os79 said:
I read some posts by Phungus that p---ed me off.
But I'm forced to admit that he just might be right.
He basically said that RoM is too large for AI to play successfully. I read from other players HERE that say it is unbalanced form time to time.
I don't see any imbalance yet but that is because I'm no general os79 yet.
But I think it is time for you in 2.8 to both work on both future and fine-tuning the entire game to put Phungus' maddening boasting to rest! I dislike the fact that RoM might look bad because of his proclamation that LoR is far more balanced.
That is all.
Well, Phungus is entitled to have his own opinion about RoM. He said he tried one RoM version (2.6 or 2.62 probably) and it was true that some things in that patch cycle were inbalanced because the unit overhaul wasn't finished yet (it's still very much 'work in progress' from some points). Lots of things have changed since that and I believe RoM has now better balance than it had in the version Phungus tested.
RoM is a huge mod - it's more like Total Conversion than a mod these days - and balancing RoM is quite difficult task due to almost infinite number of different combinations of different game modifiers you can have. It was clear to me at the beginning that the only way to get this size modpack balanced was through 'trial and error' method. If I had tried the other way around ie. to think every possible combination through and make them balanced before implementing to the mod, we wouldn't have even the first RoM version released yet!
I haven't tried LoR but I've read little about it and it sounds like a good mod. I might try it at some point to test it but I know already that it doesn't offer enough for my personal taste. I prefer to play really complex strategy games which is why I'm continueing to improve RoM. I believe those who like playing RoM also share the interest to play more complex games.
civhelp121 said:
In terms of space colonization, I think that although we can't create new maps, we can use buildings to represent colonization. For example, space stations would technically be in space but they are buildings. So one thing you could do is make wonders or projects that give big bonuses but take a while to build. Like one wonder could be 1st to colonize mars, and another wonder could be 2nd to colonize mars. The only problem would be how to make sure that once one has built 1st to colonize mars, the same civilization can't build 2nd to colonize mars.
As much as I like this idea and I've already used it in RoM (Orbital factory for example) it has some limitations that I do not like. If another player conquers a city that already has orbital buildings or even colonies (wonders) should the ownership of those buildings transferred to the new player? I think not, but since BtS can't handle buildings that don't belong to specific city, the only option I have is to give those building types 0 conquer probability ie. they are demolished when city is conquered - This is bad for wonders as then another player could build them again! National Wonder could work but why should player be forced to build the same wonder/building again if the building should be accessible by all his cities?
Projects do not have this limitation but the downside with them is that they do not have any of the xml modifiers the buildings have and that's why projects can't be used for making good "colonies". If "Colony" project enables certain building type, it enables it for all the civs which not ideal solution. However it could be used this way, a "Colony" Project enables building type that could for example bring resources from the colony to Earth. The possible colony locations (in my opinion) could be Moon, Mars, Asteroid Belt and some rocky Moons of Jupiter/Saturn/Neptune/Uranus and perhaps those recently discovered mini planets in Kuiper's belt.
The next problem is that what those resources could be: Moon could be used to extract Helium-3 which is ideal resource for Fusion reactors and there's enough He-3 in Moon to supply energy for whole Earth for about 1000 years. Other colonies could provide Iron and other metallic resources but the problem with these are that they are found from Earth too and at this point of the game, there's no reason to have same resources brought from space location - so what options do we have left? Make buildings that increase city's production? There's already plenty of those in form of regular buildings and if added more, costs of everything would need to be adjusted in the mod! How about commercial, cultural or scientific buildings? Do we need more of them and how would we make them unique? As you see, it's not easy to make these kind of additions and I've thought about the possibilities quite a lot past 2 years.
generalstaff said:
I haven't had much chance to play due to modding, but from what I can tell, Lead could use some improvement and Tea should be revealed earlier.
For Ancient Age improvement, the Stone Age Mod (
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12810) provides some ideas.
Also, Zappara, if you want tech quotes, pedia entries, etc., just post a list and let the various regular posters and modmodders divide the work.
Lead already has had several changes, do you mean there should be made more changes to it? Tea was already moved to earlier tech in v2.71.
I've checked Stone age mod some months ago and decided not to use the changes from it in RoM. The game begins from time period where people already have cities and thus certain techs should already be discovered by that time.
About tech quotes, pedia entries: Most of the Transhuman era techs have those empty (68 of them I think) so you could check them out from the pedia which ones need changes and then if you like, you could provid them in this thread so I can add them to the mod.
iyyillius said:
hey Zap,
Couple of thoughts... One thing is I would still like to see a few more corporations that use some of the the other less valuable resources. Such as a "Mcdonalds" type that utilizes cow potatoe & wheat. Or maybe a "meat" type that utilizes sheep pig cow and fish. Also a Tetiles corporation that utilizes silk cotton dye among others. Maybe a "perfume" company that utilizes insence hemp and whale.
Also I see room for another couple of modern civics. Such as one that focuses on corporations and another that reenergizes religions in the late game.
I kind of see the future civics as a way to really separate cultures into world factions in the end game. possibly adding a hefty boost to relations with other civs that share these critical civics.
Thanks
Some modmods have made great Corporations for RoM so I think I can skip adding more of them.
Civics can basically have now unlimited amount of choices because the mod has now scrolling civic screen and I do not have to fit everything to one page. I've thought about adding few civic choices but nothing in that department is decided yet. The current civic system already covers so much that it's hard to think alternative choices (Lawrie, Big Heb where are you?
)
I've tried to think also ways to enhance the religions in late game but I haven't come up with any good ideas yet (feel free to suggest!).
Buck_Nekkid said:
Love the mod, but it performs just too slowly on my machine (as in loooong end turns). I began a thread a while back on the subject, but it seems there are few ways to optimize (I've tried all the suggested ones, but they yield little result).
Soooo, I'm wondering if you could make the 2.8 installation more modular, giving us more choices as to what elements we want to include and which ones we can sacrifice for better performance.
I've gone back to standard BTS, but can't wait to see what RoM 2.8 brings. Hopefully I can play it.
Changing more of the base mod into modular format would probably just slow down the mod even more and isn't ideal solution to the problem. It would take also huge amount of time to change mod sections to modular format and I'd like to avoid consuming more time to unnecessary tasks. I think future patches do not add so much new things to the mod as previous patches did - it's more of balancing and tweaking the mod and I hope to find ways to optimize the mod but I can't promise that coming patches will make the mod work any faster than it currently does.
Carwyn said:
I would be interested in seeing the civics fine tuned - as it is there are a few civics you rush to and play for most of the game because there is no real benefit to the alternatives. They could be more realistic as to the benefits and drawbacks. Perhaps governments that bring unhappiness or lack of trade and income could really boost production as a trade off?
Also, is there any way to set it up so that research isn't based solely on commerce, but also on production and culture? To be able to fiddle with that sort of thing is interesting to me.
Could the total score be set up so that the player could set what is important in the final score? For example, now it is mainly based on population, perhaps it would be a more interesting game sometimes to have the high score based more heavily on production or culture or finances?
Just some thoughts. I'm sure we will be happily playing 2.7 for some time to come.
(We are looking at messing with the civics ourselves for our multiplayer games to balance it out a bit more.)
I don't think there's any ways to make research based on culture or production other than setting your city to produce research instead of building. I don't know if we could "cheat the building system" through python but adding some complex new system for converting f.ex. culture to research would slow down the mod and I think we do not want that to happen. Another possibility is to add new building type that reduces culture and adds science but the problem with it is that the city would get science bonus even if culture is already at 0 rate and this wouldn't be the intended function.
About the score: I'll try to tweak it in some patch but note that I haven't made any experiments how to adjust it. It's true that it's biased to high population because RoM's cities get much larger than in vanilla BtS. I don't know where all the modifiers for calculation the score are so it needs some research to dig through all the xml files.
Let me know if you come up with good civic modifications - it's hard task to get them to good balance. My problem with debugging them is that the debug info goes over the top of the screen and thus I can't see any debug info about Government or Power civics.
Afforess said:
This may be partially true, for the moment. Recently, I discovered the "Flavors" that the AI uses to decide what techs to research, and what civics to choose, and added new ones, to great success in my "Civics Flavor mod" Anyways, I think we could considerable improve the AI. I already had a look some of the ways the AI uses ancient ships, and I bet we could improve it.
Adding flavors to civics has one problem - I didn't see any flavor adjustments in the calculation where AI weights different civic choices (in SDK CvPlayerAI.ccp) so adding flavors to civics does nothing. I've used AIWeight in some civic options to encourage AI players to use few civics bit more (AIWeight is used in SDK). Also if new flavor types are added, they must be added also to SDK (ie. to DLL) as SDK must have code sections for each specific flavor type. So it's best to work with the flavor types we already have access to. There's one other problem with flavors when AI decides what to build - for example flavors do not affect what type of building/unit AI should build, AI first decides what to build/train and then if there is multiple choices for that particular type (f.ex. several resource buildings), then the flavor values are considered. I think this was explained by some SDK modder long time ago and I don't remember all the exact details how it works.
Nightguard said:
I know you're already going to address transhuman/future promotion lines already, but I think one of the other things you may want to consider incorporating would be some form of 'gravship' or 'low orbital base' that can move over any terrain. It should be possible with the same sort of unit type as a helicopter, but without the 'cannot enter ocean' restriction placed on it. This was the pinnacle of late-game warfare in Alpha Centauri, and always made for a fun way to go out with a bang.
About the only other thing I might want to see is a bit more variety in late-game units, but I know that has been mentioned before, and I am sure you're looking into this option as well.
One last request for an ancient-classical era unit to be added to the game, however. I would like to see some sort of archery-based unit between archers and longbowmen. There's quite a jump in both power and tech level between the two. Could we get a unit between the two? Possibly a Str 5, with a city defense bonus less than the Archer but more than the Longbow. As for technology, you could redefine the 'mounted archery' tech to be 'composite bows' and have it used for both mounted archers and the new archery based unit. I know you said you wanted to move on to the transhuman and future eras in your work, but I think this would be a very reasonable addition to the early game, and possibly help break up the rather boring situation of almost no use of mounted units due to the prevalence of Spearmen.
One problem with adding 'gravship' and similar units is that I'd need new DOMAIN_HOVER type and new AI SDK for that type to really make that kind of units effective for AI players. Now I'm limited by the DOMAIN_LAND, DOMAIN_AIR, DOMAIN_SEA, DOMAIN_IMMOBILE types and DOMAIN_AIR can only used for fighters and bombers. So I can only use land or sea domain type for Hover units and this puts some limitations for AI players - if I make unit hover carrier unit, human player can use it properly but AI does not as there's no suitable AI type for that kind of unit. Anyway, I'll try to find ways to add few more 'grav' units as that seems a plausible future option.
I'll try add variety to transhuman era units but it's is really a hard part to make it happen as most of them need to be purely fictional (and still at least slightly plausible). At least I got few months to think this over... Note that with this I'm also limited by the available graphics (I got all the released scifi unit graphics).
New archer unit type might be possible if I use some released archer graphics for it... I'll have to think about it and look through various unit graphics to see if there's good ethnic choices for each art style that aren't used already in RoM.
Hydromancerx said:
Also my ever persistent request about bees ...
- Honey Bee Resource
- Apiary Building
-Apiculture Tech
PLEEEEESE!
You could add those by yourself if you make couple modules. I think RoM's gamefonts already hold honey resource icon so you'd only need to add the buildings and terrain graphics.
cheesemijit said:
is it possible to add a loop feature to the building que? eg: i want my city to make a spearman, then archer, then axeman, then spearman... so i would click on a spearman then shift click archer then shift click spearman then click a loop button so it will keep building those units untill i unclick the loop?
You can simplify already this process by saving your build queue. Add Spearman, archer and axeman (and spearman, archer, axeman another time making queue 6 units long) to build list and then save it by ctrl+1 (or any number if you save multiple queues). Now once the build queue has finished building the units in the list, simply click 1 to add the queue again to the list. Saves you a little bit of time.
Justin Cray said:
can you make Stone a lot less rare in random maps please? I routinely play Huge maps with two or even just a single Stone resource
Sure I can check it and try to improve it a bit. However the downside will probably be that then some other resource appears fewer time as the maps are already quite full of resources.
Endwar 005 said:
I had a thought earlier on about how a "Seperate" map may work. Perhaps a new sort of mapscript could be made that placed a section of land off the minimap to represent another planet/moon. Maybe it could go above the polar caps, where it is practically unaccessible. There would have to be something done about making a certain terrain to keep this place hidden from submarines and other ships that may be able to come near the terrain, such as the lair of the final boss (Name???) in FFH1. It would have to stay completely invisible though, it wouldn't make sense for a ship to come up to some huge mountains blocking off another "Planet".
I've seen in another mod a map that had orbital section (it replaced north polar cap). I think it was in Future mod. I've looked at its files and it would be huge task to make same kind of modifications to RoM (for example all of the mapscripts would have to be modified) so I won't be adding that kind of feature. Besides that kind of orbital space doesn't really add it in a way I'd like to have it - I'd want to have full solar system with correct distancies etc and that's not possible with Civ 4 engine.
I think I'll have to take another look at FFH mods, seems there's some good ideas in use that might help me improve RoM.
Afforess said:
I suppose this is a rather large change, but It would be nice to merge TheLopez's Mercenary addon (
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=162016)to ROM. It is completely python based (no SDK changes), but I lack the python knowledge to merge it myself. (I already tried and failed.) There is a working BTS version on the last page (
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6318102&postcount=267). I ran it as a standalone mod and had no issues, even with BTS 3.19. Anyways, that's what I would like to see added to ROM.
I also tried merging it to RoM once and failed too. Don't know if my python skills have improved enough to get it working in RoM but I guess I could try it one more time at some point. Oh, when I failed at it first time, it was during the patch that added new random events - at that time I decided to make similar functions through random events (Mercenary events).
little_cyclone said:
I'd like to see the re-introduction of the "Education" set of civics. Or maybe someone could make a minimod of it
I don't think base RoM needs anymore civic categories as it would require tweaks to just about everything else so yes, this could be made as an minimod. There's already couple civic minimods made.
royal62184 said:
I'm not 100% sure if you finished everything in the future era but some cool things were just released:
Hovertank (
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12643)
Psionic Gate (
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12653)
Subspace Generator (
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12680)
I apologize if this is already in your mod, I haven't downloaded 2.7 with the new future era stuff yet.
Hadn't got that hovertank but already had those buildings and they are going to be used in some form. Possibly the unit graphic will find some use too...
Crusis said:
I have no idea of this is possible, but I'd like to have the option to re-assign the xp for a unit once I upgrade it. That way I can have a spearman with 3 melee promotions, later promote him to a pikeman with three str promotions, and later to a rifleman with a str, a medic, and a city guard promotion. Again, don't know if it's possible, but it certainly would make units more useful over the long term.
There's only modifier for how much xp is saved during upgrade. I've already increased it for RoM from the BtS default value and increasing it even more to achieve what you ask could lead to very overpowered units that make the game way too easy. So I won't change it.
Schwarzbart said:
I have some problems how the upgraded Buildings work right now because the Event System dont work with the Upgraded Buildings (I.E. Habor get Bonus but Port not) also the Upgrade system dont takes over the Bonus of the Racial Buildings. So it would nice if 2.8 could fix some of this.
It's true that the upgrade system for buildings has some limitations with event system and with unique buildings. There is no easy way to make unique building modifiers carry over to the upgraded building, actually it would require Unique upgraded building for those civs and that means more python code. So the system will stay as it is now.
Afforess said:
To add my crazy idea to the pile - environmental change. Set up a climate system that changes tiles. Cold periods could lead to deforestation, to grassland becoming plains then tundra, hot periods could lead to more flood plains, marshland, and flooded coastal tiles.
That's a good idea. We could set up a system of possible periods that can occur and the game would randomly choose one and apply it for a 250-400 turn period. I know tile changes can be done with python, so theoretically, Zappara could implement it.
For example:
Ice Age
Tundra and Ice flows tiles spread toward the equator.
Planetary Warming
Tundra and Ice flows tiles remain only near the poles.
Equator tiles may turn to desert
Grass may turn to plains
Plains may turn to desert
Existing desert may expand
Rising Seas
Sea levels rise, in particular, flooding "flood plains" tiles and river deltas
Islands with only grass turn to coast, islands with hills turn to grass, peaks to hills.
I'm sure there are other things too, I was just writing down what came to the top of my head.
Or we could ask Glider to merge Global Warming mod to RevDCM, that way the terrain changes would be made through SDK and not through python. SDK wouldn't slow down the game as the python code would as in this particular case each map plot would have to be checked each turn if there needs to be a change.
NCC1017spock said:
Oh wow, I have a boat load of Ideas, sadly I cant mod, so I dont want to look like a jerk with a huge list when I cant really do anything. Its so cool to talk to you guys, I have played all your stuff (sorry for the could 9 moment here, but this is like an honor to talk to you guys, best mod makers I have ever seen)....
so anywhos, I was thinking about space, and space programs. Like if you could have a space program not related to winning the game? Where you build space shuttles, and rockets, like regular units. With a limit to how many you can have of course. I have a whole power-point doc. filled with this, and its all lined up and I can explain it, if you guys want I can post it here and show you what I was thinking?
Don't be shy, of course we want to see your list
I try to be openminded for all kinds of suggestions and there's a whole lot of things already in RoM that have been originally suggested by various players.
If you don't want to share the list publicly you can always send private messages.
Afforess said:
While people did chop wood for buildings, boats and so forth early, the logic for placing it with bronze working was that until then it was too hard to clear huge amounts of forest without burning it down. Then along came good axes any you got wood from the clearing as well as the land. I think this was mentioned somewhere in Civ 2
Ah, but you inadvertently brought up a good point. Perhaps we should allow workers to "burn" the forests down for no production bonus, but it removes the forest. It would be useful for very early starts, and unlock those resources trapped by forests. It could be a new action for workers.
Now, that's something to consider, burning down the forests to make farmland... it indeed was commonly used method in all around the globe.
JosEPh_II said:
Zappara,
Does 2.8 contain the Unofficial 3.19 patch?
It contains over 20 "fixes" to bugs that are repeatedly reported here.
You've included the previous UOP for 3.17 in the RoM version that needed the 3.17. Can we assume that UOP3.19 will be incorporated into RoM?
If we add the current UOP 3.19 to RoM2.71 or 2.7 will it break them?
JosEPh
I think UOP patch is already included in the Better BtS AI component which is part of the RevDCM DLL so those changes should be in RoM too. Adding DLL from any other mod than from RevDCM will break RoM (unless the mod's DLL has RevDCM functions included).
Hadron said:
To me, the shift from one human era to another has always been marked by some kind of technological or intellectual leap that abolishes something that is holding our entire race back. Think of the technological and social changes that were sparked when we started moving from creationism to evolution. So, here are my guesses as to what might mark our in-game shift from the Modern to the Future era. I'll not suggest techs or buildings, since I'm not that knowledgeable about RoM.
Rise of Mankind wonder
Scientists have finally pieced together an undeniable case for our common evolutionary roots and development as a species. Humanity begins to rise above issues of race and nationality while questioning religious dogma.
Effects: + Science & culture, - Religious benefits across all civilizations. Positive effects are magnified for civilizations with governments that generally give its people more freedom of thought and movement, while strongly religious and / or repressive governments get no benefits, all the negative effects, and additional unhappiness factors.
Religious Enlightenment wonder
As we shed the shackles of dogma, religious thinking enters a new era. Conversion and obedience of scripture are no longer central to religious thinking. Instead, Religions begin using science to better understand Creation, in its great quest to understand the mind of our Creator(s).
In the words of Pope John Paul when pardoning Galileo, "Filled with admiration for the genius of the great scientist, a genius in which there is revealed the imprint of the Creator Spirit, the Church, without in any way passing a judgment on the doctrine concerning the great systems of the universe, since that is not its area of competence."
Effects: Requires Rise of Mankind wonder. +Science & Happiness for all religious buildings across all civilizations. -Happiness and increased national rebelliousness for all civilizations with state religions.
RoM has many suitable techs for your suggestion: There's techs Homo Superior, Artificial Evolution, Artificial Life, Mind Uploading, Terra Computer and Sentient Earth. All of those techs could have some new religious things.
Phew, writing these replies took half of my evening... It's getting harder to keep up with all your posts. Soon I'll need "a secretary" for this task...
epic post for an epic mod I guess.
)...but it works only replacing the orginal special forces otherwise if i try to add it as true new unit the game crash... 
