[SCENARIO] Thelen Epres Mrel Nelthelrinae

It is the year 200 AR. The nations of Nelthelrinae are beginning to grow, and new strengths and weaknesses are realised. The thought of expansion and growth has penetrated every civilization's way of life. Just as the civilizations are changing, so is the world around them. The race to be the greatest empire of the land has begun. What civilization will surpass all others? What civilization will stand the Test of Time?

Hello all, this is my new scenario mod for civ3. It is based on my old one, Thel Realmea ei Nelthelrinae, but there was many aspects I did not like or were not fully completed in that mod, so I set out to improve it heavily and do much more. The scenario has been in the works since about June 2015, but it was being worked on very slowly in 2016. The testing of this mod started December 2016. Minor tweaks was mostly done from that first version, but there was a few additions.

One aspect I did not like was that the mod did not really add a new way of playing. It was very similar to normal civ3, and I wanted to create a different gameplay experience that was a tough challenge to complete. I think I have done that in this and I hope all who play it have an enjoyable experience.


SUMMARY

Redrawn Map 210x190
14 Playable Civs
2 Era Tech Tree
Culture-Specific Kiinims
Civ-Specific Units
Modified Interface
Backround Music
Backround Ambience
Descriptions for each Civilization
Each Civ has a Strength and Weakness System
Wild Animals
Strong Barbarians
Barbarian Strongholds
Limited Corruption
Short Anarchy
Heroes (Special Unit(s) for each Civilization)
Basic Implementation of a Religion for each Civilization each providing certain benefits
Library of Scrolls


MAP

The map is completely redrawn to add in more detail to areas of the map than I had before. This also meant that there would be other issues that would affect gameplay like city expansion and the AI response, so some additions to the scenario was made with these in mind.

Un-buildable Terrains: forests, deserts, sacred lands, and tundra.

Forests can be chopped, but they take very long to do so and are not necessarily worth it most of the time.

Because of a larger map and un-buildable terrains, farther city placement is encouraged and so corruption is heavily reduced, though it is still present, there are many improvements that reduce it.

Spoiler Screenshots :

CIVILIZATIONS
---------- Main
Cerilaan
Deriria
Lerian
Naherraan
Raonas
Sesirithel
---------- Other Civilizations
Berelliseg (Unplayable)
Certaren
Ephrinor
Erodil
Jethlator
Kyrregos (Unplayable)
Lesegolos
Miryaan
Relinor
Telasha

Civilizations each have their own descriptions and some are of good length. I chose to focus more on six of the civs, which are Cerilaan, Deriria, Lerian, Naherraan, Raonas, and Sesirithel. They do have the longest civ descriptions and most of the others consist of a page, or a little over.

The history of the mod is a little different from the previous mod and some has changed. I tried to improve the writing and overall style from my previous mod.

Spoiler Screenshots :

VICTORY OPTIONS

Domination Victory
Master Race Victory
Empire Victory
Conquest Victory and
Cultural Victory
(There is of course Histograph...)

Domination requires 15% of land area and 25% of world population.
Master Race requires a civilization to achieve its Conquest Destiny.
Empire is to reach the empire point limit.
Conquest is to eliminate all civilizations.
Cultural is to become the envy of the world by being the first to the cultural value limit.



CITIES

City expansion is not like normal civ3. Every 15 turns the Palace Trader produces an upgradable trader unit that you can then use to build 'trading outposts', which are limited in population to 2, unless on a river, which is then allowed to grow to 3 population. Outposts are limited in what improvements they can build, as they require the Town Administration, which allows a much larger population as well. The first Palace Trader is automatically in your capital on scenario start, but it becomes obsolete with Thinking Combat. It is recommended to try to time it to get the maximum benefit from it as it will not become available again until War Academy, which is in the start of the 2nd era.



TECH TREE

There are two researchable periods in this mod. The tech costs are not cheap, especially at the start, but with development of your civilization, it will gradually research faster.

The second era is not necessarily likely to be completely researchable, and what time you have there should be used wisely. With a 300 turn time limit, you have to use what you have with good efficiency.

Spoiler Screenshots :

KIINIMS AND GOVERNMENTS

Kiinims replace the default system of governments, though governments in name do still have a small role as they dictate what kiinims are available for each civ. Kiinims are culture-specific and they do vary in their uses and effects. They are also designed to be upgraded in each era, as each kiinim expands your possibilites, especially in unit support. Culture buildings are attached to each one, which provide special benefits. Free unit support is limited and it is costly in going over that limit. Additionally, Kiinims have an upkeep cost.



UNITS

Each civilization's main military units has its own unit graphics and combat capabilities. The Strength and Weakness system located in the civilization's pedia description displays a summary of the combat capabilities. Some units have a heavy emphasis on attack, others more defense, or a balanced approach to both attack and defense.

There is also special units called Heroes, that are unique to each civilization, and are auto-produced 50 turns after the Hall of Heroes is completed. They each have different combat capabilities and special abilities; and the Hall of Heroes alone starts a golden age for your civilization. The hero units however, are more of an end-game unit and will not be usable for most of the game.



BARBARIANS AND ANIMALS

The barbarians are an actual civilization in this scenario that you can engage in some diplomacy and have war with, and as a result obtain war weariness (which is a mechanic attached to all kiinims). Besides having tough units that will very likely be troublesome to you, they are a contender for the Empire Victory option and so they have to be dealt with so they do not run away with the victory.

The animals are a small threat and since they replace the default barbarians, it is possible you may not see much of them. But the mobile ones are just as dangerous as the barbarians. The immobile ones act as a small land barrier.

It is recommended you keep your borders well-patrolled or else you could be sneaked up upon by either.



RELIGION

The religion of a civilization is pre-determined and is limited to a religious improvement and a wonder, which also provides a special unit that has an ability few other obtainable units have; and for some this is the only unit. The wonders and improvements are type specific.



LIBRARY OF SCROLLS

The Library of Scrolls is just a extra way to expand the story I created for this. You can read it if you want, or just play.



SCENARIO NOTES

There are a few challenges ahead for the player when one starts. This includes protecting your civilization from the barbarians and animals, but there are a few others. You have to not just fend off the barbarians, you have to eliminate them as a threat in terms of victory as they are usually one of the top leaders for Empire Victory. Resources are sparse and sometimes you have to run a long supply line to acquire what you need as well as when you go to conquer enemies, since cities are not something you can easily place, they have to be planned; and you have to protect them as they can become your downfall if you lose too many. The main objective for the player is that particular civ's capital, as that will instantly eliminate the civilization, but it is also the best defended city.

Make sure to read the Scenario Introduction on scenario start.

MP NOTES

I have played this over the internet on Multiplayer with some people for a little bit. Because of the amount of civs needed in the game (which is 18), it is best if you choose civs in a specific region of the map, like north, west/southwest, central, south/southeast, east/northeast etc. I would recommend to still always have Berelliseg, Kyrregos, and then either Northern Tribes and Southern Tribes or both.

Something I did notice was that the wildlife acted a lot more aggressive than they did in SP. The spiders even bombarded and more often the Sahbren moved around hitting your units and territory.



DOWNLOAD AND INSTALLATION
requires Civ3 Conquests/Complete v1.22

The resource contains a download link from mega.co.nz and dropbox.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/thelen-epres-mrel-nelthelrinae.26286/

Extract the .rar to civ3 root/Conquests/Scenarios

The folder layout in the rar should be proper for you to just extract it in the Scenarios folder. But make sure the actual mod folder and the BIQ lie on its own in the Scenarios folder.

If you are playing on a disc version, switch the default labels.txt to the one with DISC in the name. The Steam labels.txt is in by default. So rename labelsDISC.txt to labels.txt.



Credits:
aaglo
Ares de Borg
Balam-Agab
Bebro
Big Bopper
CivArmy1994
CivGeneral
embryodead
Firaxis
Grandraem
haluu
imperator1961
LMR
LotM
Plotinus
R8XFT
Rambuchan
register
Sandris
ShiroKobbure
Steph
themanuneed
tom2050
Ukas
utahjazz7
Virote Considon
Vuldacon

Other Games:
Civ4, Civ5
Elder Scrolls III, IV, V
Fate

Movies:
Armageddon
-------
Other - Two Steps From Hell, Matthew L. Fisher

Testers
Fortis1
Kirejara
Takhisis
ThERat
Theov
Vojvoda/BasCelik
Others from Steam

Please give me your feedback on the scenario and reports of any bugs! I would like to hear them very much.

 

Played couple of turns and it looks promising. Hope RL will let me play some more in coming days.

 

I recommend playing more of this mod.

 

uhm , seems deleted at Mediafire ?

 

Odd. I didnt do anything.

 

Resource updated with 2 download links.

For some reason mediafire link disappeared with no explanation. My other files are still there.

 

I missed this, somehow. It sounds really cool! I'd really like to give it a go if I can find some time...

 

Cool; it's challenging, but I still wish it could be better (probably every modder's aspiration).

 

Well, more than 2 years after you asked me test it, I finally got round to starting a game with this Mod last weekend!

I started as the Lerians, at "Monarch" level (which turns out to be more like epic-Deity — the AI appear to be running at a 0.6 cost-factor!). Having got to Turn ~180 by Sunday night/Monday morning (One... more... turn... ), I started writing a wall of mostly congratulatory text, but it appears that CFC did not Save Draft properly, and I've lost it

I'm now at Turn ~220, so I want to start off with the good stuff:

• Awesome work!!! Beautifully presented, fully integrated, mostly well-documented, and the music rocks too (once I remembered to turn it on; I usually leave it off when playing epic games, since Firaxis' Modern Era tracks are so annoying)
  
• No major bugs discovered so far
  • The game initially used your 'labels.txt' adapted for Steam, but even though I am also using a DL-version (from GamersGate), that file didn't work with my installation — but deleting the 'Unknown' line is an easy fix
  • I also got a game-hang on Turn ~30 from the hyperlink-bug while clicking on your Iron-equivalent StratRes (Laontirii?) 'Pedia entry — but that's a Firaxis-induced bug which has to be worked around, e.g.
    
    • by the Mod-player remembering not to click on the icon (@Civinator used icons with 'Don't click' written across them in CCM); or
    • by the Mod-maker leaving 'None' in the top unit-resource slot in the .biq, and assigning any required resource(s) to the lower slot(s) instead

Minor random thoughts/niggles, just from my own personal POV:

Having the Palace Trader go obsolete with Thinking Combat seems too early. Due to all the units it enables, this is likely a very 'attractive' tech, and most of the AI-Civs in my game seem to have gone for it way earlier than they 'should' have done, before they'd had time to get many (Plains) Traders. I was smart enough to take your advice and hold off acquiring ThinCom for as long as possible: I delayed my last turn of research on it until just after my 7th Trader appeared (Turn 90), allowing me to construct 2 'complete' rings at Cxx[x]xC around my capital (with my Palace on a Coast, I had to spread out mostly NW and SE) — and I also captured 1 additional town from each of my nearest neighbours, fairly early on the game (they started it!). Conversely, most of the AI-Civs seem to have got only 4-5 towns in total, so their empires are severely stunted compared to mine.

Putting off researching ThinCom also means restricting oneself (as the Lerians) to building D=1 units, but that in turn makes the Barbarian Civs pretty OP for the first 100 turns or so. The early M=1 (Lerian) units are not at all useful for hunting M=3 Barb-swords, nor for keeping those beggars away from one's towns and Workers! And all the Barb-units being HN is adding insult to injury: it allows them to kidnap your Workers with impunity, but you can't rescue those Workers again without DoW-ing — and then you get War Weariness that much quicker. Giving the Barb-Encampments R=3 (lethal!) bombardment also seems kind of OP: my D=1 attack-units couldn't get anywhere near them without putting a Worker(s) in harm's way, to build a road up to them first — but maybe that was kind of the point...? Though the Encampments were useful for absorbing the brunt of the first 'animal uprisings' (which I guess happened when the Barb-Civs completed their first era...).

Thanks for posting that tip about the War Academy tech, though! I'd trawled through all the Era-2 tech-entires in the 'Pedia, but couldn't figure out which tech I needed, to be able to begin building new Settler-type units in Era 2 (or maybe the Lerians can't do that?). So I initially went for the Theology –> Path_of_the_Warrior beeline instead, in the hope of getting a Hero (or two) before game-over. If it turns out that I can build Settler-equivalents as well, I have several great city-spots already eyeballed, mostly on rivers...

...because the Outpost-building sucks arse! It costs a GPT-bomb in maintenance, you can't ever sell it (because as far as the game is concerned, it's a 'Duct), and worst of all, it makes 1 of the 3(!) citizens that it enables immediately unhappy (which is not mentioned in its 'Pedia-entry, BTW: I had to figure that out by process of elimination!), forcing the player to Specialise them (the AI will Clown them), and/or raise their LUX%-spending (if they can afford to!). If you want the Outpost to have so many disadvantages, then it might be 'nicer' if the player was allowed to sell it off once it's served its 'purpose' (i.e. allowing Town Admin to be built, unlocking town-growth and further improvements): perhaps by keeping it as the prereq for the Town-Admin, but moving the 'Allows city-size 2' flag over to the Town-Admin building instead (since in the early game — when you'll need to build Outposts ASAP, before you have Luxes hooked/ traded — you'll likely only ever be able to have 2/3 citizens building the TA anyway).

General comment on the Mod: as I vaguely remember saying when you first invited me to test it, great world-building and all, but it's all very opaque to new players. e.g. When I want to fortify my 'spearmen', or pick my 'swordsmen', 'horsemen', or 'bowmen' out of a stack, the fanciful unit-names mean it's not always immediately clear which word I have to click on — and since most/all of the Cultures/Civs also have unique unit-lines, that's a lot of effectively random syllables to learn by heart... (The unit-icon in the lower right box is not always helpful, either — my eyes are not what they were... )

Finally, there seems very little point (at least for the Lerians) in switching Governm-...'scuse me, Kiinims, during the 1st era...? The 2 Kiinims that are unlocked (and apparently obligatory to research — I let the AI do them for me!) didn't seem to be much if any improvement over the default starter, Eromility: OK, one of them got rid of the Despot-penalty, but neither gave any commerce-boost (that I noticed), nor looked like they would make much difference to my unit-support costs (which have been absolutely killing me throughout the game). And I would presumably have to spend shields on all the new Kiinim-buildings, to get the full benefits of switching? I'm thinking of switching if/when I get to the Era-2 Kiinim that allows cash-rushing (can't remember the name, naturally: begins with 'B' I think?), although I suspect that the clock will have run out (long) before then...

...because research has been so damn slow. I built a Philosopher's House (+50% SCI) in all of my 12 towns, and a Library (+50% SCI) in those that hadn't needed an Outpost, but at Turn ~200, with all towns at Pop7-15 and fully employed, even when I pushed SCI% to 80-90% (just to test it, I wouldn't actually have been able to run it that high over the interturn without immediately going broke), it made very little difference to my research-speed in Era2 (maybe 15-16 turns instead of 25). So for most of the game, I've been pretty much restricted to min.-runs with SCI%=20%, 10%, or even 0%, using Geeks to gain a new tech every 20-25 T; I would probably have been better off not wasting shields on those buildings in the first place. But despite that handicap, I am now even with or ahead of most of the AI-Civs — I believe the tech-leaders are all SCI-Civs — which means that even with their relative discount, the AI-Civs haven't been having an easy time researching (and most of them have no cash, either), likely due to their stunted empires...

(And back we go to the beginning of the niggles...)

 

Thanks for playing tjs! Nice to hear of new feedback after a while of it being released. I do find quite a bit of enjoyment when reading one's experiences .

The scenario clearly has problems. I managed to somehow create some odd AI behavior and some of my development decisions were because of this result; yet I think I made a fun, immersive scenario despite its drawbacks.

There were experiments in making many aspects of the civ3 game challenging, including the economy and warfare side of things. The economy side of things is heavily over-charged, requiring the player to think quite a bit on resource and unit management. Perhaps some things were over-the-top (like all the kiinim buildings stacking their costs as a result of the maintenance cost value never going obsolete), but I figured the more challenges in face of the player, the more fun the overall scenario experience would be instead of without them. I wanted to make the scenario experience worth it and not just another default civ3 skin with a preset map and custom civs. As a result of such measures, it does effectively keep some of the challenges that were at the beginning of the scenario, also at the end. In most games of default civ3, one's civ develops so much, costs become of little concern; but here, you feel a heavy weight all throughout with slight improvements.

Because of the poor performance by the AI, I had to somehow make them still competitive; so the difficulty levels reflect this. The AI almost never seem to build their cities from my experience, and their settler units stack up in their capital. I assumed it was because of the hostile environment around, so they didnt feel it was safe. I figured it was okay from a story point of view to keep this (that is very little expansion) and partially from my view point of trying to restrict too much expansion in the civ3 game. So the result is, the AI have massive amounts of unit support so they dont get crippled on that front, leaving more money for maintenance costs. This also means they get to build a massive army, threaten aggressively, and trek it across the world to attack you; which has happened on like every occasion of me playing, from Kyrregos and Miryaan - all unsuccessful on their side of course.

The low defense units is a direct con to not researching Thinking Combat. I thought this was a good trade-off and emphasizes offensive measures vs the barbarians and to really utilize terrain def bonuses. Since my philosophy was: "the more challenges...the more fun...the more worth it...", and the AI performed rather oddly, I figured I needed a real credible threat for the player to deal with while he/she is developing.

I did begin to get frustrated when making the mod with the limits of the default editor. I tried to use a hacked editor, but I corrupted a file a couple times, so I decided to stick with the default editor; but with the new updates of Quintullus, I see some great improvements that could be made as one progresses through the eras. I still like the world I created, so perhaps I may come back to it; but not sure how much civ3 modding is left in me. I am gradually working on the ancient era epic mod I've been working on, but not sure if I would attempt an overhaul of this story mod afterwards.

Some new possibilities with Quitullus' editor, you could have a basic Militia type unit, have its upgrade unlocked next era without a tech. Or Have Expansion Seasons between certain years: less reliance on auto-production. Heroes can be spawned in differently etc. Instead of waiting for a certain building, the Hero can be automatically spawned.

 

No, it doesn't, not really — I just haven't figured out yet how best to play it. There's a difference.

Yes, you did, as attested to by my lack of sleep this week... And you're right, the tension doesn't slack off — which is a Good Thing.

In an epic game at, say, Emp or below, if I've reached Turn 200+ without suffering any major setbacks, even if I'm not already into the runaway phase, I would certainly expect to be the eventual winner. Here, not so much — especially since the AI-Civs can win by VP (that mechanic has caused me more than one Emp-level failure at the Conquest-scenarios).

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't complaining about the CF=0.6, I was just surprised, given that the 'Monarch' CF for the epic-game is only 0.9! (And I don't dare to play epic at Deity!)

Yes, this sounds likely. Deliberately creating such a hostile environment for the Player, obviously means that it will also be hostile towards the AI-Nations. And because they will likely quickly end up at war with the Barbarian-Civs (e.g. from trying to retrieve their kidnapped Workers), but not have any decent defenders available to use as escorts, then their Settlers may well be considered too valuable to risk in the open. (Does the AI ever send out Settler-pairs while at war in the epic game? I can't remember offhand).

So not only might the AI-nations not get many Settlers in the first place (by rushing to get ThinCom), they may not even start using them until after they've built some of those 40-shield 2.2.1 spear-wielders that are now available (the Agardee-upgrades, for the Lerians: can't remember the name — starts with a 'D'...) — if they've also managed to hook up a source of metal before the war started (they tend not to leave their Workers in immediate harms' way, though). So it's not surprising that they're crippled in the early stages...

Hmmm... if the problem is a lack of available escorts, maybe giving the Egra (the 2(3).1.1 ATAR 'javelineer-scout' type unit) a boost to D=2 might help, and/or giving it both the 'Offensive' and 'Defensive' AI-Strategy flags (if it doesn't have both already: I haven't poked around in the .biq yet). Or, since the initial 2-3 towns are preplaced for each nation, maybe provide each non-Barb national capital with, say, 4 or 5 of the 2.2.1 spear-wielders to start with, before they can build them from scratch (if that's possible?).

Giving the Settler-units ATAR might also help, so that they can reach a nearby prospective city-site within a single turn (this would also help compensate for being forced to 'waste' a newly-produced Trader's first active turn on its upgrade). I would also be inclined to reduce the Barb-units to M=2, so they can't attack newly-founded low-Culture towns directly within a single turn...

Oh yeah, I totally get that, and I do wish that the epic game required the player to make more real trade-off decisions like that as well.

But when all initial units are D=1, then terrain defence bonuses are pretty meaningless. The best you can get is fortified (+25%) on a Hill (+50%), across a River (+25%), which — when all 3 of those circumstances apply simultaneously — will be just enough to get a D=1 unit to D=2, i.e. still less than than the A=3 Barb-units you'll be facing. Sure, building a Fortress (+50%) would help, but it's hardly a feasible option (in terms of Worker-turns needed, and unit-support costs) to surround an entire (Plains-based) empire with fully-garrisoned Fortresses.

And when the Barbarian-units also have sufficient MP to be able to cross borders and hit towns within a single turn, starting from well beyond visual range, then they can easily dodge round any fights they don't have a decent chance of winning...

Yes. I had much more trouble with the Northern Barbarians than with the 'actual' nations — right up until I killed them a couple of turns back, by knocking out the last 2 towns needed for Elimination (it took about 5 Cats per town, auto-bombarding their Palace Guards over 3 or 4 turns).

One of those towns had originally been Ephirian(?), so I even got to keep it without having to DoW them as well (but now I have a large stack of offensive units near their borders... what to do, what to do...?)

 

You've never seen the AI try to build near your borders or send settlers through your territory while at war? I hated it when the AI did that. Always wondered what their logic was. "Can I just sneak by his 10 cities?"

Changing the defense stat affects balance slightly. Also the Egra is meant to be a "special" unit, and its special ability was the ATAR ability. To give it 2 defense would make it quite overpowered I think.

Giving the settler ATAR is a consideration. The Nahrien settler was created to be faster than other civs' settlers, but I dont think that is a problem in this case.

I always had sentries outside my borders and replenished them often. So I could know ahead of time when a unit was near, and then I pulled away my workers or had enough units covering it so the worker would not be taken, and then I would kill it on the retreat. You are not the first to suggest a reducing to 2 M. I just loved how good they were at 3M. 3M has created a lot of frustration with the other testers . Having to constantly replace your units in this stage kept the player busy, so I preferred to leave it. Having said that, it probably is good to figure out some way of improving the AI's expansion, so perhaps some tough choices need to be made without hopefully too much loss of the hostility.

Ephrinan*...... hehe. Im not daily exposed to my fantasy names, but I think I remember a decent amount .

Warfare is not quite as nice as I would like it. Mainly because of the poor performance by the AI. So I think if I could improve that, it would be best for the scenario experience. It's still fun despite that, and I tried to "mask" it somewhat; but its noticeable. You basically just have to amass a bunch of units, lots of catapults, and then move your stack of doom...across a vast distance. You have to survive the barbs in the meantime, but that's my experience.

 

Not really to the former. As for the latter, I suspect that Settler-pairs already in transit when a war breaks out are working under a GoTo order, so they don't stop or turn around after crossing their border, just because their Dear Leader got in a snit and DoW'd [so]me[one]...

But I usually play at Emp, with a preference for Standard-Large, 60-70% water, Archi-Continents maps, and while an Emp-AI is usually no slouch at putting out Settlers and filling the map, it's not usually so OP that I end up fighting wars earlier than I wanted to.

And unless my Civ has a strong/fast Ancient UU, I also tend to play a relatively pacifist/ defensive early game: I expand where I can, perhaps taking occasional AI-towns as punitive damages for wars declared against me (Monty, Shaka, and the Jerk being utter *******s regardless of difficulty level), but start no wars myself before my landmass is already fully occupied (at which point the AI stops putting shields into Settlers anyway, and switches to building attack-units), or before I have a STRONG military/ Cavalry — whichever happens first.

Either way, there tend not to be many AI-Settlers flitting around while my wars are raging.

Well, yeah, but that was kind of the point, wasn't it — to give the AI a better/dedicated 'defender' unit in the early game, which it would be 'happy' to use for escort-duty?

And I would (respectfully!) suggest that having the AI hiding all its Settlers in its capital, instead of founding towns with them, is perhaps a more pressing balance issue...?

Fair enough. And ATAR means it couldn't really do escort-duty effectively anyway (unless Traders had ATAR too).

I was mostly using my Egra as scouts/sentries (as you describe), fortified on Hilltops overlooking the approach-roads to my borders, to act as early-warning — while my Agardee huddled behind their Bulwarks until Barbs incoming were confirmed (usually by the Egra getting killed, but never mind!).

Maybe in my next game I'll experiment with putting Forts on the roads themselves, which might at least force the Barbs offroad to waste their moves...

 

The AI do usually already have the settlers built beforehand, but keep them in their cities. They send them out even when you raze one of their own cities, or send it by boat. In this case, they dont have to build them, but they still have to "upgrade" them. I tried without civ-specific settlers too, meaning the settler would already be ready to go, but that didnt seem to do much, and I wanted civ-specifics.

One reason I kept the 3M was because I liked how if you were not keeping a good eye on your borders, they could come in sneakingly. With 2M, you have a chance to respond to them the turn before, because of your culture border having expanded rather easily with several culture buildings. The barbarians could most likely not come in and do a quick "skirmish". So having 3M, gives another task for the player to keep an eye on, and makes it hard to just sit back and play loosely. While the whole point is to be offensive on the barbarians (them having weak defense), having only 2M, makes it too easy to be on the offensive, because you can almost always kill them without them doing any real damage to you. This is one point of view; definitely could be overruled; but I leaned toward keeping it.

 

I want to replay this game mod… as a sidenote, how should one pronounce the names? I like getting into the spirit of the scenarios I play and, for some reason (possibly because I am learning German) the names sound as if they'd sound better with a ‘German’ rather than an ‘English’ pronounciation.

 

Well, there was certainly some inspiration there because I too was learning German at the time of creating the mod; but there is inspirations from many things. I just tried to make use of different letters and styles. The main thing I got frustrated with is word length. I kept coming out with similar amounts of letters per name and that doesnt seem very realistic/well-rounded. I also was influenced by more archaic english in some ways, and that has some influence from the German language.

Do you really want a sheet of pronunciations for each word/name? There should be some sort of pattern, but I cant be sure. One difference I can think of is possibly the "aan". I think of it more pronounced as "awwn". So Naherrawwn, or Cerilawwn (I think of 'c' as s here). I did try not to use obscure blends so that one could naturally know how to pronounce it just by knowing letter sounds.

 

When an upgrade is free, the AI will do it straight away (this is seen in CCM as well, which also has autoproduced Settlers — and Workers).

But once it has a new 'Build city' unit* ready to go, the current in-game conditions are what determines what it does with that unit. If the conditions are considered to be too 'dangerous' (e.g. because the AI doesn't also have a 'defence'-flagged escort unit available), the Settler may well stay put.

*(I assume the autoproduced precursor-unit doesn't have that unit-action flag, nor the 'Join city' flag? If it does, removing them might also help, since the precursor is immobile)

I'm also assuming that the Agardee is flagged as both 'offensive' and 'defensive'? Hmmm... wait a minute, I just though of another possible reason for the 'stationary Settler' problem...

Spoiler There's an old thread called something like 'What will the AI build next?'... :

Having 'decided' to build a unit rather than a building, the AI then has to decide what kind of unit to build: a defender or an attacker (or something else). Answering that question seems to follow a fairly simple algorithm ("If town is un[der]defended = build at least X defenders*; If town is adequately defended/ at war = build attackers [or something else]").

*(Even for crappy 1-shield towns, X_minimum = 2, with higher X-values apparently determined by the 'value' of the town to the AI, according to its size and what improvements have been built there: Capitals and/or Wonder-towns always seem to have [many] more defenders than non-Capital, non-Wonder towns of comparable size)

Then it looks at the list of units currently available to it, which have the required 'AI-strategy' flag, and (usually) picks the most powerful — but for each individual unit it builds, it assigns only one 'strategy', which will apply until death or disbandment of that individual unit. And it generally does not shift its assigned 'defenders' between towns, either — unless that defender is escorting a Settler.

With a Palace Guard(s) already provided in the capital, the AI might not see any 'need' to build 'defender' units there — but since PGs are immobile, they cannot themselves act as escort-units. If that's the case, maybe that's why their Traders aren't moving...?

Spoiler Update on my game (Turn 235 or so) :

The Ephrinans are dead — I guess they lost towns to (and regained them from) the Northern Barbarians too often, because I only hit one city, and they were eliminated (next stop: Naherraa...?). The Miryaans are also down: I 'inherited' one of their towns from the Northern Barbs a while back (before I killed them off), and captured 2 more directly from them, while depleting their capital of its D=1 defenders using a stack of Cats, Jistlers, and Archers (plus both my surviving multi-soldier 7.4.3[?] Army-type units — those are really cool!). Since their Capital contained the Miryaan Kings, obviously I didn't get to keep it, but I have Settlement-plans for those delicious Floodplains, already in mind (if I can build Settlers...).

I am currently at war with (and/or cannot trade with) about half the other Nations due to various Alliances and Embargoes that the Myrians initiated before their demise. I'm fighting mostly units from Lesegolos (keep reading that as 'Legolas' — sorry! ), Telasha and Relinor, but since I am ahead of all of them on tech (just about to get War Academy; only Sesirethel* and Erodil are ahead of me), it's basically a simple slaughter of their incoming D=1-2 units as they pass the western mountains.

*(That Leader is kinda hot, she reminds me a little of Angelina Jolie... )

The Berelliseg are the real danger right now: they're already at ~38000 VPs (having killed off the Certarens a long time ago), and I've only got ~32000. But my Miryaan-killing stack is already fairly impregnable, and well-placed to push forward within the next couple of turns, so it might just be time to school them...

 

Immobile upgrade unit has no ai strategy. Mostly ive seen the same civs usually build a city from their trader units. Erodil especially builds at least 2 (They tend to be in a more peaceful area). I've even seen Lesegolos build an entirely useless city by Lerian which had no res or anything. Plus the only way to get there was to walk around a massive range of mountains to access it from Lerian's side (since mountains impassable).

The first units available all have offense and defense ticked. I dont remember whether the civs acted any different with the Palace Guards not there; but they are crucial and cannot be removed. Civs die too easily otherwise . Would just a defense flag make any difference you think?

Nice to see Berelliseg kill Certaren . That is exactly what they are intended to do, but my game results were not as positive as I wanted with that.

That's understandable with Lesegolos. I probably should have chosen a different name....

You can thank R8XFT for Sesirithel's leader. She was originally the leader of Illyria in Anno Domini II.

I do warn you on Berelliseg. My attempts at attacking them before with Cerilaan and Deriria were unsuccessful. They do really well on the military front, though ive mostly seen Kyrregos attack people and not Berelliseg.

 

They did that in my game too: I assume they landed their Trader by boat, since it couldn't have got there overland that quickly.

And that was the town I took from them after they DoW'd me, because it was a near-perfect 2nd-ring position relative to my capital. It survived quite a long time, despite 2 Plague hits (those are pretty nasty too, BTW!), but the third Volcanic eruption finally demolished it...

Oh yeah, the PGs are indispensable. But if you give the A=2 units only the defence flag, then the AI might not send them out to attack anyone, which is also not intended.

It might therefore be necessary to gift 3-4 (defence-flagged) Denviels to each Nation to start with. That will of course also help the Human player, but if that would help the AI-Nations to build at least a few more towns, then their production advantage from those extra towns would then help to offset the Human's initial settlement advantage (obtained by delaying ThinCom).

Before I took on the Miryaans, I'd already had a few skirmishes with them from the Hills near their eastern borders (after they killed Certaren, and DoW'd me), which they lost in terms of units destroyed ("Subtract your casualties from the enemy's, and if the result is positive, it was a glorious victory!").

Although I have to admit that this was at least partly because they seemed to think it was far more important to suicide their units against the 2 Queen-Spiders in the nearby Hills, than to attack the small stack of Eklier, Argurens and Jistlers I had sheltering under an Elite Merssetar, on a Hill. I eventually had to retreat those units, though, since their collective HPs were getting too low to continue attacking on every turn, but everyone made it back to my (new) borders safely.

But the Spiders are now dead, and the road down to the Berelliseg borders was long since completed, so reinforcements can be sent on their way from my core as soon as they're built. So as soon as all my units are back in the green following the Miryaan campaign, it's gonna be a case of DoW, whittle down their initial doomstacks, before pressing forwards as incoming reinforcements permit, and grabbing some allies (if possible/necessary), to stab them in the back.

Might need to whip a Barracks in one of the ex-Miryaan Floodplain-towns, for faster unit-heals...

 

Yeah the spiders dont do much in normal SP, but the AI love to try and kill them. In MP they act like they were intended for some reason. They are the equivalent of the barbarian camps.