 makes sense, maybe start them off with warriors and then at x turns in they start spawning with chariots? The main problem with them in vanilla is warriors are a hard counter to spearmen, so the camps spawning with spearmen when you can build warriors is causing the issue. It's the exact opposite, though, with them spawning with chariots at turn 1--since you need spearmen to truly counter them, which will take roughly 40-50 turns unless you're incredibly lucky with meeting multiple science city states first. Another thing that could help is to move the +5 to barbarians policy to one tier later so you don't have it as early.

For #2, understood. Do I simply comment out that code (I now see the file) to get the vanilla speeds to display?

I'm 221 turns into my Slug playthrough as India right now (227 BC), and here are some of the early balance issues I've seen. I'm already in the Medieval era, which real world started roughly 500 AD for comparison. I've also for all intents and purposes already won this game -- there is literally no way possible for the AI to catch me as I've settled 17 cities already -- but will play through it fully to give additional feedback.

I'm guessing you're already aware of them, but I wanted to provide some suggestions related to each:

1) Culture is easy to snowball depending on city states you meet and start influencing, or by obtaining great works of writing.
The core problem here that I can see is that ancillary sources of culture are not scaled back similarly to building generation. Thus, early access to these culture gains rapidly speeds you through the eras.

Suggestions:

• Reduce Nan Madol culture per coastal district to +1
• Reduce Kumasi trade route culture per district to +0.5 (for Delhi 1 trade route yields 6 culture right now, vs 4 culture total from all of the culture-generating buildings I can build sans Theatre Square--that's really easy to abuse, but I'm not for the sake of giving this a solid playthrough)
• Reduce culture from great works of writing to +2 (in the Delhi example, I'm getting +15 from great works of writing)

2) Population growth is too slow relative to the rest of the game.
The core problem here seems to be the adjustments to the exponential growth formula. This causes cities to hit a brick wall at population 7-8. While slower growth in and of itself is not bad, it causes issues elsewhere in the gameplay by virtue of stalled city growth.

Other issues this causes:

• Additional buildable districts per-city are harder to come by, which for much of the game leaves the player with three choices:

1. Build units
2. Run city projects (which causes other issues inadvertently)
3. Build settlers and solve the growth problem by playing wide (this is problematic when factoring in the suzerain bonuses of Geneva, Nan Madol (if coastal access) and Kumasi and campus districts)

• Playing wide is not just the only viable option, but it's effectively forced on you

Suggestions:

• Smooth out the growth curve overall--more hills, fewer mountains
• Provide amenities via more buildings early on, or increase the amenities provided by some of the buildings, as the 1 per 1 pop seems to be causing some of the growth issues due to the way the game factors growth rates based on excess amenities

3) Science can get out of control due to wide playstyle
The core problems look to be science per population and campus districts, but the Geneva bonus is extremely strong. Playing wide exacerbates this problem fairly significantly.

Suggestions:

• Reduce the sixth envoy bonus to +1 per campus district
• Reduce the Geneva suzerain bonus to 10%
• Reduce the bonus science to great works of writing provided by Great Library to +1
• Reduce Campus adjacency bonus from mountains to .75 or .8 per mountain

Outside of that, an idea I had for the Scribe's Shop that I'd like to share so it's not just a slightly better Library: remove the flat Science bonus, add +1 Science to Horses (a primary source of animal glue, used in some inks), +1 Faith to Cattle and Sheep (calfskin/sheepskin were often used to create parchments; the +Faith due to scribes being linked to priests). It might also be good to make this mutually exclusive with something in the Merchant's Quarter to turn it into more of a city specialization building.

4) Great Person costs do not appear to be scaling to game speed
The singular problem here is that costs are not scaling up relative to total game turns. The costs currently appear to be based on the expected progression of the "Quick" game speed--resulting in great generals already being at the Modern era, despite every civilization except for me being in Classical in both trees. The only real solution here is to fix the scaling so that it's relative to total game turns, though I do suggest removing the great general points from the new buildings that were added.

5) There are too many units being produced
A side effect of population growth stalling is that the AI appears to be focusing on unit production when there's nothing else to do. This has resulted in a plethora of units, particularly naval--making it nearly impossible to explore by sea, even with open borders. I've attached a screenshot of China/Germany; it was worse when I initially came through the area, and was only able to pass by due to having the Great Lighthouse--allowing me to traverse oceans and boosting my movement. Russia also has an absurdly large navy, but they aren't in the screenshot.

What makes this worse is it's taking away from time the AI should be dedicating to expansion. Peter has 2 cities total right now, for example, but a navy that rivals anything throughout human history. How he can sustain it financially is beyond me, but he's doing so.

The only real way to address this is to smooth out population growth to reduce gaps in production options, and to set the AI to care a little more about expansion.

 

[Horem]

Very nice bit of feedback! Thanx alot for that. Your using Version 1003? Alot of the issues you mention have been tweaked in the 1004 Beta, its available on the ToT Discord server.

• Reduce Nan Madol culture per coastal district to +1

• Reduce Kumasi trade route culture per district to +0.5 (for Delhi 1 trade route yields 6 culture right now, vs 4 culture total from all of the culture-generating buildings I can build sans Theatre Square--that's really easy to abuse, but I'm not for the sake of giving this a solid playthrough)

• Reduce culture from great works of writing to +2 (in the Delhi example, I'm getting +15 from great works of writing)

However, this explains alot. I need to pay more attention to the CS bonus.

Great Person costs do not appear to be scaling to game speed

This is probably a side effect of me adding my own gamespeeds. I'll take a closer look at how its scaled.

Outside of that, an idea I had for the Scribe's Shop that I'd like to share so it's not just a slightly better Library: remove the flat Science bonus, add +1 Science to Horses (a primary source of animal glue, used in some inks), +1 Faith to Cattle and Sheep (calfskin/sheepskin were often used to create parchments; the +Faith due to scribes being linked to priests). It might also be good to make this mutually exclusive with something in the Merchant's Quarter to turn it into more of a city specialization building.

This, very good idea.

I know the calender is off, it happens on all current gamespeeds. If you can make a note of the turn count it takes you to reach each era and post it here or on Discord it will help speed this fix along.

For #2, understood. Do I simply comment out that code (I now see the file) to get the vanilla speeds to display?

Open up the modifno, comment out using <!-- -->, the files related to Gamespeeds located in the configuration folder. (They are under Settings):

       <Custom id="TOT_SETTING">
           <Items>
               <File>Configuration/ToT_Players.xml</File>
               <File>Configuration/MOAR_Units_Config.xml</File>
               <File>Configuration/ToT_DeleteSpeeds_Config.sql</File> <--- This one
               <File>Configuration/ToT_Gamespeed_Config.sql</File> <--- This one
               <File>Configuration/DW_MapScripts.xml</File>
               <File>Configuration/ToT_DefaultSettings.sql</File>
           </Items>
       </Custom>

 

[Horem]

1004 Beta 4

Reduced National Wonder GPP's.
Tweaked Science and Culture Suzerain bonuses.
Scribe Shop changed: Cattle and Sheep gain +1 Faith. Horse and Dyes gain +1 Science. Removed the flat Science.
Vanilla gamespeeds can now be selected. Online - Marathon is still the order, I have slotted the new speeds to fit.
Reverted base Amenity per Pop to vanilla.
All districts other than the City Center gain +1 Amenity.
+1 Amenity added to Granary.
Minimum City distance increased to 4.
Included Smoother Dificulty.
New unique Units now appear at the Game Setup screen.
Updated MOAR Units.
Incorporated most of NQUI.
Added building icons.
General balancing.
Fixed Merchant Quarter and Souq not having specialists.
Included Biao's Strategic Unit Resources.
Renamed alot of files.
Combined all the Requirement Sets into one file.
Redone the Pantheon Beliefs.
Fixed Farmstead modifier(Farms and Pastures adjacent to Merchant Quarter now get +2 Food). Name changed to Warehouse. Reduced base food down to 2, added 5% growth.
Fixed Growth bonus from Districts not stacking correctly. Most districts now provide 2% Growth. (Not including Encampment, City Center, Aquaduct and Bath)
Fixed missing Souq project.
Redesigned GP Points per Era.
Updated Wondrous Wonders to 1.55.
Limited Scouts to Capital city only, Max of 4.
Scouts have increased movement and sight.

Test ToT 1004 beta 4.

 

[Maat1985]

is this updated with MOAR units v0.6??
do you think it would work if i was to exclude the files that relate to the AI+ mod so that i could use the Harder AI mod??
what have you changed in regards to religeon?? i ask this as i usually play also using Tomatecks Religeon mod..
personally i love your mod and play it also using some UI tweaks. TCS improved water yields a modded version of Modern Buildings so it doesnt conflict with the additional buildings mod and also a modded version of Strategos units so it doesnt conflict with MOAR units rifleman

 

[Horem]

Beta 4 Includes MOAR Units 0.6.
ATM The AI+ stuff I included is commented out. Been testing to see what AI+ v9 is like on its own.
80% of the Pantheons have been changed. Have not got any further than that with religion.
Beta 4 includes NQUI, so you may find certain UI Tweaks now clash.

 

[Maat1985]

Have just seen the UI tweaks in your code. yet to try and work out exactly what is what.
Just noticed when i loaded up your 1004 beta that icons in the tech and civic trees are not displaying. i am unsure as to why...
seems that tech and building icons are loading....
but civic, district and units icons are not... i reinstalled the mod a couple of times but still no

 

[Horem]

What mods are you using? Sounds like a conflict.

 

[Maat1985]

Got the same issue even when i load it up as the only mod.

 

[Horem]

Anything in the logs?

 

[Maat1985]

Will check when i get home this afternoon. Just had a thought that it is possible that my base game folder still has some modified icon.xmls from older mods in it. Not sure but maybe it does. Will verify my steam install and see if that helps.
If i put the 1003 mod on it works fine with no problem.

 

[Horem]

Re download 1004, its been updated 4 or 5 times since I initaly posted a link to it here.

 

[Maat1985]

managed to find out that the issue was caused by some of my core game files. reset those and all good.
i have found a huge problem that i am totally unsure of as to why it happens. When using the 1004 beta after starting a game if i use the debug command 'reveal all' to show the whole map the game becomes unplayable. it reveals the map and i am then unable to scroll and look around the map. if i give my unit commands that will work but still unable to look around the map. when i go to end turn it just freezes and stays on saying loading please wait.
i have had a quick look through the log files and cannot see anything errors. maybe i have missed something.
it is definately a problem with the 1004 beta as using vanilla game or any other mods it is ok but as soon as TOT is put in to the mix (with other mods or by itself) that is when this problem happens. this issue never happened with 1003.
i can only guess that something that is loaded on the map maybe a natural wonder or some specific terrain is causing this issue. i would dare say that if playing a game at some point this issue will show itself when a certain map feature is loaded.

 

[ggalindo001]

A quick review and commentary on the latest beta version.

Have run 2 games with autoplay -- so haven't played myself, but wanted to check some things. Only mods running are ToT and Autoplay.
Commenting on current game, currently around turn 440 (1046 AD), been running for about 3 hours.

Standard settings, slug speed, small map, default number of Civs, Emperor difficulty (for autoplay). Not playing constant war setting on Autoplay.

Good
-- AI has taken walled cities. Krakow (the human autoplay player was Poland) was taken by Egypt and later Bydgoszcz by Sparta.
-- Decent defense and/or survival so far of city states. Only one taken (by Spain)
-- Decent to good settlement of cities, including setting cities not on home continent island and by sources of fresh water -- not always, but better than vanilla
-- Fair buildout of districts, still disproportionate for holy sites and merchant quarters, but a reasonable number of theatre districts and campuses
-- Largest cities are a 20 pop Madrid, is a captured 19 pop Krakow, and a 19 pop Novgorod, many 10+ pop cities, many 15+ pop

Neutral but worth comment
-- AI for the most part is settling most habitable areas, but still good patches where a city could be founded and not touched by anyone (and accessible)
-- The unit icons are not visible (not sure if this is an autoplay issue or a mod issue) --
-- Lots and lots and lots of spammed ships, but compared to ToT 1003 -- not as much spammed land units. In first simulation where I had constant war, the map was full of land and sea units
-- Pillaging still does not appear to be easily repaired or prioritized by AI (a vanilla problem as well)

Not so good
-- Turn times become choking by turn 300. I'm running on a pretty high end setup, and turn 439 to turn 440 took about 4 minutes. Even in late game with other mods, turns were taking 30-60 seconds tops. As a reference point my benchmark average is 27 seconds on the AI benchmark. I could run all night and likely still not hit renaissance timing.
-- I played a game to about this point with v1003 where the turn times just became crippling.
-- Not sure about 1004, but in 1003, great people resulting in units really broke the game. I received an infantry when my and my opponent's best unit were swords.
-- Because of the lack of unit icons, uncertain how battering rams or siege units are being used (if at all)

I like this mod as it has that Civ 4 feel to it, and hopefully I am doing something wrong around turn times, but that piece alone is making this hard to play past about turn 300.

Happy to run autoplay simulations on future versions of the Mod as I like the direction it is headed.

 

[dukisha]

Is this compatible with YnAMP?

How to install this? Should I just put "Test of time" folder in mods, or I should also copy subfolders where my game is installed?

 

[Horem]

Is this compatible with YnAMP?

How to install this? Should I just put "Test of time" folder in mods, or I should also copy subfolders where my game is installed?

Just to the mod folder.

 

[dukisha]

I find this mod the best, for now.
I play with this and YnAMP and there is always crash when I choose to start in atomic era.