True Prophet Mod

[Aussie_Lurker]

True Prophets Mod v0.6BtS
By: Aussie_Lurker

Last Updated 17/10/10

Version: v0.6BtS
Patch Compatibility: Beyond the Sword v3.19
MP Compatible: No reason why not.

Download True Prophets Mod here

OK guys, we're definitely getting close to a v1.0. If you don't remember, a guy called Kiddunu released a mod that required religions to be founded by Great Prophets. Well I've taken that original idea & updated it for Beyond the Sword-using the Corporation Founding mechanics already provided.
I've also expanded on the original principle-adding a number of "pre-religion" temples & sacred buildings that you can build in order to get a Great Prophet quicker. Buildings like Middle-Eastern Temples, Central American Temples & Greco-Roman temples can now be constructed & manned with priests. You can also build Sacred Sites & Burial Grounds.

Still a few minor issues to fix-like getting the AI to emphasize buildings that produce Great Prophets, dealing with how & when ancient religious buildings should become obsolete & getting the pictures of the various religious buildings to show up in their proper color.


The changes to the C++ files are all marked with the following heading:

<True Prophets Mod Start> & <True Prophets Mod End>

-----To Do-----

(1) Add a tag to prevent building on Sacred Site in cities without access to mountains, forests or jungles.

(2) Try and find some good graphics for the various "sacred objects" that allow religions to be founded (only have Ark of the Covenant so far).

(3) Make major changes to the Religious Civics to make them much more interesting.

Enjoy.

-----===Credits & Thanks===-----

- TheLopez - for looking over my original mod & fixing my syntax issues . Also for providing the BuildingCivicPrereq Mod Component.
- Afforess - for fixing up all the AI issues surrounded with founding religions under the new system.
- Itzatrap - for helping to quickly highlight issues I might otherwise have missed.
-General Tso - for his help in the graphics department.
-The_J - again, for his help in the graphics department.
-Aaranda - for all the brilliant graphics that he added to the SevoMod, & which I was able to adapt for use in this mod!

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

A few screenshots that I hope will help to explain the concepts a bit better .

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Reserved.

 

[keldath]

nice - religion foundation via great person, not bad.

 

[Itzatrap XIII]

Its a nice mod, downloaded it, tried it and something very odd happened.

Loaded the mod, started to play and by the time of 3800 BC (2nd turn ? ), everybody suddenly popped up a religion! (Without a Prophet GP Unit)

I did tick off the choose religion though.

Don't have a save on what happened though, sorry about that one.

 

[smeagolheart]

I think you're not supposed to tick off choose religion

 

[Itzatrap XIII]

I think you're not supposed to tick off choose religion

I guess you were right, so I went back and tried it with choose religion ticked on.

The same thing still happens.

Once I settled a capital city, next thing that happened was that everybody suddenly popped a religion without a Prophet GP. ( this time by about 37780 BC )

I don't know what happened.

My first post on this thread was that I got Sury's Civ (Khmer) and the current one I got Saladin's Civ (Arabia).

It seems what religion you get is random. When I was the Khmer I got Christianity, when I was Arabia I got Daoism.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I guess you were right, so I went back and tried it with choose religion ticked on.

The same thing still happens.

Once I settled a capital city, next thing that happened was that everybody suddenly popped a religion without a Prophet GP. ( this time by about 37780 BC )

I don't know what happened.

My first post on this thread was that I got Sury's Civ (Khmer) and the current one I got Saladin's Civ (Arabia).

It seems what religion you get is random. When I was the Khmer I got Christianity, when I was Arabia I got Daoism.

Wow, that's really bizarre. Is anyone else seeing this? I confess I've not tested it extensively, but in the tests I have done this hasn't happened to me-nor can I see anything in the code that should cause it! As I said, if other people see this, could you let me know?

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Bugger, now it's happening to me too. This wasn't happening during my testing, so it must be something *very* recent. The problem is that I can't see the possible cause. Leave it with me & I'll see if I can fix the problem.

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK guys, as I've stated above in my edited post, I've fixed the problem with spontaneous, simultaneous foundation of religions. Fairly easy to fix as it turned out! Thanks for pointing this flaw out to me Itzatrap XIII !

Now, to more serious issue-getting the AI to use this. I got to 800BC without any religions being founded, which I see as a major flaw. Part of the problem might be the time it takes to get a Great Prophet. I went into World Builder, & it definitely looks like the AI's build the new religious improvements, so part of the issue might be beefing up the GPP rewards they grant-maybe +2 each instead of +1-what do you think?

Also, what about the various ancient temples? I currently have them working like other temples (i.e., they allow you to assign a priest specialist), but maybe that isn't good enough-maybe give all three religious improvements a base +2GPP/turn? In that case, what about the Religious Wonders-should they get a GPP boost too? Would that be potentially unbalancing later in the game? I plan to eventually limit the new religious buildings to the Paganism Civic, so maybe it won't be such an issue.

The other problem, though, is that the AI doesn't seem to use Great Prophets to found religions. I gave two civs a free Great Prophet-& the techs to use them-& nothing happened. Anyone know how I can encourage the AI to make use of the new mechanic?

Anyway guys, I look forward to your input, so that I can move this up to version 0.3 or even 0.4!

Aussie.

 

[smeagolheart]

I'd suggest opening a thread in the python/sdk subforum. I've made a great doctor that I've successfully forced the AI to use him in a biological attack against his worst enemy so I'm sure it's possible to force the AI to do something. It sounds like you'll need to cover a few areas such as making sure the max religions aren't already founded and so forth.

 

[Itzatrap XIII]

Another idea on how religion could be founded.

I was thinking (off of my head) that corporations get founded by the AI from time to time as well right?

Maybe founding religions could go by a similar mechanic, only maybe using the founding of the religion (via Great Prophet) with a 'dummy' building and then have another Great Prophet actually be able to build Holy City Building that rakes in the gold. (Or even a dummy resource? I can't quite say )

I don't know if that method might actually be feasible to make the AI recognize that founding a religion is useful for it or not, since I don't quite know much about how hard it is in coding the whole thing using Python or XML.

Just a friendly thought and idea.
And hopefully not an idea that hinders the progress of this mod.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Another idea on how religion could be founded.

I was thinking (off of my head) that corporations get founded by the AI from time to time as well right?

Maybe founding religions could go by a similar mechanic, only maybe using the founding of the religion (via Great Prophet) with a 'dummy' building and then have another Great Prophet actually be able to build Holy City Building that rakes in the gold. (Or even a dummy resource? I can't quite say )

I don't know if that method might actually be feasible to make the AI recognize that founding a religion is useful for it or not, since I don't quite know much about how hard it is in coding the whole thing using Python or XML.

Just a friendly thought and idea.
And hopefully not an idea that hinders the progress of this mod.

Um, that's actually how my True Prophets Mod works now-& how Corporation Founding works too. "Buildings" like Ark of the Covenant & The Analects of Confucius are effectively no different from the Buildings like Corporation_1 & Corporation_3-that found Corporations. Now obviously the developers found a way to make the AI use great people to Found Corporations, I just need to look over the AI code to see what they've done & apply it to my mod (probably somewhere in UnitAI.cpp I'd say). It might also require some changes to the XML, to make the flavors of these buildings appeal more to the various AI's. In the meantime though, I do think that I'll go & boost the GPP values of some of the ancient religious buildings-to make it possible to Found religion earlier than is currently the case!

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK guys, I've just uploaded v0.3 of the Mod. I've given a slight Great Prophet Point boost to all the early religious buildings, in order to ensure that religions can occur early enough in the game for them to be useful. With TheLopez's help, I've also added the Building Civic Prerequisite mod, which means that early temples, sacred sites & burial grounds can only be built when you're operating the Paganism Civic.
My next update will, I hope, feature decent graphics for the majority of the additional buildings, as well as proper text for them too.

Once these things are done, I'll look at making the Sacred Site dependent on certain terrain features (like mountains, forests & jungles), & will also look into how to improve the AI to make it found religions using this new system (assuming it doesn't already do it).

Please don't hold back on *any* feedback. I don't really have time to test the mod properly myself, so any feedback-positive or negative-will seriously help me to improve the Mod for you guys .

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey guys, just me again. One thing I'd really love to hear back from you guys on is whether or not the AI is founding religions in the game. It will really help, I think, it determining what changes-if any-I need to make to the AI. Thanks again & hope you guys are enjoying the mod!

Aussie.

 

[Itzatrap XIII]

I downloaded again, and tried out the mod again(since I wasn't busy and with the weather going bonkers and all ).

So I rolled random on Terra and I got crazy old Monty and his Aztecs buddies this time.

Built Sacred site, Burial Ground.

Met Cathy, Joao, Sury, Wang Kon and everybody else.

So I teched to Polytheism and yes, I can now build The Meso American Temples. (So that part does work)

Then I got me Meditation and then I got a Great Prophet.

Saw that he could build the Vedas, clicked that, got Hinduism.

No longer after that, I got me another Great Prophet but decided not to click The Eight Noble Path to pop Buddhism so to give the chance for others to pop it instead.

Wanted to build Stonehenge, but Mr.Wang Kon beat me to it.

Not long after that, some of the folks got Great Prophets of their own and I waited for them to pop Buddhism.

Nope, didn't happen.

Strangest thing though, Cathy suddenly decided to bug me to give her Meditation, but I declined. (she did that for the few next turns)

By the time it was near the end of the BCs suddenly some Civ popped Judaism. Then (I think a few turns after that or was it a few turns earlier?) Cathy popped Buddhism nearly the same time Wang Kon (or Sury?) popped Confucianism.

So the AI does recognize to an extent that popping a religion is important, but somewhat quite late for this particular session. (maybe they didn't have the tech, or was running out of money and decided to pop that later? )

And I remember that once I embraced the Organized Religion Civic, I can't build sacred sites, pagan temples and burial ground. (So yes, that part works)

But I remembered being very VERY bloody rich with +35 Gold per turns to my name.

Turns out that the 'Sacred Objects' that denote a 'Sacred City' has a +1 gold to it.

Add that with the get +1 from every Sacred Building due to Building Holy Shrine, I think its kinda a little bit too much. (I can't confirm that the 'Sacred Objects' generate +1 gold for every building built in that religion or just 'just +1 gold' )

And the fact that maybe because at that time more than half of the world espoused Hinduism?
I think I got rich because of that.

Another thing is that, I think the increasing of the +1 Priest for city or +2 to Holy Prophet GP from Sacred Site and Burial Ground needs to be looked at again.
Dunno about this one though I could be very wrong, I think Civs were popping up Great Prophets more than every other tipe of GP. But I only played until the end of the BCs and the early ADs .

But I do think the +culture for these buildings need to be curtailed a bit, Monty doesn't have the creative trait but that initial city quickly got a big chunk of land due to expanding cultural influence quite quickly (quicker than vanilla BTS )

And (this is just for flavour's sake) I don't think burial ground should be limited to Paganism. I think most cultures in the world found some way to dispose of their dead in one way or another.

Whether it is by burying, burning, defleshing, giving them to vultures, giving them to the body farm, through plastination, or even by turning them into Soylent Green, depends on preference, sensibilities and circumstances I guess.

So I think keeping the +1 health on Burial Grounds is good but either cut the +1 Culture out of it or something like that.

Well those are just my current suggestions.

Hope it helps and hinders not.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Itzatrap. Trust me, this is all *very* helpful. I'm curious, though, as to whether you lost the abilities of your *existing* Pagan Temples & Sacred Sites once you switched out of Paganism? Either way, the GPP issue is going to be a tough balancing act. Leave the numbers too low & you don't get religion til the AD's, leave it too high & you pop too many Great Prophets. The gold & culture issues are easy fixed-as they're actually just hold-overs from the buildings I copied & pasted as a template. I'll cut culture back to 1 for temples, & cut Gold from Sacred Objects altogether.
For the meantime, I'll probably remove the GPP's earned for building the "sacred objects", to see if this helps rebalance things. If it doesn't then I'll look at adjusting the amounts for Burial Grounds & Sacred Sites (most especially Burial Grounds, as I will be making them available post-paganism).
Just FYI, I'm also looking into adding a new tag to BuildingInfos that will restrict the construction of Sacred Sites to those cities that have a forest, mountain or jungle within their radius. That, I hope, should further balance things out.

As for the AI issues, at least they *are* using it-even if they are tardy ! I might have a chat to Aforress about the AI side of things, because he seems to be a bit of a Wiz when it comes to the AI .

Thank you for your report, & I hope you're enjoying the mod, in spite of the ongoing issues. Please don't be afraid to report any more issues you think are noteworthy-as it all helps me produce a more enjoyable mod IMHO .

Aussie.

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK guys, version 0.6 has been released with serious modifications made in the areas of text, graphics & AI behaviour. Check out the opening post to download the latest version &-as always-don't hesitate to report any issues you pick up on.

The key issue for me right now is how to get ancient religious buildings to become obsolete. Any suggestions on these matters would be greatly appreciated !

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Itzatrap, haven't heard from you for a while. How are you finding v0.6, if you don't mind me asking? You have been a fantastic font of information on both the balance issues of the game & in relation to AI behavior, so I'd love to hear what your in-game experiences have been to date .

Aussie.

 

[Itzatrap XIII]

Hey Itzatrap, haven't heard from you for a while. How are you finding v0.6, if you don't mind me asking? You have been a fantastic font of information on both the balance issues of the game & in relation to AI behavior, so I'd love to hear what your in-game experiences have been to date .

Aussie.

Well sorry about not logging on. I'm kinda busy recently (besides the usual excuse of 'my internet connection died' ) with other things I need to attend to.

In any case I do find some particularly strange behavior the AI did recently.

I did download the latest version and am happy to report that at least up to the end BCs and early ADs other types of Great People are founded. So I suggest leaving the number of Prophet +GP points as is.
Early human development was filled with Mystical Visionaries anyway (either that or a lot of people dancing around, singing and getting themselves High )

I can confirm that AIs are founding religions, but strangely at the earliest it seems they founded those early religions at usually the same time. It seems it always happens around 700BC and I got messages of several Civs founding available religions at the same time. Not all of them, but the ones that they have the tech to pop it with.

Could it have something to do with the 'Atheism hidden tech' that stops all religions from being founded altogether at the same time?

Besides that, AI Civs are still a bit lax when founding religions, but not too lax.

The 'cannot build without Paganism Civic' still works for both Ancient Temple and Sacred Site. This is confirmed through play.

But I'm sorry to say that after choosing other Civics besides Paganism, I still get the benefits of both buildings. So they did not become obsolete by not choosing the any non-Paganism civic.

I do not recommend that they become obsolete due to researching a tech though, but that can still be managed that way, if you are going this route I propose you make it obsolete using Medieval Techs or Renaissance Techs, just like monasteries becoming obsolete by the Scientific Method tech.

Another thing is if, I'm not mistaken, that you wanted the Sacred Site building to be only buildable only if there are forests around.

During play I was Rome and I had chopped down all the forest, I checked back again and I still had the option to build a Sacred Site. But my capital city was founded on a hill surrounded by forests in the beginning. Maybe that counts as well?

I am pleased that you did include some graphics for Buildings from the JARM mod.
Perhaps you might like to look into the Rapture Mod as well? Can't remember.

My problem was that the Ancient Middle Eastern Temple skin seemed... odd in game. It seemed that the texture of that building makes it look like it wasn't made from bricks but uh, chocolate syrup? At least it looked like that in the Pedia.

Not a big problem, you're not the one making the graphics. The other Ancient Temples looked good in game though.

Another thing was that I found that the Arc of The Covenant's building graphic was so small compared to the other 'Founding Buildings' available, but it is a good representation in game nevertheless.

Loved the Noble Eight Fold Path building you used for the founding building for Buddhism. The Buddha Touching The Earth statue makes it unique.

If only somebody had a 'Shiva, Lord of The Dance statue' or some other Hindu representation for the Vedas, would be great!

The Kaaba for the 'Founding Buildings' for Islam. I think I saw something like that in a mod for Civ III. Maybe you should look into the Sword of Islam RFC mod in CIV IV for something similar? Never tried that mod before though.

Maybe different graphics for Daoism and Confucianism founding buildings as well if thats not a hard thing to do.

The Gods of Old Shrine seemed a good fit for Daoism, since some main tenets of Daoism is Harmony with Nature (even though ironically The Gods of Old mod IS about The Mid-East pre-Islamic Gods using Great Prophets to cause calamities, a bit far from the harmony Daoism seems to espouse).

Confucianism might get Founding Buildings from the CIV Warlord Chinese Unification Mod. Maybe the Family Altar building?

As for Christianity's founding building 'The Gospels'? I don't know, but the Vikings mod and FFH: AoI did have a book on a pedestal type building (called Sagas or something) that can be used.

Again, I know you didn't make the graphics for the building so its just a friendly suggestion. If it is too much work, what is in there for buildings would already suffice.

Keep the +1 health for Burial Ground. Its a good early Health boost for early Civs.

The problem of Buildings giving hefty sums of +1 gold is gone. Again, confirmed through play.

The Pedia Text for Celtic Ancient building is still missing in the Civilopedia.

Haven't found anything besides that currently, so hope that helps and not hinder.