Two extra gamespeeds (Snail and Turbo)

[Romtos]

I loved the added speeds from Civ IV mod RoM (IIRC) so until it's done better I decided to quickly patch up two extra game speed options. I thought I would share this for those who also like more options and to better balance the two added speeds.

The vanilla speeds are quick (330 turns), standard (500 turns), epic (750 turns) and marathon (1500 turns). I added turbo (165 turns) and snail (3000 turns). I finished one game with turbo speed and it seems to work out fine. If you'd like to help balance this out, see the exact points of interest under the spoiler.

Spoiler :

In principal I simply extrapolated all speeds modifiers to the new amount of turns, but I encountered a small number of problems which I fixed as follows, and might need some balance.

First of all, the variable GoldGiftMod was set to, from quick to marathon, 125;100;75;67, for Turbo was easy (133) but for Snail I set this to a cautious 64. I'm not sure exactly what this does.

Secondly, the variable BarbPercent was set to, from quick to marathon, 67;100;150;400. If the marathon value would have been 300, it'd have made more sense. I decided to set it to 33 for Turbo and 800 for Marathon, but especially the marathon value might be too high. I suspect this has to do something with barbarian spawning or such.

Thirdly, the variable GoldenAgePercent was set to, from quick to marathon, 80;100;125;200. I set this to 60 for Turbo and 400 for Marathon as a rough guess.

Fourthly, the variable InflationPercent was set to, from quick to marathon, 45;30;20;10. I set this to 60 for Turbo and 5 for Marathon as a rough guess, again.

Lastly, I simply doubled the MonthIncrement and halved the TurnsPerIncrement for Turbo for each Era and visa versa for Snail, as best as I could. I have no idea how this exactly affects the actual game (since eras are actually determined by technology).

All other variables were easy to extrapolate and need no further consideration, I suspect.

Also, I was lazy with the strings and just typed the new speed names directly in the XML

Warning: This mod has not been developed with the SDK and as such is not suitable for any use outside of single player. To play multiplayer first restore the changes this mod makes.

To install this, find the file CIV5GameSpeeds.xml in Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization 5\assets\gameplay\xml\gameinfo and make a backup of it. Then download this post's attachment and replace the original file with it.

Edit:
Version 0.2
-Changed BarbPercent
-Added 9000 turn Glacial option

 

[MasterDinadan]

Very nice!

I think that GoldGiftMod affects how much influence you get from city states when you give them gold. The influence amount seems to round to fives regardless.

BarbPercent seems to affect how often barbarian encampments appear. Lower numbers mean they appear more frequently. Why they made it so high on marathon on not on any others is unusual, and I'm thinking maybe an oversight (I actually have noticed very few barbarians on marathon).

33 on Turbo also seems rather small. Since your units still have the same number of turns to deal with twice as many barbarian encampments, it gets out of control pretty easily. I actually don't see why this number should vary based on game length at all...

MonthIncrement and TurnsPerIncrement probably don't have any affect on gameplay at all. They only seem to affect how much the in-game calendar advances each turn. For instance, a MonthIncrement of 720 will mean that the calendar advances 720 months every turn, and a TurnsPerIncrement of 50 means it will move at that rate for 50 turns before using the next increment. That being said, the numbers you are using are correct.

 

[Thuellai]

Awesome. As someone else has pointed out, you can contact Valkrionn to get this patched into an official format, so that you don't have to overwrite files.

 

[Romtos]

@MasterDinadan

I changed the BarbPercent to 600 for Snail and 50 for Turbo. During my Turbo game I noticed I got spammed with Barbarians, so I guess it could be toned down a little. I do think it needs scaling, because Barbarians require resources (i.e. units) to be countered, but said resources are accumulated much slower in longer games, requiring slower Barbarian spawning. Why Marathon is 400 I have no idea, but I'll leave it at that.

@Thuellai

Who is this Valkrionn and how would I go about contacting him? I indeed see other mods having very convenient mod files, which install the proper way.

@anyone

I added one more speed (because I could) called Glacial, for a total of 9000 turns. It becomes enter-fest anything short of modern age I guess, but I played around with it and no reason not to include it.

 

[Kadath]

Does anybody know what production percent values are tied to in the gamespeeds xml?

From the marathon speed:

• <TrainPercent>300</TrainPercent> - unit training;
• <ConstructPercent>300</ConstructPercent> - construct what?
• <CreatePercent>300</CreatePercent> - create what?
• <BuildPercent>300</BuildPercent> - build what?

Seems there are 4 different values that could be affecting production. Maybe they're units/wonders/projects/buildings?

I would like to increase research in marathon to like 400% while decreasing production to 200%, and then apply something similar to your snail gamespeed, but I'm not sure all these values are actually really connected to production.

 

[Thuellai]

Valkrionn is a user here. You can PM him with the files and a description of what you'd like the mod to be called and explained as, and he'll use the Beta tools to package it in the proper mod format. I tried to do so myself manually but I can't get the gamespeeds to show up in the interface.

 

[Dale]

Or just read my blog for how to create a civ5mod file without the tools.

 

[Thuellai]

Tried that, Dale. Didn't have much luck, can't get it to display them in the interface.

 

[Valkrionn]

I'm not sure gamespeeds work well as a mod file; I added one to my own mod, and A)Could only access it from the 'advanced' menu, and B)Had the game crash while loading. Otherwise I would pack it.

 

[WRL07]

defiantly excited to see this out, I thought the game pace was way to quick for me even on marathon, so did I for 4 though.

hope it already has the bugs worked out though. I'll report back my experiences.

 

[Romtos]

Does anybody know what production percent values are tied to in the gamespeeds xml?

From the marathon speed:

• <TrainPercent>300</TrainPercent> - unit training;
• <ConstructPercent>300</ConstructPercent> - construct what?
• <CreatePercent>300</CreatePercent> - create what?
• <BuildPercent>300</BuildPercent> - build what?

Seems there are 4 different values that could be affecting production. Maybe they're units/wonders/projects/buildings?

I would like to increase research in marathon to like 400% while decreasing production to 200%, and then apply something similar to your snail gamespeed, but I'm not sure all these values are actually really connected to production.

Like you, I'd guess it's BuildPercent but I'm not sure. I suggest just playing around with it a bit.

Or just read my blog for how to create a civ5mod file without the tools.

Thanks, I might try, despite Thuellai and Valkrionn not having much success.
I noticed one reason not to edit core files: "3. You will lose the ability to earn Steam achievements with modified core files." That is not true. I got loads of achievements while testing Turbo speed. It actually surprised me, since I'd be able to get them much quicker and that's not really fair. But it is working, nonetheless.

I'm not sure gamespeeds work well as a mod file; I added one to my own mod, and A)Could only access it from the 'advanced' menu, and B)Had the game crash while loading. Otherwise I would pack it.

Thanks anyway. Do you think it'll work better when the SDK of officially released?

defiantly excited to see this out, I thought the game pace was way to quick for me even on marathon, so did I for 4 though.

hope it already has the bugs worked out though. I'll report back my experiences.

Please do.

 

[steel.stiletto]

Does anybody know what production percent values are tied to in the gamespeeds xml?

From the marathon speed:

• <TrainPercent>300</TrainPercent> - unit training;
• <ConstructPercent>300</ConstructPercent> - construct what?
• <CreatePercent>300</CreatePercent> - create what?
• <BuildPercent>300</BuildPercent> - build what?

Seems there are 4 different values that could be affecting production. Maybe they're units/wonders/projects/buildings?

I would like to increase research in marathon to like 400% while decreasing production to 200%, and then apply something similar to your snail gamespeed, but I'm not sure all these values are actually really connected to production.

I made a mod (and uploaded it) that increases the build speed slightly (so you would have more units to move and fight with etc) on marathon speed games. The only values that I changed were

TrainPercent from 300 to 240 (20% faster)
and
ConstructPercent from 300 to 270 (10% faster)

From my short testing I did, this affected units (train) and buildings (construct). So, I don't actually know what create and build do, but there's your answer for two of them.

Also, regarding the issue about it crashing when loading, make sure not to have an ID tag. It's auto-incrementing, so you don't need to put it in, the database will create one for you. I did it originally, and that's why it was crashing for me. Let me know if that helps.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Build is probably tile improvements.

 

[steel.stiletto]

That may be true, but I think it seems more likely that the attribute right after BuildPercent (which is ImprovementPercent) is the one related to building improvements.

 

[MasterDinadan]

Wonders and Projects makes sense.
The game obviously makes a distinction between them since you can rush wonders with a Great Engineer but you can't rush projects.

 

[Valkrionn]

Does anybody know what production percent values are tied to in the gamespeeds xml?

From the marathon speed:

• <TrainPercent>300</TrainPercent> - unit training;
• <ConstructPercent>300</ConstructPercent> - construct what?
• <CreatePercent>300</CreatePercent> - create what?
• <BuildPercent>300</BuildPercent> - build what?

Seems there are 4 different values that could be affecting production. Maybe they're units/wonders/projects/buildings?

I would like to increase research in marathon to like 400% while decreasing production to 200%, and then apply something similar to your snail gamespeed, but I'm not sure all these values are actually really connected to production.

• Units
• Buildings
• Projects
• I would assume worker builds, but then you have ImprovementPercent; So Not sure.

The first three I'm very sure on though, same tags as Civ4.

I made a mod (and uploaded it) that increases the build speed slightly (so you would have more units to move and fight with etc) on marathon speed games. The only values that I changed were

TrainPercent from 300 to 240 (20% faster)
and
ConstructPercent from 300 to 270 (10% faster)

From my short testing I did, this affected units (train) and buildings (construct). So, I don't actually know what create and build do, but there's your answer for two of them.

Also, regarding the issue about it crashing when loading, make sure not to have an ID tag. It's auto-incrementing, so you don't need to put it in, the database will create one for you. I did it originally, and that's why it was crashing for me. Let me know if that helps.

My mod increased buildspeed as well, but did so for all gamespeeds by modifying costs.

The entire file for my unit cost changes:

UPDATE Units SET 'Cost' = cost*0.8 WHERE Cost > 0;

SQL is a wonderful thing.

 

[zappara]

Nice, this saves my time - I don't need to make Snail game speed

 

[Romtos]

Nice, this saves my time - I don't need to make Snail game speed

Feel free to use it.
Got the idea from you anyway.

 

[MasterDinadan]

@MasterDinadan

I changed the BarbPercent to 600 for Snail and 50 for Turbo. During my Turbo game I noticed I got spammed with Barbarians, so I guess it could be toned down a little. I do think it needs scaling, because Barbarians require resources (i.e. units) to be countered, but said resources are accumulated much slower in longer games, requiring slower Barbarian spawning. Why Marathon is 400 I have no idea, but I'll leave it at that.

It depends on how you think about it. Barbarians don't require you to continue making units. You just build a certain minimum number, and you are fine. In Quick, two warriors can easily keep your civ safe from barbarians early in the game. In Marathon, you can probably manage with one since they spawn so slowly that you can easily heal up and make it to an encampment before another spawns.

The minimum force needed to deal with barbarians shouldn't be more than 2 warriors just because the game speed got faster. You can build those two warriors quicker on a higher game speed, but they still represent the same proportion of your total number of game turns.

Think of it this way... defending against barbarians involves different kinds of resources. You need hammers to make units, but you also need turns to heal your warriors and move them around. In a quick game, the hammer cost scales, but the number of turns to move and heal does not. It's not fair to double the barbarians just because the hammer cost is halved, because the main resource needed (turns) didn't change.

 

[jg400]

Downloaded and will give it a try , the interesting thing for me is why the varying speeds were created in CIV 4 (I did play CIV 4 a bit but I didn't like it much, but I love Civ 5) , I understand it was to create a slower paced game but if the building , construction etc takes proportionally the same time then what is gain , for me the longer games should have proportionally quicker construct times. The various constructpercents etc look interesting , I notice for instance Romtos that in your xml file the percents are generally 6 times the standard (600 vs 100) for the snail pace , I might try and change them to say 400 percent to see how it balances the game (If you don't mind )