The Ultimate Terra(ish) Mod in the works

[AltarisGreyhawk]

Alright, I've been playing around with some Terra mods, trying to create a game that follows in a similar vein to actual history, while still proving fun to play. Basically, the map mirrors our own Earth very closely, with all civs starting in Africa, Asia, and an expanded Europe to properly proportion civ to land ratios. The continents of North America, South America, and Australia are unpopulated at game start. I really enjoy these types of maps, but I've always had the same reoccuring problems when playing them, all around the time of colonization of the New World:

1) With barbarians on, I'm the only civ that can properly handle them. The AI just doesn't know how to fight wars against barbarians settled for hundreds of years in the New World, which leads to problem 2.

2) With barbarians off, the AI still drags on effectively settling the New World. Unless I'm stuck in a big war at the time astronomy comes around, I'm able to grab all the good land before anyone else gets there.

3) Managing a bunch of small colonies is tedious by the time 1300-1500 comes around. Many games, I get really bored by this time. Also, since I'm quickly outpacing the AI, the game quickly becomes easy at this point as well.

So.... I've been working on a solution to make the game both more realistic and more fun in a Terra scenario. So far, I'm really happy with the results, and it has turned out to be a pretty good solution to my problems. Here's the basic idea:

Let's say we have a game with 9 civs. When the game starts, 18 civs are actually added to the game, but only 9 are in play. The other 9 are all killed off at game start, to be used later as colonization civs. I'll go into detail more on this below.

I've revamped the tech tree pretty heavily around the Renaissance Era. Astronomy now only gives a fast scouting ship incapable of carrying passengers. This ship can pass through enemy territory, and is really used for discovering the rest of the world. The AI uses this effectively, and is able to scout out the new areas pretty well.

After Astronomy, a tech comes open called Colonization. The only thing this does is allow a player to build a building called a Colony Harbor. Upon completion of the Colony Harbor, the player's colonization civ from above is brought back to life, receiving all the techs and world map view of the master civ. Three galleons, each containing 1 settler, 1 worker, and 1 musketman, are created for the colonization civ, and they set off in sail for a new home. The Colony Harbor is given a very high AI weight, so the AI builds it just as soon as they can. Since the vassal colonization civs have nothing else to do, they just go off in search of a new home, by which this time most likely only consists of the New World.

Now here's what I like about this scenario. While each of the budding new colonization civs are very weak initially, their are vassaled to their powerful masters back in the homeland. So, the player can't arbitrarily go waging war against the little colonies without incurring wrath and war back home.

To keep it balanced, Galleons and Frigates do not become available until Replaceable Parts is researched, and it has a prereq of Colonization. This keeps the player from being able to land their own settlers overseas until the colonizing civs have a chance to get settled into their new homes.

To make this work, I had to cut off barbarians completely, as they would have annihalated the colonizing civs before they got a chance to even get started. But it does add a layer of complexity close to actual history, where the colonies can often lead to problems for the original civs between one another.

The other cool thing is that if the vassals do well, and reach 50% of their masters population, they can break free and gain their independence. So, the colonizing vassals get the master's protection until they get on their feet, then have the potential to become real players in the end-game.

Another simple but very effective change I made was the AI's behavior towards one another. In the vanilla system, AI's gain a steady improvement in disposition with one another over time that the player is not privy to. That's why you see Genghis Khan travel halfway around the world to get to you rather than going after a perfectly viable neighbor. This has always annoyed me, so I modified all the leaderheads to view ALL players, whether human or AI, off of the standard modifiers (open borders, religion, close borders, etc.) Now, the AI actually behaves in a manner that makes sense, and it really does make for a more enjoyable game all the way around.

I've been playing through this mod with England for the last week or so, and it's truly been a very dynamic, very fun game. I'm currently in the early 1800's, and the game has had a large number of ups and downs, both for me and the AI. I'll share the details in the next post, but I just wanted to share this with everyone.

I have a few bugs to work out, and I want to play through again before posting a release version. So far, though, I'm very excited about the potential this has for some good Terra mods.

 

[AltarisGreyhawk]

So, here's the details of the modded game I've played through so far:

Settings:
My Civ: Good ol' England. Long live the Queen!
Game Speed: 1200 turn Marathon (modded the years to make them pass in a more historical fashion, but # of turns is still the same)
Difficulty: Prince, with one modification - my research costs are 125% of normal, AI is 100%. Since the AI is less aggressive than I am, this keeps the game in check, and the top 4-5 civs are all within 1-2 techs of each other.
Map: Customized Terra Map (100 X 72). Very similar to Earth, though Europe is expanded out to allow all those European nations a fighting chance.
Other Mods: The uses a good many of the changes from SevoMod, particularly some of the additional units.
Starting Civs: England, Scotland (modified Celts, with a terrifying modded Highlander UU instead of the crappy Gaellic Warrior), France, Spain, Germany, Russia, Mongolia, Japan, China, India, Carthage, Egypt, Arabia, Mali, Zulu, Rome, and Greece.

The Game:
The Stone Age My English civilization began its days by settling the city of London at the edge of the English Channel, just in sight of the main shores of Europe. As usual, I snagged Bronze Working and Hinduism right off the bat, and met the other nearby civs of Scotland, France, Spain, Germany, and Russia. Spain founded Buddhism early as well, and early on, it looked to be a war on the horizon between our two empires.
As the stone age drew to a close, I controlled most of the southern end of my island, while the Scottish were largely confined to three boxed-in cities in the north. I had just finished researching Sailing, and all seemed poised well for me.
The Classical AgeThe Classical Age started early with my founding of Judaism. I quickly set about converting Scotland and France to keep them in my good graces, while Spain grew ever more annoyed with our religious differences.
Then I got Iron Working, and realized what a predicament I was in. There was no iron to be had except right next to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, or across the shores at the edge of France's empire! I did not want to risk war with Scotland just yet, so I chop rushed a settler, and literally got to the iron on France's mainland 1 turn before their settler reached it. I had two squares of land for my new city, but one had iron, so that's all that mattered! Tensions grew between me and my neighbors, but our shared religion kept war at bay. Meanwhile, I spent my time building a formidable navy to protect myself from any potential invasions from France, Spain, or Germany.
The Medieval Age Ah, the Medieval Age was fun! I managed to found Christianity, and converted Scotland, France, and Spain to my newest religion. Saladin founded Islam, and it spread like wildfire through China, India, and Russia. Egypt controlled most of the Mediterrenean region with Confucianism, and the Far East nations of Japan and Mongolia shared Taoism. Germany stood as the last bastion of Judaism in the world. Religion frictions were high, and war loomed.
Around this time, I realized I also had no access to horses, and no one would trade them to me for a reasonable price. France did, however, so I bided my time. I bribed Germany to start a war with France, and after France had taken a rough beating, I decided to join the fray. After a long, hard fought war, I managed to wrestle Paris away from the dirty French, and gain access to their horse supply.
Around this time (~1100 AD), I finally got knights rolling out, and turned my eye towards the troublesome Scots up north. For over a thousand years, I had blocked all trade to and from their tiny nation, so they were far weaker than I. They had, however, had plenty of time to build up some MASSIVE stacks of axemen, archers, and highlanders. What seemed to be a simple war turned into a rather bloody one quickly, though in the end I did prevail.
Just as I was finally wiping the Scots from the face of the earth, France seized their opportunity to attack, and wrestled Paris back away from me. Again, I bribed Germany, and we launched a two-front attack on France. Just as all looked poised to end badly for France, Russia took opportunity to attack Germany. Meanwhile, Genghis Khan, who had long terrorized Russia's east border, launched his regular 50-year war against Russia, and soon all of Europe and northern Asia was in a massive, drawn-out battle. Fortunately, Egypt weighed in with me against the French, though they capitulated to Germany before I could completely destroy them. I was a little pissed at Germany, so I bribed Spain to start a war with them, and their conquistadors quickly overwhelmed the last of France's pitiful defenses, and left a serious bruise on Germany in the process.
When the chaos finally settled down, I owned most of what had been France, with Germany owning the leftover. Russia had taken a good bit of Mongolia from the Khan, and the three of us, along with Egypt and Carthage, were all very close in the score/tech race.
Just about this time, the top civs all came along Astronomy, and things were about to get very interesting...
The Renaissance/Colonial Age Using the new vassal/colonial civs described above, the colonial period turned out quite interesting. My vassal civ was the American Empire, Russia's was Cuba, Spain's was Mexico, Carthage's was Brazil, and Egypt's was Babylon. There were some smaller civs as well, but they turned out to be insignificant.
My civ/America was the first to land on American soil, but Russia/Cuba was close behind. Spain/Mexico, Egypt/Babylon, and Carthage/Brazil got most of Central/South America, while me and Russia madly rushed to get the most settlers on North America. It was pretty dead-even most of the way, and we were locked into a stalemate, one I mistakenly thought was peaceful.
Russia declared war on me around 1600, and I was locked in a heated battle of Redcoat vs. Cossack while my American colonies were fighting a losing battle against Cuba in North America. Luckily, both Spain and Carthage were strong allies of mine, and I talked them into war with Russia. They didn't help much in Europe, where I was steadily pumping out Redcoats to hold back a swarm of Cossacks, but their Mexican/Brazilian vassal civs were the decisive factor in keeping my American colony intact. My old nemesis Germany joined in the fray with Russia against me, and I lost three of my French cities to their joint efforts before a truce was called. In North America, though, the Cubans had been entirely demolished, and my American colonies stood triumphant over 2/3 of North America.
Of course, around 1700 the American successes against Cuba had boosted their population to the needed 52% of my population, and they called off their allegiance to me. We're still good friends, though, so something good did come out of all of it.
The Industrial Age That brings us to where I currently stand, in the year 1815 of the industrial age. As it stands, America has broken off to become a fairly successful independent state (they rank #8 right now). I am in a tight Defensive Pact with Spain, Carthage, America, and Egypt, while the Islamic states of Russia, Arabia, and China all stand closely allied. Poor Germany is caught between a rock and a hard place, and has fallen into mediocrity from their magnificent days in the Medieval Era.
As it stands, I may actually lose this game. Egypt has become an ungodly force to be reckoned with, and Carthage and Spain are on par with my empire. I'm just now starting to get modern era units of infantry and planes, and it looks like a true World War will have to occur to even the scales in my favor. I have NEVER had a game where it has been this close this late in the game, and I am really looking forward to see how it pans out. Even if I lose, it still has been by far the most fun game of Civ I have ever played.

Sorry for the long ramble, but I just had to share this game with someone. I'm off to bed! Happy Gaming!

 

[RegentMan]

Sounds like a fun tweak to the game. I'll be sure to try it out.