TLC Mercantile (Experimental)

[Oni Ryuu]

Sorry if that sounded forceful. I spent the previous hour arguing with a “flat earth society” nutter.

 

[Jarovid]

No, you sounded alright. I just wanted to clarify that I am not some grumpy 'know-it-all' fellow, and I don't expect that everything I said must be taken at face value.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I think you lose a lot of context when you’re communicating with just writing. I find I gesture like a bad mime act when I talk. I have to repeatedly retype everything I say because English is extremely idiomatic and communicating in pure text isn’t natural to me.

How is your game progressing?

I removed the balloons before I released the game and I’m reconsidering bringing them back.
Balloons/Airships – hidden nationality, no HP, 1 move, aircraft, all terrain as road, cruise missile
They can enter any tile land and sea, even ones owned by an opponent; this makes them invulnerable so making them a cruise missile is supposed to redress that.
Barrage balloon – 1 HP, aircraft, 1 operational range, air superiority, airlift, 1 defence, 1 attack
Basically just cannon fodder for the air. It only covers 1 tile like SAM’s and anti-air units. It’s a cheap air unit to buy time for a threatened/isolated city or in a war of attrition. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that fodder is a staple of the game.

I was also toying with the idea of having a Chukar Decoy Drone unit. This is the most relevant bit.
Aircraft, 1 attack, 1 defence, 1 bombard, 1 hit, 1HP, 15 operational range
Simply offensive air-fodder.

 

[Jarovid]

I think you lose a lot of context when you’re communicating with just writing. I find I gesture like a bad mime act when I talk. I have to repeatedly retype everything I say because English is extremely idiomatic and communicating in pure text isn’t natural to me.

And the english is not my native language on the top of all this.

My game is progressing slow. I control more than 2/3 of the largest continent now and turns take a very long time to play. I crossed the desert of 'non-eventful' techs and start the one that will yield two eco power plants.

I vote for baloons, but reconoissance seems more natural than cruise missile to me.

Drones of any kind are also more then welcome.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’m sure you’re glad that the modern era is all productive tech.

I’ll get to work on the balloons and decoy drone.

I’ve been limiting my growth from the start to better test the late industrial/early modern period of the game. I’m about to learn Naval Aviation and I’m going to switch to fascism and declare war on everyone until I complete the entire tech tree. I did consider conquering land to give to the Celts for a stronger rival but the AI will have a better chance of overstretching me as smaller independent nations. I really wish the temporary wartime buildings were working for this.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Someone recommended three more temporary improvements (replace improvement with this flag checked). I'd like to hear your opinion?

Reduced Working Hours – production -25%, +5 content citizens
To reduce the strain on war-weary cities
Maximise Production - production +50%, +3 unhappy citizens
Demand higher output from a city. Useful for rearmament at the start of a war and doesn’t accelerate war-weariness.
Rearmament Program (SW) – places a Maximise Production improvement in all of your cities.

EDIT: I’ve completed all of the tech in the industrial age. I’ve turned my scientific research down to 0% to get full use from the WW1 era tech. I’m going to stay as a representative democracy until I have what I need to maintain a total war on all fronts. Finally, I’ll switch to fascism, declare war of everyone and continue my technological development.

 

[Jarovid]

I've researched Mass Production (at last!) but I can't see Colonial Infantry in the building queue.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Hurray! Welcome to the meat grinder.

Colonial units shouldn’t appear in the build menu (I marked them as king units in the updated BIQ) and should only be accessible by upgrading slaves.
There was an additional error specific to the Colonial Infantry. The UN Peacekeeper upgrades to Infantry (Mass Production) but should have been set to Grunt (The Laser).

The Cromwell tank in Motorized Transportation (disabling the Medium tank) should be in Mechanised Warfare.

EDIT: I’m going to change the settings for the Siege Tower. I didn’t find a use of it and it doesn’t quite make sense.

New Settings
12 HP, 1 Defence, 0 Attack, 1 Bombard Range, 40 Bombard Strength, 1 Hit, 2 Infantry Capacity, Towed

It should now be vulnerable to a direct attack but have enough hit points to endure the bombardment from your target city. It will allow some of your infantry to approach the city safely and attack in the same turn. Being towed prevents it from being a viable replacement for Oxen Carts.

• Gets your troops there early
• Takes artillery fire instead of your troops
• Bombards the enemy

 

[Jarovid]

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’ll attempt to fix this immediately; no one wants a crash this late into a game. Even if you just saved it, the lost waiting time alone is aggravating.

EDIT: The patch worked in a test scenario but it will take until tomorrow before I can confirm that the patch will work for current games. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work but I didn’t know what the problem was to begin with.

This is the patch I used.
Patch Folder

 

[Jarovid]

In original Wondersplash file there is Parliament pcx file, which is omitted in patch folder. Shall I keep Parliament, or just ran over original folder?

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I omitted the Parliament pcx because i believe that one was working. You shouldn’t need to replace it.

I can confirm that the patch will work for your game.
I don't understand why the original file and the replacement didn't work.

 

[Nanuk]

That's quite a large map, Oni. How are the wait times in-between turns?

 

[Oni Ryuu]

That’s mentioned at the top of the first post.

Spoiler Statistics : Stats for Huge (360^2) map, 31 players
Initial load time: 1 minuet
Load from save turn 300: 2 minuets
Turn 150 transition: 4 minuets
Turn 300 transition: 17 minuets
Turn 450 transition: 23 minuets
Turn 600 transition: 26 minuets

They’re not averages so there’ll be some discrepancy.

 

[Jarovid]

From my experience those wait times are much smaller.

 

[Jarovid]

Another problem, now during loading saved game.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I reorganised some of the units. When moving the units I deleted some of the old unit references in the pediaicons text forgetting that it would affect our games. It must have been last Sunday when I sent the updated pediaicons.

This should let you load the game but I’m still going to check through the text to make sure that there aren’t any other problems.
PediaIcons.txt

 

[Nanuk]

From my experience those wait times are much smaller.

Is this based off system specs more than other things? I have a very powerful system and I play Civ 3 because it's a favorite, so how much are wait times affected these days? I have yet to go into the modern era on a huge map with my current system.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’m using a 14 year old tower top that was sat in a cupboard for years. It tries to die every other week.
If my PC got any dumber I’d have to feed it oats.

EDIT: I just realised that my PC is faster than my brother’s 5 year old laptop. So I don’t really know what to tell you.

 

[Jarovid]

I play on average 3-4 years old laptop. I had 8 minutes wait time (including instructions I had to give to my cities) in my last turn (626 or something like that).