The 'Ultimate' Civics Expander and Balancer Mod

[Dom Pedro II]

Have you considered adjusting the Upkeep? Maybe make a "Very Low" and "Very High" upkeep? ... give some more gradients there..

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Dom Pedro. Very good suggestion there, and one which I have considered more than once. Just so I am sure, though, this wouldn't require any changes to the SDK, would it? I wouldn't think so, but you can never be too sure .

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I checked and it won't require any SDK changes.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Personaly I find the whole "Upkeep" of Civics to be rather bad concept by Firaxis, why dose to cost money to have a society based on a parcular ideology/principle/organizational structure. It kind of like they confused "goverment social services" like welfare and universal healthcare which would actualy involve expenditure of money by goverment with Civics with is all of society regarless of goverment budgets. I think to would be both simpler and more realistic if Civics just had Gold Commerce modifiers or City maintance modifiers as their method of reflecting incressed or decressed wealth generation.

On a similar note it would be realy handy if that Cost bar on the bottom was "total expected empire income/culture/research rates under hypothetical Civics choices" so you could actualy get some vauge idea of how much more/less money and research you would be making under each Civic. SMAC was realy good in this respect you could see basicaly all the results of your Social Engining before you had to actualy change them (and that was a game ware it was comparitivly trivial to change back if you didn't like the result!)

Also, I've always felt priest were rather redundant giving a hammer/goald mix, I've always felt they would be more interesting prividing Happyness, kind of an opiate of the masses ala Marxism. My addition of Happyness Commerce makes this possible but I've never gotten around to actualy doing it. Through the course of the game or with some various buildings they could get some additional effects like some culture money ect ect and the player would use them to turn otherwise Angry Citizens into semi-usefull specialist.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I used to wonder that about priests myself, Impaler. I think they said it had something to do with Game Balance. That a specialist which created happiness would make things too easy for players (especially if they are running Caste System). Needless to say, once this current mod is completely done, I will be revisiting the SDK in order to add elements of your CCCP, and I also have plans to make high net happiness actually MEAN something-via a bonus to hammers and gold.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Interesting, I'd always missed the SMAC golden age that you could get with high happiness. I rigged a modification of the WeLovetheKingDay so that it would produce a localized single City Golden age effect. Perhaps if you combined that with a modification to how the WLTKD is triggered making it more closly tied to the net surpluss happiness in its probability of occuring. That could be a significant incentive for the player to push up happiness to more then the bare minimum.

As for Priest happiness bonus, because the priests are caped by your buildings your rarly in a position to have more then 1 + # temples in a city I dont think it would be very exploitable. Also I would take away a Hammer from the priest in exchange for the +1 Happiness so the player is only realy netting the 1 gold initialy which might be better changed to 1 culture as you have done.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Whoopsie. You lost me there. When did I change priests from 1 hammer to 1 culture? Don't get me wrong, I prefer your take on it (i.e. either happiness or culture-not hammers), but its not a change I have made.
WLTKD was the first place I planned to look in order to get ideas for net happiness effects. I was thinking that it could work like the Net Health effects In CvCity. i.e. take iGoodHappiness and iBadHappiness and see if they are <= 0 or > 0. If the latter, then it would implement either a getHappinessYieldRateModifier or a getHappinessCommerceRateModifier. At least, thats how I would expect it to work!

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Norbert]

HElP!!! I downloaded 3a into my mods folder, and it dosen't work! Is it a warlords or vanilla version, and what am I doing wrong? Speedy helps appreciated... Thnx.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

It is definitely for warlords-Something I probably should have made clear earlier-and there won't be a phase 3 for vanilla, unless someone else is prepared to do it.
Just double check that the .dll file is in there (it should be, 'cause I certainly never removed it ), if its not that, then its got me totally stumped, as it works fine on my computer.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Norbert]

So ya, where exactly is the .dll supposed to go, cause i think I may have misplaced it... there it is, in all it's shininess. Is it supposed to be in just the overall folder, or the assets folder, or the C++? confused...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Just leave it exactly where it is after you unzip it. I have it where it worked for me, so I see no reason why it wouldn't work for you guys too.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[TheJopa]

I have to say, however, that civics aren't really balanced at the point... But if they are just to try out new stuff, then fine. I would suggest to keep civics as simple as possible, with clearly defined advantages/disadvantages.

Personaly I find the whole "Upkeep" of Civics to be rather bad concept by Firaxis, why dose to cost money to have a society based on a parcular ideology/principle/organizational structure. It kind of like they confused "goverment social services" like welfare and universal healthcare which would actualy involve expenditure of money by goverment with Civics with is all of society regarless of goverment budgets. I think to would be both simpler and more realistic if Civics just had Gold Commerce modifiers or City maintance modifiers as their method of reflecting incressed or decressed wealth generation.

I don't see whats wrong with upkeep concept. Also, the way upkeep cost is detemined is different than commerce modifier. Upkeep depends on population, unlike commerce modifier.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

They're not there to simply 'try things out', but if people feel that they are unbalanced in any way, then I need people to give me specific examples and suggestions-so that I can work on adjusting them to make them better.
Hope this helps!

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[purplexus]

Awesome.... Civics are one of the most underrated additions to Civ 4. This is what really makes Civ 4 Stand apart for Civ 3.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hello everyone. Just an update. Phase3a of my Expanded civics modcomp has been updated for Warlords v2.08. A word of warning, however, due to incompatibilities with CvCityAI I was forced to retain those from v2.00.6-at least for the time being. This doesn't make the game unworkable, but it may make the AI appear less 'smart' than the regular 2.08 AI.

Also, I have released phase3b of my mod. I have overhauled the legal civics and added an Organization civic category. You can find it:

Here

Please enjoy and-as always-please feel free to send any suggestions and/or criticisms you might have.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Grave]

Odd... I didn't have any issues updating your Civics mod to 2.08 (when I was updating my current project). It all compiled smoothly.

But I'll download this and check it out, too...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey guys, sorry for not updating sooner. Here are how things currently stand: Phase 3a, 3b and 3c are all finished and updated for v2.08 compatibility. Please check them out and tell me what you think-balancing may still be required.

Phase 3d is pretty much ready to go out the door, I am just trying to figure out a minor issue with my new python code. I hope to have this out in the next 24 hours.

By the same token, the final part of the civics mod, phase 3e will be finished before Monday-and this will mark the end to my Phase3 civics mod project-with the exception of any required re-balancing.

Once that is done I need to finish off a few modcomps I have already started-and then I will be beginning my next big project-my Ideology Mod and my update of the TrueProphets Mod. I will be starting new threads for both of these.

Anyway, hope everyone is enjoying the mods I have put out thus far.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK guys, my penultimate Civics Expander mod is now out-Phase 3Wd. In this version I have seperated out the religious civics into Tenets and Faith Relations.
Tenets include Ascetic, Animist, Numinal, Orthodox, Organized, Reformist, Ecuminism, Scholarly and Fundamentalist.

Faith Relations includes Insular, Evangelist, Pantheist, Militant, Sacrificial, Pacifist and Free Religion.

Next on my agenda is to add a 'Values' Option to my civics. Once that is done I plan to go through and modify CannotDoCivics so that some civics choices preclude certain others. Keep your eyes open for that.

Anyway, check out the latest version here, and I would love to hear any feedback-positive or negative-that you might have .

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Grave]

Next on my agenda is to add a 'Values' Option to my civics. Once that is done I plan to go through and modify CannotDoCivics so that some civics choices preclude certain others. Keep your eyes open for that.

That alone is worth being a seperate MODCOMP.

I mean, who ever heard of a Police State w/ Free Speech? Or a Theocracy (if you put it under Government Civic) w/ Free Religion?

I look forward to it...



(if you'd like any help with Buttons, PM me)

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

who ever heard of a Police State w/ Free Speech?

Actually, in France, we are working hard to perform this exploit. Aniway, America is still ahead on the innovation part !