Various proposals after playtesting 2.9

[Derek Brown]

Halfway through a large game in 2.9. All looks great. Wanted to send a few ideas for the board's / mod team's consideration. And again, I thank the team for all the hard work done so far and ongoing effort to keep this game alive so long.

1. I've noticed a bug (?) where sometimes when conquering a coastal settlement your ground forces have to attack a ship. And the ship is very hard to beat. One took me about 7-8 rounds with a pair of upgraded Hessians. Weirdly, after the first unit hit the ship, whatever his points reduced to, it stayed the same after other units hit it. So, I kept having to heal and hope that the first unit hitting it on a turn killed it. Let me know if you want me to send a savegame for this.

2. Bug -> When I zoom out on the map a lot of it turns black. Not referring to undiscovered territory. I can send screenshot if needed.

3. [Idea] -> Ability to scrap buildings. Especially when you conquer a settlement and want to clean up all the unneeded buildings built by the AI. Maybe you get 25% of the building materials added to inventory. Although I can see some resistance to that for balancing reasons. If anything, just to clean up the clutter.

4. [Idea] -> Button to highlight road types. Will make it easy to see your plastered country roads when planning road building. I have to mouse over quite a bit and read the tile data to see if it's a regular road, country road, or PCR

5. [Idea] -> Shortcut key to add / delete labels and lines without needing to zoom out really far

6. [Idea] -> I like the quests to export X# of trade goods. Is there a place where you can look up your progress? If not, would be nice to see.

 

[Elirector]

Haven't played 2.9 yet, but some of your proposals are old enough. #1 is the reason I hate wars with europeans. I can add the fact you can't attack ships harboring in colony with your ships, it could overweight the problem with land units trying to beat much more powerful enemy ships.
4 and 6 ideas are great, haven't though of it but now you mentioned it I don't know how to leav without it

 

[Nightinggale]

1. I've noticed a bug (?) where sometimes when conquering a coastal settlement your ground forces have to attack a ship. And the ship is very hard to beat. One took me about 7-8 rounds with a pair of upgraded Hessians. Weirdly, after the first unit hit the ship, whatever his points reduced to, it stayed the same after other units hit it. So, I kept having to heal and hope that the first unit hitting it on a turn killed it. Let me know if you want me to send a savegame for this.

A savegame would be nice. I have no idea what is happening.

I would however say that when Sweden attacked Denmark in 1658 and the Swedes rushed to the city wall of Copenhagen, the Danes had placed a ship in such a way that anybody in front of the wall was in direct line of fire from the ship cannons. Having ships adding some sort of defensive power isn't awful by itself. It just has to be balanced.

2. Bug -> When I zoom out on the map a lot of it turns black. Not referring to undiscovered territory. I can send screenshot if needed.

Known issue. For whatever reason the number of plots the engine will draw depends on the width of the map and so far nobody has tried to increase the map size to counter it.

4. [Idea] -> Button to highlight road types. Will make it easy to see your plastered country roads when planning road building. I have to mouse over quite a bit and read the tile data to see if it's a regular road, country road, or PCR

Not a bad idea, though with the engine limitations the only thing I can think of is to add those colored circles on top of the map. We can control the color and to some extend the shape. At least in theory we can assign a color to each type of route and then add some sort of feature where the display of them can be turned on/off.

I was already considering a system like that to tell types of water apart. That would be useful in world builder.

6. [Idea] -> I like the quests to export X# of trade goods. Is there a place where you can look up your progress? If not, would be nice to see.

Not the first to request this. The number is in the game (obviously), but it's not in the GUI (yet?).

 

[raystuttgart]

1. I've noticed a bug (?) where sometimes when conquering a coastal settlement your ground forces have to attack a ship.

That is a bug !!! (Something like that should never happen.)
In Cities there should never be a fight between a Ship and LandTroops.

Only these things should happen:

1. The Ship is instantly destroyed (if it could not flee on the Ocean)
2. The Ship manages to flee on the Ocean

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Considering "Ship adding some defense to the City against Land Troops":
Please let us not make this more complicated than it needs to be.
Let us simply restore the original behaviour.

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@Nightinggale:

That might be a side effect of Large Rivers.
(Although I currently can not imagine where, because "Cities" are normal land.)

 

[raystuttgart]

3. [Idea] -> Ability to scrap buildings. Especially when you conquer a settlement and want to clean up all the unneeded buildings built by the AI. Maybe you get 25% of the building materials added to inventory. Although I can see some resistance to that for balancing reasons. If anything, just to clean up the clutter.

Definitely a "nogo" for me ! --> Team Member "Veto"
It would simply allow "burned soil" exploits against AI and Multiplayer.

4. [Idea] -> Button to highlight road types. Will make it easy to see your plastered country roads when planning road building. I have to mouse over quite a bit and read the tile data to see if it's a regular road, country road, or PCR

Easily highlighting the road itself (coloured road lines) by buttons is technically not possible.
We do not have that deep access for the graphics engine.

All we could do is dirty tricks like actually exchanging in the DLL the RoadTypes which may use different colours ...
Other things like showing road icons (as with Units) all over the map would be easy but would look ugly as hell.

Not a bad idea, though with the engine limitations the only thing I can think of is to add those colored circles on top of the map.

The coloured circles seem to be a feasible and visually acceptable idea.
Getting a Swicht into the UI to turn in on, seems to be quite a lot of effort for little benefit though.

Much easier idea:
Directly increase the colour value difference between the Road Types in their original graphics.
Will not necessarily be perfect, but it would at least help a bit and be much less effort than all other ides.

5. [Idea] -> Shortcut key to add / delete labels and lines without needing to zoom out really far

I do not get it.
Alt + S has always worked for me to add labels.

6. [Idea] -> I like the quests to export X# of trade goods. Is there a place where you can look up your progress? If not, would be nice to see.

That feature enhancement of the "Trade Quests" does not exist yet.
But we have had lots of ideas for further enhancement of the Python Event Sytem anyways, so we might take a look ...

 

[Elirector]

That might be a side effect of Large Rivers.
(Although I currently can not imagine where, because "Cities" are normal land.)

It is definitely not, as I've encountered the same bug in 2.8.2, just didn't think of it as a bug (yes, I've played civ 1 a lot)

 

[raystuttgart]

It is definitely not, as I've encountered the same bug in 2.8.2, just didn't think of it as a bug (yes, I've played civ 1 a lot)

Thanks for the Info.

Then it is a bug that was introduced in 2.8.2.x.
(I think there was a change for my code to "Ships Escaping City" there.)

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
3. [Idea] -> Ability to scrap buildings. Especially when you conquer a settlement and want to clean up all the unneeded buildings built by the AI. Maybe you get 25% of the building materials added to inventory. Although I can see some resistance to that for balancing reasons. If anything, just to clean up the clutter.

As ray mentioned that ability could be abused to conquer a settlement and instead of razing it sell it part for part for the same result but at a huge profit.
If something like that would be ever implemented, then it should be limited as in e.g. Master of Orion 2 where you could salvage any building for a part of the original cost - but only one building per turn.

 

[raystuttgart]

#1 is the reason I hate wars with europeans.

But again, that is simply a bug that was slipped in 2.8.2.x when my previous code for "Ships Escaping Harbours under attack" was changed in an attempt to fix another bug.
(If I saw it correctly there was another issue and the change was supposed to fix that but accidently introduced this new bug instead.)

 

[raystuttgart]

A savegame would be nice. I have no idea what is happening.

It is easy to reproduce in Worldbuilder.

1. Run the game for 30 turns in Autoplay.
2. Use Worldbuilder (Diplmacy Menu) to declare War with another European Nation.
3. Put a Ship of the European Nation (e.g. Frigate as Military Ship or a Caravel as Non-Military Ship) into one of its Citiy.
4. Put some Land Units of the European Nation in the City
5. Put some Land Units of your won around that City.
6. Attack the City with the Ship. (The Land Units should fight.)

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Two Subcases can be tested considering the Ships then:
(That is actually the expected behaviour.)

1. All Water Escape Routes (Adjacent Water Plots) are blocked: Ship is directly destroyed (It could not escape the Harbour)
2. Water Escape Routes (at least one Adjacent Water Plots) is open: Ship can escape on the Ocean (The Adjacent Water Plot)

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Anything else will destroy gameplay:

Ships have been extremely rebalanced considering their Strength (in RaR already).
Most Land Military Units have a Combat Strenght of maybe 6 and several Combat Ships have Combat Strength of 30+

It would become an exploit to defend Cities with Ships.
Because Ships in Cities can not be attacked by other Ships.
They can only be attacked by much weaker Land Units.

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What we could do however:

Combat Ships give a City +10% defense each.
(Up to a max of +50% defense bonus.)

But that is mostly for flavour.
(Still easy to implement though.)

 

[Diegozubi]

as part of the idea.. any chance of capturing the ships from time to time? for immersion, a quick attack could prevent the ship to sail in time

 

[Derek Brown]

Definitely a "nogo" for me ! --> Team Member "Veto"
It would simply allow "burned soil" exploits against AI and Multiplayer.

Understood Ray. Would you be open to a middle ground approach? Only allow finished goods production buildings to be scrapped? Ie scrap destroy weapons / tools / shipyard, etc. But can scrap cigar, rum, cloth, etc buildings. Achieves some decluttering of captured settlements while minimizing the burned soil exploits.

 

[raystuttgart]

Would you be open to a middle ground approach?
Only allow finished goods production buildings to be scrapped?

No, because it is still "burned soil exploit" simply less.

And I would simply never invest any effort into creating such a feature wiht no gameplay value for me.
The effort to create the UI alone for it is ridiculous for something like that.

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And just in case you have not read yet:

AI is now much much smarter considering buildings it builds. (internal development branch - going to be 2.10 / 3.0)
It will not build any buildings in Cities that it can not use e.g. due to Terain, Plots, Features, ....

So there should never be any useless Buildings in a City unless you as a Human build them ...
So I do not even understand the need to have some "scrap buildings" ... (It was also never requested before.)

 

[Mr. ZorG]

by the way, I also have a proposal. how about making it possible to destroy roads on your territory? now this can be done either on neutral territory or on enemy territory. but you cannot do this on your own land. strange, huh?)

 

[Nightinggale]

by the way, I also have a proposal. how about making it possible to destroy roads on your territory? now this can be done either on neutral territory or on enemy territory. but you cannot do this on your own land. strange, huh?)

That sounds like a bug. I have to admit that I never really looked into removing my own roads.

 

[raystuttgart]

That sounds like a bug. I have to admit that I never really looked into removing my own roads.

No, it is no bug.

You simply can not pillage in your own cultural borders (Neither Improvements nor Roads.)
And again, it sounds like "burned soil tactics" leading to exploits.

You conqure the City of another player and then (after it is yours) happily pillage his Improvements and Roads ...
Guys, stuff like that drives MP players crazy and it is highly unfair to AI.

If you want to pillage, do it before you conquer ...

There is also no such thing as "just Pillage Roads".
There is simply "Pillage" (destroying both Roads and Improvements).

And what happens if the player accidently clicks the wrong button?
Instead of "Build Plastered Road" he clicks "Pillage Road" ...
We will get complaints like crazy ...

In "War of Independence" this would also become a massive exploit, making "burned soil" a standard tactic that basically allows to cheat King AI ...

Guys please, do we really have no more meaningfull work todo?
Do we now need to purposely implement exploits that can cause us trouble and user complaints?

 

[Mr. ZorG]

Ray, there are plenty of things to do, but if you don't discuss them, they'll end) in the end, a topic for small discussions...

about roads: I captured a city, the road to which runs through the mountains. if you leave a road there, the enemy can cross the mountains using the road. but if I have the opportunity to remove this road on my territory, then in the passage between the mountains I will put a fort and the enemy will have to try to pass through it.

but about "clicks the wrong button" - you need to be more careful !!! and do not poke where you do not need)))

 

[Guynemer]

since we're flinging out pie-in-the-sky ideas, has anyone ever thought about allowing Customs Houses the ability to purchase goods in addition to selling? I'm thinking about buying goods for the local market that I can't manufacture due to terrain, whathaveyou. Obviously, it'd be at a markup, similar to the discount on goods sold through the CH.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

by the way, also about "clicks the wrong button". the natives trade button is next to the gift button. surely many got confused at least once and clicked the wrong place. there were many complaints about it? .. I myself was so wrong several times, but I did not blame anyone but myself in this case.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Mr. ZorG

My main problem with "Pillaging in own cultural borders" is "burned soild tactics" in MP games and in War of Independence.
It opens all doors to those things which I consider exploits. (And it can be exploited massively.)

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In MP:
You capture a City and Pillage every Improvement / Road it has.
Until the other Player comes back to have a chance to recapture it is all burnt down to ashes ...
I have seen already how MP players react to such things ... they hate it and scream if it is possible.

In War of Independence:
As the army of the King advances towards you, you continuously withdraw and pillage Roads.
So whenever the King takes one of your Cities the Roads to have his troops advance are not there anymore.
Such a tactic will become standard in "War of Independenc" and will make War of Independence much easier - due to slowing down the advancing King.

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If we give this to the players there is simply no way that player will not do stuff like that once they can.
I would personally simply not use that feature like that, so I do not care for my gameplay.
But I do not want to later have endless discussions about "exploits" ... because I promise we will get them.

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Summary:

There might be one time in 100 where using this is actually not an exploit.
But in 100 times the players will use it, it will be an exploit.

We are thus discussing to invest effort here to create gameplay I really do not like to see.
We even have already purposely removed much smaller exploits (e.g. in the changes that @devolution) has made.

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I have no problem talking about it.
I just have a problem implementing it because I fear what players will do with it.

Not because it will damage my own gameplay - I simply would never use it.
But because I see what kind of gameplay it creates e.g. in MP or what tacticts it allows in War of Independence.

We sometimes need to prevent players from destroying their own fun in a game.
(There are many GDC talks on that topic considering game design as well.)

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Ok, guys I leave the choice to you:

If you guys really think it is a good idea to implement something like that, I can do it.
I have created such Unit Actions often enough and it is not much effort.

• But I will not take any responsibility for the way our MP players react.
• And I will not explain to @devolution why we purposely implemented exploits - which he hates - when he comes back.