Version 2.7 discussion

[zappara]

Since it's inevitable that people start soon asking what I'm up to with the next RoM version, I'll give you a short list of changes that I could do. Lots of things has been suggested past months and I'm happy that some have started making their own mods and addons for RoM - I know it's "easy" as when I started making Civ 4 mods I didn't have a clue about xml or python files and now look how far I have gone with RoM 2.6...

5th June: Download v2.7test version 2

Compatible only with BtS v3.17 - does not work in BtS 3.19. Do not use with Megapack.

The font files in the zip are bit buggy so if you want fixed, better quality fonts, download them from this post's attachment. Unzip them to 'Rise of Mankind\Assets\res\Fonts'


Feel free to post feedback about this test version.


The list of things to-do:

1) Finish the Unit strength overhaul
- adjust some unit bonuses
- balancing units based on feedback from v2.6

2) New Medieval techs DONE (tweaking left)
- it has been mentioned few times that the medieval era is short and that you can't get ot use those units long enough so I thought I might take a look at those techs, more precisely what techs we are missing? I got such examples as Siege Warfare, Castle Building, Algebra, Mapmaking... Note that we need also stuff that can be added to those techs - empty techs is not good to have
- this is very annoying task as that would require editing the whole tech tree

3) Re-design Future Era and make it longer
- I got some 50+ future era techs that didn't make it to RoM when I was making the tech tree 1.5 years ago. Of course these would need stuff, new buildings, new units...
- designing the order/progress of new techs is very time consuming (thinking process) so this change could take months
- this would be easier to make than the medieval era changes as the changes are in the end of tech tree
- I'm still not happy with current Future Era in RoM 2.6 (I want to get rid of few Next War techs and replace them with my own)

4) Route changes DONE
- This has been made already and included in v2.61! See the attached pic

5) Any requests?
- I'm still not adding new resources or religions. However new Corporations could finally surface but it's probably as difficult task as adding religions so I might not go with this route... I've also had this idea of converting most of the production buildings into small corporations but the gamefont files might not have enough corporation slots for this idea (this is part of bigger idea of redesigned resource system ). Perhaps this will be something to consider in versions after v2.7...

6) The usual bug fixes of course... though I'll probably make v2.61 patch that has just fixes for v2.6

Edit:

7. Cultural victory and culture level changes
- this didn't make it into v2.6 but is something to consider for v2.7.

8. Religious changes
- first founded religions often seem to be the most powerful religions in-game. Need to find ways to make religions spread more realistically and more equally.

9. Check all units polygon counts
- by replacing high poly count (>2000) to low poly versions, some of the late game MAF problems can be prevented. This task is huge as RoM has lots of new unit graphics. Edit: Seems that there is only handful models with 2500-6000 polygon counts.

Below the new route system pic:

 

[Hydromancerx]

Please add more prehistoric techs!! You had some good ones like Ceremonial Burial and Boat Making in that side project you made with the magic in it. Here are some ideas ...

Techs
o Gathering
o Scavenging
o Bone Working
o Tanning
o Leather Working
o Basketry
o Fishing Traps
o Flint Knapping
o Copper Working
o Tracking
o Boat Making
o Ceremonial Burial
o Oral Tradition
o Cave Painting
o Sand Painting
o Tribal Music

Buildings
o Tannery
o Potter's Hut
o Burial Mound

Wonders
o Legend
o Lascaux Cave
o Mesa Verde

Units
o Rock Slinger
o Mammoth (Barbarian Unit)

I am sure there are plenty more that could be made.

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Here is an idea for a new type of feature for RoM.

Is there a way to make a hacker unit from the spy who can remotely (without going to a city) hack other civilizations by trying to steal their technology, line of sight, city research, temporarily turning off city power, etc? Likewise they could do counter hacking and maybe even have a firewall server to protect the city from cyber-hacking? Maybe even the ability to produce computer viruses too. Maybe even a wonder which could give resistance to cyber attacks.

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Here are some ideas for power plants...

Power Plants

Coal Power Plant (Civ4)
Shale Power Plant (Civ4 - Japan Unique Building)
Nuclear Power Plant (Civ4)
Hydro Power Plant (Civ4)

Oil Power Plant (RoM)

Geothermal Power Plant (New) - A green power plant possibly only located next to peaks.
Wind Power Plant (New) - A green power plant that works best on hilltop cities.
Solar Array Power Plant (New) - A green power plant which works best in desert biomes.
Tidal Power Plant (New) - A green power plant only available for coastal cities.
Biomass Power Plant (New) - A semi-green power plant that reduces trash.

Also it would be neat if you could have more than one power plant in a city. That way the more type you add the more power boost you could get. Thus a Solar or Wind Power Plant might not give all that much power alone but together they could equal one dirty power plant like coal or oil.

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That's great new that some disease is already in your game! You could definitely add more or even add techs involving it such as ...

Techs

Early Biological Warfare - Gives you the ability for trade caravans to spread Small Pox via blankets to a city they visit.

Leech Treatment - Allows you to build a medieval healers building. Gives some sort of positive and negative health. Perhaps + health for the city but spreads diseases.

Wonders

Cure for AIDS - Similar to cure for cancer.

Also disease ideas ...

o Smallpox
o Bubonic Plague - Increased by present of a granary and farms.
o Malaria - Increased by jungle, marsh, flood plain biomes.
o Yellow Fever - Increased by jungle, marsh, flood plain biomes.
o Bird Flu - Increased by chickens resource (need to add).
o SARS
o AIDS
o Nanobot Virus - Only unleashed in the future after discovering nano technology.

I am sure there are a lot more that could be thought of.

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o A Petard/Kamikaze/Suicide Bomber unit that can be made cheaper that say a catapult or cannon but can take down city defenses at the price of of the unit dying. Perhaps it could start out as a Petard (Renaissance) unit based on gunpowder then upgrade to Kamikaze (Industrial)with TNT explosives and then have a modern unit with Suicide Bomber (Modern) with Plastic explosives. I have no idea what a future unit would be, maybe like a Vortex Robot that can implode.

---------

Shrimp Resource!!!

 

[Azazell]

WOW! Road on the sea? Great! Zappara Good Luck!

 

[zappara]

Prehistoric techs.. umm, no, at least not in this version as adding them requires much more changes than adding new techs to medieval era or future era. For example all civs starting techs would require changes. Tech tree is giving me enough headache in my side project

WOW! Road on the sea? Great! Zappara Good Luck!

Those won't allow land units to enter sea plots but those jumplanes do speed up ships very much. Jumplanes are enabled from last tech just before Future tech and they cost 100g to build so those are luxurious end game routes

 

[Azazell]

Any Requests?
- maybe more future units? More different Mechs?
- possible build city in the sea?
- more options for diplomacy? (so many possibility by exceed borders?)
- very missing Polish civilization! Maybe added in 2.7?

 

[Black Whole]

Wow, these changes sound great! (expanded medieval age.. )

There are two things I would like to mention:
1) Please, remove the Encyclopedia! It is the most unfair project I have seen so far. Of course it should benefit the weaker civs but they don't get a chance to build it. It is always me building it to prevent some fast teching civs to become even more advanced (Hammurabbi ). Those beelining Liberalism will get it and these civs are at top of the score anyway.

2) Change the Communist and Planned civics. I don't see any reason to adopt these civics at any time because their disadvantages outweight their benefits. In addition, it's nearly impossible to run a 'Communist' empire. In a game with my brother, he tried this and after adopting these civics, his empire just began to fall apart after only two turns! Before he led the stablest country in the world!

 

[zappara]

Any Requests?
- maybe more future units? More different Mechs?
- possible build city in the sea?
- more options for diplomacy?

For future units I got couple mech graphics and about half dozen other unit graphics... What kind mech classes should there be?

City in sea is actually doable as the game engine supports it (there's game define for it) but I haven't ever tested how it would work and what kind of problems with it there might be.

Diplomacy - no, that would require SDK changes as all diplomacy is handled through DLL. Sorry but I can't do sdk changes myself.

2) Change the Communist and Planned civics. I don't see any reason to adopt these civics at any time because their disadvantages outweight their benefits. In addition, it's nearly impossible to run a 'Communist' empire. In a game with my brother, he tried this and after adopting these civics, his empire just began to fall apart after only two turns! Before he led the stablest country in the world!

Thanks, I know there's probably some civic combinations that needs adjustments - so civic balancing is of course considered in next version.

 

[Opera]

Well, it's rather related to Revolutions but... I would like to see some new CivNames. You made a lot of change in civics and I'm not sure those are reflected in CivNames. I maybe wrong, though, as I've not yet played 2.6 much.

 

[Hydromancerx]

For future units I got couple mech graphics and about half dozen other unit graphics... What kind mech classes should there be?

What about the "Vortex Mech"?

o A Petard/Kamikaze/Suicide Bomber unit that can be made cheaper that say a catapult or cannon but can take down city defenses at the price of of the unit dying. Perhaps it could start out as a Petard (Renaissance) unit based on gunpowder then upgrade to Kamikaze (Industrial)with TNT explosives and then have a modern unit with Suicide Bomber (Modern) with Plastic explosives. I have no idea what a future unit would be, maybe like a Vortex Robot that can implode.

 

[Chiyochan]

I'd still love to see the Ax of "wonders of the world" and instead Civ unique National wonders.

I love the roads

if your killing for ideas, take a look at this series, It will not just give you ideas for industrial revolution, It goes all the way back to 10000BC
Part one
Part two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six

 

[ZachScape]

So far, I am still in the ancient era or my first game (snail speed), but I have read and looked up a lot on the Pedia. I have a couple suggestions. They aren't really that important or crucial, but could add more to the game. (And so far I love it).

-Seeing the rice resource on hills are quite common for me. It makes the rice graphics look like it is floating. It can't be fixed on world builder. Maybe this can be tinkered with.
-RevDCM is supposed to be having an update soon, so that may be included.
-Spearmen are pretty useless. They had about a 12% chance to beat a Chinese warrior defending Beijing. It either should cost less to upgrade from a warrior (170 gold on Snail speed) or giving them a built in promotion that would increase the odds in the above situation to at least 25%.
-I'm playing as Rome and I had a message that said: "Your Civilization is now known as the Empire of Rome." Some civs, like Rome, should have an alternate Dynamic Name path; so there could be names like the Roman Empire instead of the Empire of Rome. In the current version of RFC, there is a dynamic name path for each and every civ in the game, so it can be possible.
-Some buildings in "Extra" would be very good for this mod. They have unique buildings for the Zoroastrian, Mesoamerican, and Hellenic religions.
-It is kind of weird seeing the White House in Moscow. I suggest getting rid of the Kremlin wonder and making it the Palace for the Ethnic Russian City-style.
-America's UB (mall) should be different as it is not really unique anymore (Physical Appearance wise). I have no suggestions for what it should be, so I do not expect any change for the next few versions.
-The Americans should have a UU for the F23, the F22 Rapter. It doesn't look different, but should cost a little more production but have better stats/ built in promotions. Several European countries should have a UU for the F23, the Eurofighter/ Typhoon (it looks like Viking UU).

Big Deal/ Impractical Suggestion:
-In RFC, there are 2 independent civilizations. As in the Revolutions mod (I think) they spawn after a civ collapses. In RFC however, independent cities, such as Jerusalem, Samarkan, and Pagan, spawn. This would be nice in a game like RoM, Revolutions, RevDCM, and Wolf Revolution. Either the Barbarian city names should be tweaked (because their cities are named after tribes, not cities), or an independent civ should be added.
-In the Graphic Mod folder there are new carriers and transports from A&A (I don't know what that stands for). They are very appealing and may be good for UUs or used as Ethnic are styles.

Thanks for such a great mod, hopefully I can be a part in it with my suggestions.

 

[fibio]

The game seems to end a little early when playing with the quick start for various eras. Perhaps more turns would be in order so the futuristic techs can actually be reached?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

There is only one thing that irritates me in RoM and that is how all my big cities starve when I discover Civil Engineering. It obsoletes the artesian well building and it turns out that that building was supporting one to three population by itself.

 

[vincentz]

I'd love to see xp for airstrikes, as bombers (almost) never get any xp after being build.

Also it would be nice to have a more powerfull spy in late game, like a secret agent 007 style.
I made one myself, and will be happy to share him.

And please make it harder. I used to be a Prince/Monarchy player in BTS, but now i play Emperor and it feels like Noble. Even in the late middleage i was at least 10-12 discoveries in front of the closest AI (with techfussion. I play 2.52)

 

[Nightguard]

There is only one thing that irritates me in RoM and that is how all my big cities starve when I discover Civil Engineering. It obsoletes the artesian well building and it turns out that that building was supporting one to three population by itself.

I often choose not to build the artesian well for much this same reason. I'm not a big fan of the sudden loss of food production when the building becomes obsolete, and I'd rather just not get hit by it in the first place.

 

[Loke.be]

Thank you for this awesome mod!

If you change the tech tree, I'd also prefer some more ancient and medieval techs to be added rather than modern or futuristic.

Other ideas/requests:
- more specific buildings/actions available using GP (I still propose the idea I submitted a long time ago in which only prophets were able to discover religions, scientists able to discover unique tech or ressource or even trigger special event.. generating prophet could be done easily either by receiving one when you discover a special tech or by building made available early.. think about paggan or such religions. For me this would make RoM really unique).
- bridges accross sea (1 square)

 

[strategyonly]

And please make it harder. I used to be a Prince/Monarchy player in BTS, but now i play Emperor and it feels like Noble. Even in the late middleage i was at least 10-12 discoveries in front of the closest AI (with techfussion. I play 2.52)

How the heck are you doing it, i can never get that way, i play on Noble and i am always at least 5 techs then sometimes 15-20 techs behind later in the game?


EDIT: OK tried it, and now on STRIKE, still behind by more than 15 techs, etc???

Using same post here, so i dont hijack the tread, sorry.

PM's only, thx

 

[DRJ]

How the heck are you doing it, i can never get that way, i play on Noble and i am always at least 5 techs then sometimes 15-20 techs behind later in the game?

The reason is simple: Build more cities. On your screenie you are 1545 AD and you have 3 cities, thats much too less, it should be at least 15 then. More cities=more production and commerce each turn= more techs in a shorter time. Try it.

And please make it harder. I used to be a Prince/Monarchy player in BTS, but now i play Emperor and it feels like Noble. Even in the late middleage i was at least 10-12 discoveries in front of the closest AI (with techfussion. I play 2.52)

Same with me here. But then, I think: Why not try it immortal next time?
All in all there is one turning point in each game, I call it the cash machine construction. Parts are: religion for happiness, trade routes for commerce and a superior military unit for safety reasons. Once, that is achieved I usually get a tech lead (micromanagement pays off big time then). The biggest obstacle is to get those goals done whilst still having bad civics. I found out that having a revolution early on is sometimes quite hard/annoying to deal with, but once its defeated youre good to go. Just concentrate on military production a bit before the enemy troops strike and thus rush defending units, at least 3 in every key city.

 

[Nightguard]

As for suggestions, here's a few of mine that I'd like to put out there.

While most unit categories have quite a few units available, there are only three archery category units (not counting the various UUs that are just a modification of one of the existing three). Given that humans have been using various muscle-powered devices to lob projectiles for millenia, while we've only had firearms for a few hundred years, there should be a little more variety to the archery units. I'm not sure exactly what should be added, but there should probably be another unit between the development of archers and the longbow/crossbow era.

With all the special units that have been given to the Christian religion, will we see some kind of equivalents to the other religions? Currently with all the options that Christianity gives you, it seems a little overpowered, expecially with all their RUs getting the Crusader promotion. For example, some form of martial artist units would be appropriate for not just Taoism, but also some of the other Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism. Judaism could possibly have some special form of guerilla fighters. The books of Judges and Kings, while not technically part of their religion, are still considered part of their history and culture, and they are full of stories of small numbers of fighters using ambush and surprise to overcome larger forces. I'm sure other people on the board here could suggest possibilities for the remaining religions.

Third, would it be possible to have some kind of units that are specialized in skirmishing and hit-and-fade tactics besides just mounted units? Perhaps that would be a way to add another archer unit as mentioned above, having them be light skirmishers that advance only far enough to launch a few volleys of arrows, then pull back behind heavier troops. I know this is possible with promotions currently, but that's a large investment for minimal return.

I've got more, but I wanted to look at some of the military options first. I'll start thinking more about Midieval era techs next time.

 

[0100010]

Consider making Trade Carvan type units a national unit with a lmit on the number that can exist at one time in game. Not as restrictive as missionaries, but enough to prevent the tactic of: "Build en mass trade caravans, wait for wonder tech to pop/finish researching, build tech wonder in nearly one turn." The AI certainly doesn't know how to do this.