[Vanilla] Trying to create a new game speed, confused with the details

[Alberto Vilches]

I am trying to change the values of Marathon speed to be twice as long as standard and not thrice however I can't make sense of the values on SidMeiersCivilizationVI\Base\Assets\Gameplay\Data\GameSpeeds.xml. I understand the first section, <GameSpeeds>, but the other ones are confusing me. It's not just that I don't understand what <MonthIncrement> and <TurnsPerIncrement> mean, but I also can't see how their values relate to Standard speed.

I'm doing this manually because I got the game on Epic therefore I don't have access to the modding tools.

Any help?

 

[Laurana Kanan]

"MonthIncrement" indicates how many months/years/time pass each game turn. "TurnsPerIncrement" indicate how many turns the corresponding MonthIncrement are applied. So, for example, if you have 12 for the MonthIncrement and 50 for TurnsPerincrement, for 50 turns the game will advance 12 months/1year in time for each of those turns. The total of all the TurnsPerIncrement equals the total length of your game (e.g. Standard is 500 turns). The total of all the MonthIncrement times the corresponding TurnsPerIncrement equals the total length of time of your game (e.g. Standard begins in 4000B.C. & goes to 2050 A.D.)

 

[Alberto Vilches]

"MonthIncrement" indicates how many months/years/time pass each game turn. "TurnsPerIncrement" indicate how many turns the corresponding MonthIncrement are applied. So, for example, if you have 12 for the MonthIncrement and 50 for TurnsPerincrement, for 50 turns the game will advance 12 months/1year in time for each of those turns. The total of all the TurnsPerIncrement equals the total length of your game (e.g. Standard is 500 turns). The total of all the MonthIncrement times the corresponding TurnsPerIncrement equals the total length of time of your game (e.g. Standard begins in 4000B.C. & goes to 2050 A.D.)

Thanks for the answer.

I'm going to type all I know/think/want to ask here so that it can be useful to someone else.

On the GameSpeeds.xml in SidMeiersCivilizationVI\Base\Assets\Gameplay\Data\, I can see 4 sections that describe the characteristics of the different speeds, with the first one being <GameSpeeds>. It contains 5 rows, one for each speed.

<GameSpeeds>

<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<Name>LOC_GAMESPEED_MARATHON_NAME</Name>
<Description>LOC_GAMESPEED_MARATHON_HELP</Description>
<CostMultiplier>300</CostMultiplier>
<CivicUnlockMaxCost>300</CivicUnlockMaxCost>
<CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>30</CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>
<CivicUnlockMinCost>60</CivicUnlockMinCost>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_EPIC</GameSpeedType>
<Name>LOC_GAMESPEED_EPIC_NAME</Name>
<Description>LOC_GAMESPEED_EPIC_HELP</Description>
<CostMultiplier>150</CostMultiplier>
<CivicUnlockMaxCost>150</CivicUnlockMaxCost>
<CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>15</CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>
<CivicUnlockMinCost>30</CivicUnlockMinCost>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_STANDARD</GameSpeedType>
<Name>LOC_GAMESPEED_STANDARD_NAME</Name>
<Description>LOC_GAMESPEED_STANDARD_HELP</Description>
<CostMultiplier>100</CostMultiplier>
<CivicUnlockMaxCost>100</CivicUnlockMaxCost>
<CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>10</CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>
<CivicUnlockMinCost>20</CivicUnlockMinCost>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_QUICK</GameSpeedType>
<Name>LOC_GAMESPEED_QUICK_NAME</Name>
<Description>LOC_GAMESPEED_QUICK_HELP</Description>
<CostMultiplier>67</CostMultiplier>
<CivicUnlockMaxCost>75</CivicUnlockMaxCost>
<CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>10</CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>
<CivicUnlockMinCost>15</CivicUnlockMinCost>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_ONLINE</GameSpeedType>
<Name>LOC_GAMESPEED_ONLINE_NAME</Name>
<Description>LOC_GAMESPEED_ONLINE_HELP</Description>
<CostMultiplier>50</CostMultiplier>
<CivicUnlockMaxCost>50</CivicUnlockMaxCost>
<CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>5</CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>
<CivicUnlockMinCost>10</CivicUnlockMinCost>​

</Row>​

</GameSpeeds>

I don't understand all the fields but it seems that the values in them match the game length difference relative to the standard mode described in the game menu: 50% for Online, 67% for Quick, 150% for Epic and 300% for Marathon. For my purposes, I'm gonna change the values of Marathon to be 200% those of Standard. The only problem is that this doesn't seem like it will affect the time it takes to research technologies and civics. On Epic, Pottery will take 14 times to research and Code Of Laws 23 whereas on Marathon it's 27 and 45 respectively (in both cases this is calculated with +2.8 Science and +1.3 Culture.

<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<Name>LOC_GAMESPEED_MARATHON_NAME</Name>
<Description>LOC_GAMESPEED_MARATHON_HELP</Description>
<CostMultiplier>200</CostMultiplier>
<CivicUnlockMaxCost>200</CivicUnlockMaxCost>
<CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>20</CivicUnlockPerTurnDrop>
<CivicUnlockMinCost>40</CivicUnlockMinCost>​

</Row>

The next section is <GameSpeed_Turns> and I'm totally lost here (I've only pasted Standard and Marathon here to avoid taking too much space):

<GameSpeed_Turns>

<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>180</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>100</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>120</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>300</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>60</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>170</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>24</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>201</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>12</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>129</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>6</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>180</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>3</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>264</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>1</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>156</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>

<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_STANDARD</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>480</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>75</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_STANDARD</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>300</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>60</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_STANDARD</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>240</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>25</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_STANDARD</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>120</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>50</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_STANDARD</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>60</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>60</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_STANDARD</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>24</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>50</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_STANDARD</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>12</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>120</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>
<Row>

<GameSpeedType>GAMESPEED_STANDARD</GameSpeedType>
<MonthIncrement>6</MonthIncrement>
<TurnsPerIncrement>60</TurnsPerIncrement>​

</Row>​

</GameSpeed_Turns>

Each kind has 8 rows except for Epic which has 7. I see that each speed's values in <TurnsPerIncrement> add to its total number of turns (500 for Standard and 1500 for Marathon). Many values seem to be picked at random. I guesss I could just multiply each value in <TurnsPerIncrement> by 0.67 to get 1000 turns but not changing <MonthIncrement> might cause pacing problems.

I have no idea what last 2 sections, <GameSpeed_Scalings> and <GameSpeed_Durations>, do.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

The next section is <GameSpeed_Turns> and I'm totally lost here

Already explained in the previous post.

As for the other things, it would be helpful to know exactly what you're wanting to accomplish.