Version 2.7 discussion

[Hyronymus]

Playing a game now in which I almost conquered the entire planet and I think research is too easy in the late game. Ever since 1970 I was able to research technologies in 1 turn. I'm now 1994 I have Future Tech 6 in progress. Just 1 turn with science @ 20%, culture @ 40% and espionage @ 35%. Stil making +10.800 gold a turn though.

I also think that constructing roads from Industrialization on is skewed. It takes 10 engineers to lay one jumplane on a non-desert or non-tundra tile. Even more for tundra and desert.

Finally, I like to see pioneers being able to settle a city on ice. I have a few spots of ice surrounded by enough tundra hills to make a viable city.


EDIT:There are some mismatches between the unit stats in the Sevopedia when you hover of the unit image and when you read the text.

 

[Arakhor]

Not to put you down, Hyronymus, but have you considered playing at a higher difficulty level? If you're finding the game too easy, go up a level!

 

[Hyronymus]

Not to put you down, Hyronymus, but have you considered playing at a higher difficulty level? If you're finding the game too easy, go up a level!

Considered that many times but perhaps it's a good idea to rethink that with this mod. I'm by no means offended by you remark.

 

[konradcabral]

Good morning everybody!

Zap, did you look at my building changes? I saw that you nerfed some few buildings and wonders, but there are still need for many more. I also saw that the main goal of this version was the future techs revamp, so I'm still hoping for my suggestions to be applied.

Hyronymus and Arakhor,

I think there is no problem with techs being researched in just one turn. Technology development should be more quick at late eras. The real problem is discover it with 20% of research... About raising the level, I fear to be destroyed in the early eras, which already are difficult enough.

 

[zappara]

Good morning everybody!

Zap, did you look at my building changes? I saw that you nerfed some few buildings and wonders, but there are still need for many more. I also saw that the main goal of this version was the future techs revamp, so I'm still hoping for my suggestions to be applied.

Hyronymus and Arakhor,

I think there is no problem with techs being researched in just one turn. Technology development should be more quick at late eras. The real problem is discover it with 20% of research... About raising the level, I fear to be destroyed in the early eras, which already are difficult enough.

Yes, I'm looking through the changes you've made


@everyone

I was just reading Better BtS AI 0.76 version notes and saw these:

- Fixed bug (introduced) leading to very long loops and debug asserts for UNITAI_SETTLER_SEA units in certain circumstances
- Added workaround for bug in determining which tiles are under blockade that led to tiles being under permanent blockade in rare circumstances. (Bug stems from very rare incorrect returns from A* step finder)
- Fixed bug (introduced) causing crash if automating an air unit whose range extend beyond edge of map
- Fixed bug (introduced) allowing tactical nukes to do AUTOMATE_EXPLORE, leading to crash if selected
- Improved handling of splitting of splitting stacks of units under a variety of circumstances to more robustly avoid potential infinite loops ("Waiting for ..."). Applies mainly to mods, particularly those using Revolution.
- Fixed potential crash bug in looking up AI_unitValue for UNITAI_MISSIONARY units without passing a valid CvArea*

Looks like few crash issues have been fixed and also the dreaded "waiting for.." infinite loop problem. So eventually these fixes will be in RoM as well.

 

[JosEPh_II]

This should please the RevDCM proponents.

AS long as there is a "stock" RoM with all these "other" add-ons as Options I'll be happy.

JosEPh

 

[Hyronymus]

Well zappara, whatever v2.7 may bring I have to say well done on the stability of v2.62. I am finally enjoying Civ again. No more crashes in the late game and that while I have a hefty army.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@Zappara - the first post in this thread just below the link to 2.7test2 says you need to install this version over 2.62. Perhaps that should change if it is a full (test) release.

Will you be moving the all the religion buildings into a module, or suit of modules? The only reason for doing it is so that AAranda's religion modmod could work without having it to make changes to the base mod. If done then AAranda's modmod would be a real mod ie you could easily remove it. If you like I could separate them out for you, I think it is only necessary to change one XML file and add a module with the the cut pieces of XML. I might d this anyway to test that it works.

@JosEPH_II I have played two full games with BarbCiv on without a single CTD, before I was getting one every hour or so.

 

[munky]

I am concerned with the AI's usage of Forts. I swear they go nuts over them, and oddly enough never occupy them and certainly don't use them for a canal like cut through (when two can provide a shipping lane). They are being used wrongly and I think need another enhancement... the notion of a fort being around long enough for airplane usage is absurd. A fort should ideally have nothing to do with boats or planes. A canal is for boats, and an airport is for planes.

Could we not add the Sentry function to forts? Putting a fort on a hill maybe would extend even more the sentry alert trigger, lets say 4 squares instead of 2? Occupied increases it even more?

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri used something called "sensor arrays" which basically allowed a certain radius much like a Sentry command for units in Civ. Like the sensor array what about creating the worker built "Watchtower" if we don't want to touch Forts. It is unoccupied and simply behaves as if you had a Scout on Sentry. [ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchtower].

Thoughts? On one hand just add a Sentry ability to a Fort which makes Forts more worthy or create the Watchtower worker enhancement and leave Forts alone?

RoM is the best Civ version ever so I appreciate your patience reading this and opinions are very welcome. By the way I think RoM deserves its own Post Icon like FFH and others!

 

[munky]

6) Mountain tiles should be usable.

here, here!

the notion of a mountain not being usable simply doesn't follow reality. it might be a much more complicated world but i dont think of the mountain as an impassable land square. massive mountain ranges like the Himalayas make sense for impassable*... but didnt Hannibal in essence cross many mountains that in Civ wouldnt have allowed his movement?

"Hannibal recognized that he still needed to cross the Pyrenees, the Alps, and many significant rivers." [ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal].

mountains should be one movement per turn. so any and every time you move into a mountain square it should mean that unit stops its turn. slow, sure, but passable nonetheless.

mountains like hills should have mineral based resources like copper, gold, iron, etc. perhaps mining in a mountain would take 5X as long but produce 2X the output?

mountains also could allow fertile neighboring areas for food production if they are volcanic rich soil.

mountains would involve new ideas like tunnels, and perhaps even ski resorts or other recreational attributes.

mountains would birth ski troops, huge bonuses for forts, glacier things... its endless and requires a lot more beer so i better go on a beer run...

* = this is really a problem of map making. in theory a single mountain is so different from a mountain chain, and especially for a mountain range such as the Alps. you could have in map maker hell someone create outer mountains as passable and inner more developed mountains as impassable. but why bother, make them all passable as long as it takes a turn per mountain to move. maybe someone from Finland has ideas on this?

 

[Bezhukov]

Not to put you down, Hyronymus, but have you considered playing at a higher difficulty level? If you're finding the game too easy, go up a level!

Um, this isn't a difficulty level issue. I have yet to play a game where I didn't reach one-turn research by the late game. This is playing marathon, immortal/deity, and with as few as eight cities. I'm a builder, so rarely conquer much territory, at times none at all, and I've hit one-turn research as early as 1000AD.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@Zappara - the first post in this thread just below the link to 2.7test2 says you need to install this version over 2.62. Perhaps that should change if it is a full (test) release.

<snip>

@JosEPH_II I have played two full games with BarbCiv on without a single CTD, before I was getting one every hour or so.

I started my 1st 2.7test2 this afternoon and have made it to 1340AD with no CTD using BarbCiv. This is good.

But when a BarbCiv goes Minor it's Totally Nuts the amount of speciallized National Units they get + they also get Great generals and Prophets. I have been fighting a 1000 year war with Mansa Musa who has only 1 city. He seems to put out a Skirmisher every other turn. My Axe and Spear keep him contained but I can't take out his city. It's on a hill, with every Skirmisher and Spear getting double hill defense plus double strength. If I hadn't already established 6 cities by the time he turned Minor I would've been overrun.

To top this off when he became a full fledged Civ he got another Great General and another 1/2 dozen Skirmishers.

I only play Noble and I like to build but this pushes me to play massive Unit builds and my empire suffers. I'm 4th in research out of the 4 Main AI I started this game with. And there are already a dozen minor civs. Gigantic Custom Continent world (6 continents), Epic speed. I think I'm gonna get my butt handed to me in this game.

My only beef is the massive amount of units a BarbCiv gets when going to Minor and then Full. It's seems like a cheat. But maybe the makers of BarbCiv intended for the Player to squirm when a Barb grows up.

JosEPh

 

[lordrune]

Um, this isn't a difficulty level issue. I have yet to play a game where I didn't reach one-turn research by the late game. This is playing marathon, immortal/deity, and with as few as eight cities. I'm a builder, so rarely conquer much territory, at times none at all, and I've hit one-turn research as early as 1000AD.

Basically, it's the exponential effect of the upgrades in this game. You get many more trade routes than in vanilla BTS, the trade routes are much larger, your tiles all give significantly more FHC (as do your specialists) and the extra food means you will both work all tiles and your big cities will have STACKS of specialists.

Then there is the prevalance of +%commerce buildings, particularly large ones in late game. Pop a city on a one-tile arctic island, rush-build harbors and before long you're bringing in maybe a couple of hundred of raw commerce per turn from trade alone. Build a design studio and similar +%commerce builds and you bring this up to a few hundred, then build your +%science buildings and boom, you've got a remote city costing you relatively buggerall in maintenance and bringing in over 1000 beakers per turn - and this is before tile upgrades and finishing

Everything is bigger in ROM, and it all multiples, but I think it would be a much better and balanced game if *all* the percentage boosts were significantly toned down, across the board - and maybe there could be less trade routes overall as well. Also if that was done, I think there could be a case for increasing the wonder limit to 6 per city, and the NW limit to four (particularly as obsolete wonders count toward the limit, which can be frustrating).

I can understand why people defend the one-turn research in this game - but note that its not intended to work that way in Vanilla BTS. The acceleration in the tech race is *abstracted* by making time advance quicker in the late twentieth centuries. Now in some ways that sucks - but in other ways, it works - if for example, in a typical game of ROM, it took 4 to 5 turns to learn techs in the modern era, instead of 1 or 2 techs every turn - it might mean that you actually get a chance to *use* your modern armour, before they get obsoleted by nanotechnology mechs while sitting on your transports on the way to your neighbour.


Moving away from the general and onto the specific: the current test version seems very stable. Only thing is a python error which comes up anywhere from a handful of times to several times every turn, once I get to a certain stage in a game (seems to be about the Renaissance time). I just click OK to ignore it, and the game continues on.

 

[DRJ]

All you guys who whine about (too) fast research in late game just try to play snail/deity, it takes long time before you can research even older techs in 5-7 turns or so---
if you get it that far, calculating the maintance for defending vs stacks and stacks of AI units and raging barbs (for instance), heavily slowing down your research rate.

Anyway, as soon as you get to late renaissance/early industrial age with a well sized empire (equal to your competitors) you most certainly prevail to win. One prob of RoM is that it's pretty hard in the beginning and relatively easy in the end...

 

[lordrune]

All you guys who whine about (too) fast research in late game just try to play snail/deity, it takes long time before you can research even older techs in 5-7 turns or so---
if you get it that far, calculating the maintance for defending vs stacks and stacks of AI units and raging barbs (for instance), heavily slowing down your research rate.

Why would I want to play snail/deity?

I didn't say the game was too *easy*, and I don't want my gameplay to be a difficult and excessively long grind. I explained why there is a fundamental issue in this game where income expands exponentially high as you progress through the eras, due to multipliers which build on each other. Income relative to cost is pretty well balanced up to early medieval, but from renaissance onwards, especially as you enter modern era, the exponential factors that build on each other make the costs in this game virtually irrelevant.

There is a way to fix it of course - just tone down all the percentage boosts, especially ones that build exponentially (like +% to food, +% to commerce)
e.g. Design Studio adds +50% commerce or something ridiculous... why? Make it +5% commerce - it's still going to be worth building in your commerce cities.
e.g. Artesian Well adds +15% food with rice: make it +5% food (with the +1 or +2 flat it already gives) - still worth building virtually everywhere.
etc. etc.
Make all your multiplier effects far smaller across the board. Including +% to trade, and maybe cut down on the number of trade routes.
This won't substantially impact early game balance, which is already just fine, but it will mean that the late game will last more than a handful of turns.

There have been some improvements of course, such as the modern units that cost more maintenance, and the buildings that add maintenance costs. But the boosts still need, I think, toning down across the board before this mod could genuinely be described as balanced.

 

[vincentz]

All you guys who whine about (too) fast research in late game just try to play snail/deity, it takes long time before you can research even older techs in 5-7 turns or so---
if you get it that far, calculating the maintance for defending vs stacks and stacks of AI units and raging barbs (for instance), heavily slowing down your research rate.

Anyway, as soon as you get to late renaissance/early industrial age with a well sized empire (equal to your competitors) you most certainly prevail to win. One prob of RoM is that it's pretty hard in the beginning and relatively easy in the end...

The problem is usually not in the beginning of the game, but when I'm "settled"
I usually play emperor/epic and in the beginning its hard enough for me. Everything seems balanced up until renaisance and early industrial. Then I just start to be way to superior to the AI, researching with 100%. A couple of religions and a couple of corporations in the financial center actually gives all the $ that I need. The AI has no chance of following me as they will spend a huge amount on their military budget, where the human player can protect its borders but leave unthreatened cities unprotected.

I've seen a lot of threads about this (that it gets too easy in later eras) and it can be a huge challenge trying to balance everything. But I honestly think the sollution could lie in maintenaince cost for industrial and later era buildings. Scaling down some of the superbuildings as well, but therein could lie a problem. I just looked at Jabartos Balance modmod, and was surprised about especially the steel mill (+15% production) being worse than the building it upgrades (Forge +25% production).

 

[DRJ]

Why would I want to play snail/deity?

I didn't say the game was too *easy*, and I don't want my gameplay to be a difficult and excessively long grind. I explained why there is a fundamental issue in this game where income expands exponentially high as you progress through the eras, due to multipliers which build on each other. Income relative to cost is pretty well balanced up to early medieval, but from renaissance onwards, especially as you enter modern era, the exponential factors that build on each other make the costs in this game virtually irrelevant.

There is a way to fix it of course - just tone down all the percentage boosts, especially ones that build exponentially (like +% to food, +% to commerce)
e.g. Design Studio adds +50% commerce or something ridiculous... why? Make it +5% commerce - it's still going to be worth building in your commerce cities.
e.g. Artesian Well adds +15% food with rice: make it +5% food (with the +1 or +2 flat it already gives) - still worth building virtually everywhere.
etc. etc.
Make all your multiplier effects far smaller across the board. Including +% to trade, and maybe cut down on the number of trade routes.
This won't substantially impact early game balance, which is already just fine, but it will mean that the late game will last more than a handful of turns.

There have been some improvements of course, such as the modern units that cost more maintenance, and the buildings that add maintenance costs. But the boosts still need, I think, toning down across the board before this mod could genuinely be described as balanced.

Regarding your examples of toning down some multiplyers I totally agree. Nevertheless: if you happen to play snail/deity, the way it works right now (at least until late renaissance/early industrial age - I usually don't play on after that...) the game is reasonably leveled out for my taste. I mean, playing at this difficulty, the only advantage GNP-wise you have vs AI is to plan on exploiting lots of those %benefits within a long term strategy, right?

 

[munky]

The problem is usually not in the beginning of the game, but when I'm "settled"
I usually play emperor/epic and in the beginning its hard enough for me. Everything seems balanced up until renaisance and early industrial. Then I just start to be way to superior to the AI, researching with 100%. A couple of religions and a couple of corporations in the financial center actually gives all the $ that I need. The AI has no chance of following me as they will spend a huge amount on their military budget, where the human player can protect its borders but leave unthreatened cities unprotected.

I've seen a lot of threads about this (that it gets too easy in later eras) and it can be a huge challenge trying to balance everything. But I honestly think the sollution could lie in maintenaince cost for industrial and later era buildings. Scaling down some of the superbuildings as well, but therein could lie a problem. I just looked at Jabartos Balance modmod, and was surprised about especially the steel mill (+15% production) being worse than the building it upgrades (Forge +25% production).

we call this time the "mop up" stage... and because we hate the notion of it, we do sometimes use the Domination end game trigger. but after years of hating Jao and the Portugese and all the other betrayer AI nations, you just want to destroy/occupy/burn everything he has, don't we?

and again from the moron chambers: what do those that get this mop up stage think about starting in later time periods? we never get to use much advanced military technology past lets say Artillery. by then its all mop up... tank and infantry are usually all you need by then.

sometimes the challenge can actually be the score whoring at the late stages, something prior versions of Civ really taught you how to do. imho.

 

[vincentz]

There might be a small bug with the forrest promotions.
I had a triple forrest promotion on a warrior that was attacked by a skirmisher while standing on hill+forrest. The combat log showed a 4.00 (skirmisher) against a 3.50 (warrior) (67% odds) while with the 50% forrest protection the warrior should have had 2.00 +75% +50% = 4.50

 

[zappara]

There might be a small bug with the forrest promotions.
I had a triple forrest promotion on a warrior that was attacked by a skirmisher while standing on hill+forrest. The combat log showed a 4.00 (skirmisher) against a 3.50 (warrior) (67% odds) while with the 50% forrest protection the warrior should have had 2.00 +75% +50% = 4.50

I've seen one other bug happen with Woodsman promotion lines but this one is new to me. I'll have to test it out. Generally these kind of bugs are problems with DLL file and thus need bug fixes to RevDCM...


Last weekend I fixed building upgrade path and Bomb shelter bugs, merged RevDCM 2.1, added new scifi infantry/mech units and made new Gamefonts. Looks like Windows 7's Paint program is buggy when editing gamefont's alpha channel or DXTBmp doesn't work correctly in Win 7. While editing Gamefonts I added AAranda's new religion and corporation icons too so now the Gamefonts have both Vincentz and Aaranda's modules' icons. If any other module maker needs new icons added to the Gamefonts, just let me know so I can add before v2.7 is ready.

I'll check BarbarianCiv component and tune down the unit spawning if I can figure it out. It certainly gives way too many units for rebel/minor civs.

And I'll try to balance buildings from Industrial era to Future era - not an easy task to balance a modpack this size