[Version 30] How Do You Build Neanderthals?

[strategyonly]

How many units and processes are now in the works or being discussed just to get a Rogue out of a city? Too many impo and it's taking gameplay away from the preh era.

That's how I feel about it.

JosEPh

i Guess i will have to agree with you on all accounts, and as far as the Rogue OUT of the city limits, thats just plain hog wash to me, as Joe said, deal with it.

 

[DRJ]

We have "advanced diplomacy" game option and other like that. Maybe implement it as part of the "advanced espionage" (aka "super spies") or "advanced crime" gameoptions?

I really like the ideas and would, of course, activate them. If some want less content they can disable the option, right?

 

[Hydromancerx]

As to the Obsidian units, we had the Tomahawk thrower as an effective and sought after unit that needed obsidian at one time, but now...another Meh unit. All because some players complained it was too strong when introduced.

The Tomahawk Thrower was made into a culture unit because it best fit that culture rather than a general unit. The obsidian Units fill the same role that the Tomahawk Thrower once did. There was just a bunch of versions we had nothing to fill the gap.

@Hydro,
My complaint over Preh losing it's Fun factor isn't the redone tech tree, the redone religions, the additional buildings (somewhat), etc. but the additional Processes that have been added in. Crime unfortunately is in that group that detracts. Along with the weakening of DH's animal spawns (the limits on variety by longitude and latitude ( a southern hemisphere start is Not a good starting place)), the reduced Neander willingness to attack and spawn rate, along with the barbs reduced willingness to attack. I do agree with LumenAngel on most of his thoughts, with the exception of more health and food malus.

Crime has been around for a long time in C2C. If anything I had added more ways to deal with crime in the Prehistoric era than there was before. The only thing I can think of that adds crime would be some of the new Traits that give crime. Or are you referring to the fact that the Criminal units now spread crime too?

As for the animal limits by region of the globe I think that really is ingenious. Pr-Colonial Era Earth has had historically animals very unique to each part of the globe. I think this bring a great deal of realism and variety to the game. Especially when its not the same old Wolf, Bear, Lion and Tiger units we use to only have.

Have you had really too few Neanderthals? In my game I always seem to have way too many. I wonder what factors lead to this. Maybe my map had a lot of animal resource sites they were spawning at.

To give you a concise well scripted set examples is not how I work with out time to restart a game and take notes along the way. I know what I want to say in general terms but I don't always remember all the small details that you seem to want me to provide.

Specific examples just make fixing them a lot easier. Its like saying "I would like to take a vacation in Europe." Sure that's fine but where in Europe?

 

[Koshling]

As for the animal limits by region of the globe I think that really is ingenious. Pr-Colonial Era Earth has had historically animals very unique to each part of the globe. I think this bring a great deal of realism and variety to the game. Especially when its not the same old Wolf, Bear, Lion and Tiger units we use to only have.

The issue is not variety (that's clearly a good thing), it's the (perceived at least - I can't say how real) imbalance between hemispheres (and possibly terrain/feature prevalence, though that's likely less of an issue)

 

[JosEPh_II]

Crime has been around for a long time in C2C. If anything I had added more ways to deal with crime in the Prehistoric era than there was before. The only thing I can think of that adds crime would be some of the new Traits that give crime. Or are you referring to the fact that the Criminal units now spread crime too?

In terms of Neanders, Thieves, rogues, and ambushers Crime is the new kid on the block. No I'm not referring to Criminal units spreading Crime or specific parts of crime. Crime really should Not have been a Preh Era factor at all. But rather should have been incorporated to start in the Ancient era. But that's all moot now isn't it. Too much work to move all of Crimes tentacles back one era. But Crime is not the only detractant/octopus in the C2C sea. It's just the one I mentioned 1st.

When the base/core units that make up a Special Era (like Preh Era), are diminished to the point of irrelevance by adding in processes that overwhelm and swallow them up (removes the focus from them) then the Special Era is not Special any more. It's a Design dilemma that has not been brought under control and is out of control.

The Preh Era was supposed to be Stabilized and set 10 versions ago so the rest of the Mods developing Eras could be fleshed out. Instead Preh Era just keeps getting added processes and is constantly in an imbalanced state because of this. When in reality these processes are better suited to start in Ancient or Later Eras.

Restore the Special Units prominence that gives the Preh Era it's uniqueness and go work on the Modern, Transhuman and Galactic Eras. Take the Special Promotions,Combat systems, Leader Traits, Crime, Disease, and other Processes and work on them in Those Eras. Not every new process Needs to start in the Preh Era. Is that so hard to see? I truly think it is a real case of "the Modders can't see the Forest any more because of the trees (from planting way too many)".

JosEPh

 

[DRJ]

Veto! Most of our modern processes have ancient aquivalents. To figure them out and to represent them in the simultation is a very fine thing because on ETERNITY every little piece of action especially in prehistoric is welcome.

By the way, no "too-less-ambusher-or-rogue-action-problem" in my game!!!

Maybe, just maybe, you could realize that testing under noble as an experienced player is just not the same like playing noble as inexperienced player! So to see if the balancing is well or way off you should better "work your way down" and play a level where AI has more hammers and therefore can produce more units...

Test immortal/deity and if AI still has the weaknesses you describe, I can take you seriously - otherwise your testing and complaining is more opinion than fact -- enerving opinion at times.

 

[Hydromancerx]

The issue is not variety (that's clearly a good thing), it's the (perceived at least - I can't say how real) imbalance between hemispheres (and possibly terrain/feature prevalence, though that's likely less of an issue)

Well DH still has a bunch to still make and I have even more I could send him. He said he cannot add more until the whole spawning on Earth maps problem is fixed.

In terms of Neanders, Thieves, rogues, and ambushers Crime is the new kid on the block. No I'm not referring to Criminal units spreading Crime or specific parts of crime. Crime really should Not have been a Preh Era factor at all. But rather should have been incorporated to start in the Ancient era. But that's all moot now isn't it. Too much work to move all of Crimes tentacles back one era. But Crime is not the only detractant/octopus in the C2C sea. It's just the one I mentioned 1st.

When the base/core units that make up a Special Era (like Preh Era), are diminished to the point of irrelevance by adding in processes that overwhelm and swallow them up (removes the focus from them) then the Special Era is not Special any more. It's a Design dilemma that has not been brought under control and is out of control.

The Preh Era was supposed to be Stabilized and set 10 versions ago so the rest of the Mods developing Eras could be fleshed out. Instead Preh Era just keeps getting added processes and is constantly in an imbalanced state because of this. When in reality these processes are better suited to start in Ancient or Later Eras.

Restore the Special Units prominence that gives the Preh Era it's uniqueness and go work on the Modern, Transhuman and Galactic Eras. Take the Special Promotions,Combat systems, Leader Traits, Crime, Disease, and other Processes and work on them in Those Eras. Not every new process Needs to start in the Preh Era. Is that so hard to see? I truly think it is a real case of "the Modders can't see the Forest any more because of the trees (from planting way too many)".

JosEPh

Well the Palace gives some anti-crime to begin with so your first city should not have much of a crime problem. Most of the time for me my capital has below zero crime for all of the Prehistoric Era. Likewise between the punishment lines (ex. Public Stoning, Crusifiction Crosses, etc) and watch posts (ex. Lookout Post, Sentry Post, etc) you should be able to deal with any Prehistoric Era crime. Even torches, walls and towers help reduce crime.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@Hydro,
You're still not seeing my point. Crime is but one of the symptoms that took the Uniqueness out of the Preh Era. All you are seeing is this is a critique on Crime itself. No it's a critique on the Processes that have been added into Preh that actually could've been toned down to let Preh Era's "Flavor" shine. I mentioned Crime because it was the beginning of the additions.

It's very simple really, restore the prime elements that made Preh era Unique, it's units and spawns.

@DRJ,
I even hesitate to respond to you because you consistently make erroneous assumptions about my play style and levels.

Maybe, just maybe, you could realize that testing under noble as an experienced player is just not the same like playing noble as inexperienced player! So to see if the balancing is well or way off you should better "work your way down" and play a level where AI has more hammers and therefore can produce more units...

Test immortal/deity and if AI still has the weaknesses you describe, I can take you seriously - otherwise your testing and complaining is more opinion than fact -- enerving opinion at times

Your elevated sense of self worth again is getting in the way of serious discussion. It's all about finger pointing and my way is superior to you and your way. Please refrain from this, it just deteriorates the discussions. How about actually reading and trying to understand the point given before you join in with derogatory or condescending rhetoric. The discussion is about the diminished use of Ambushers and Thieves by both player and AI. About Neanders being less than what they were intended to be by the originator Strategyonly. About the animal and barb spawns being weaker and taking a more back seat. Hence the Prehistoric Era is losing it's Flavor and Identity. Now Please, stay on topic.

JosEPh

 

[DRJ]

@DRJ,
I even hesitate to respond to you because you consistently make erroneous assumptions about my play style and levels.
How about actually reading and trying to understand the point given before you join in with derogatory or condescending rhetoric. The discussion is about the diminished use of Ambushers and Thieves by both player and AI. About Neanders being less than what they were intended to be by the originator Strategyonly. About the animal and barb spawns being weaker and taking a more back seat. Hence the Prehistoric Era is losing it's Flavor and Identity. Now Please, stay on topic.

No, you don't read what I wrote:

In my recent game I am confronted with masses of Ambushers and stuff. Barbs even took cities with wonders. Animals are plenty to be found.

I am playing GEM and yesterday the Cantonese had like 12 Ambushers around its borders, so if I would have sent one military captive home ungarded, it would have been ambushed, for sure. The secound Carthagian city became Barb heaven and spawned stacks to attack several big Egyptian (wonder) cities.
Sibiria is full of animals and barbs. And I didn't manage to get Neanders Wonder first.

What I am trying to tell you: everything you assume that is wrong isn't wrong in my longtime eternity/deity game, so I argue why fix something that isn't broken?

I started 2 month ago or so, and now in late classical everything is smooth, me, Japan 3rd place, 13 cities, Zulu first place, 38 cities (but only 300 score more)

I have like 20 saves to restore the game from various points and I reported everything that seemed off scale.
But it wasn't what you described. I can't say about new games - my comment is just about recent behaviour of AI in a long-term, late classical, deity-difficulty game with pretty new SVN and there everything is OK - tell me, why would that be?!

 

[Yudishtira]

I've never played slower than Marathon, but in my experience the strength of Neanderthals is what makes the Prehistoric simply a race to the Spiked Club and Atlatl. Why do they start with obsidian weapons? Why couldn't they start off as Brutes and Stone Throwers like 'we' do? Was Homo Sapiens' tech really so far behind theirs?

 

[DRJ]

I've never played slower than Marathon, but in my experience the strength of Neanderthals is what makes the Prehistoric simply a race to the Spiked Club and Atlatl. Why do they start with obsidian weapons? Why couldn't they start off as Brutes and Stone Throwers like 'we' do? Was Homo Sapiens' tech really so far behind theirs?

They were better adapted to the surroundings, more robust, more dwelled into nature, still - although new discoveries show they had also sparks of culture and rites.

What we can postulate, though, is that only homo sapiens sapiens better technology and the higher population growth resulting thereof was able to slowly diminish the harsh retreating eras the Neanderthals had left (for example the mountains of Basque or Georgia).


once more to the point of scaling: For all who are interested to play a perfectly scaled and just fine game that features the prehistoric era beautifully, I suggest to take on GEM Eternity/high difficulty (on GEM, a deity start gives AI two settlers, workers and stone throwers on start but no extra techs, I think, right?).

If there is something wrong please report. But don't - please don't ruin something that - at least in this starting enviroment works - or at least point out why it works there and not elsewhere. Koshling mentioned continents, well yes GEM has large Eurasia+Afr but in my game there was also an american ("unknown") civ under the first 3 of "largest civs" list...

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Hydro,
You're still not seeing my point. Crime is but one of the symptoms that took the Uniqueness out of the Preh Era. All you are seeing is this is a critique on Crime itself. No it's a critique on the Processes that have been added into Preh that actually could've been toned down to let Preh Era's "Flavor" shine. I mentioned Crime because it was the beginning of the additions.

It's very simple really, restore the prime elements that made Preh era Unique, it's units and spawns.

So your saying you liked it better when the Prehistoric Era was empty and unfinished? That's counter intuitive to everything people have been complaining about before such as the Prehistoric era being too empty and having empty techs. What you call "flavor" I call "incomplete".

As for units, the only unit removed was the Tomahawk Thrower, and it really was not removed it just got moved to a culture. All other units have either been there from the beginning (ex. Slinger, Stone Spearman, Scout, etc) or were added later to fill in gaps (ex. Chaser, Obsidian Spearman, Log Ram, etc). The added units I do not think should be removed.

However I agree that the Thief line needs some work to make them more active again.

 

[DRJ]

I can agree with that. But the main point is, the content can only come into play with more turns to use it, too.

If you play a giant map on lets say marathon, you have same distance of places but less time to employ units to these places. Lets say you send a thief to a civ 30 tiles away, once you built the bandits hideout and the thief etc and it arrives there if the civ you sent it to is advanced it can have rouges by now. Not that likely with Eternity game where one tech takes about 30 turns alone in prehistoric. Which means, if we estimate some 15-20 techs between thief and rogue, so lets say the construction of the hideout takes about 100 turns, the thief about 40 turns and the path to opponent civ 30 turns , the thief will be able to "work for his money" substantially longer.

Once more: at the moment C2C is nicely scaled for Eternity and working. The mod may not be scaled for faster speeds but how to change that while at the same time not messing with something thats fine?

 

[JosEPh_II]

So your saying you liked it better when the Prehistoric Era was empty and unfinished?

No, not what I said.

That's counter intuitive to everything people have been complaining about before such as the Prehistoric era being too empty and having empty techs. What you call "flavor" I call "incomplete".

Again never said Preh should be empty, your making assumptions and not grasping that theses "processes" as I call them should've come later in the Era and Not become the driving force of the Era. But what's the use, maybe you don't want to see it. I never objected to having techs and religions, and other parts fleshed out. But to new systems coming in too soon and taking over the intent of the Era. Is That plain enough? Or will you now ask another question based of an assumption?

As for units, the only unit removed was the Tomahawk Thrower, and it really was not removed it just got moved to a culture. All other units have either been there from the beginning (ex. Slinger, Stone Spearman, Scout, etc) or were added later to fill in gaps (ex. Chaser, Obsidian Spearman, Log Ram, etc). The added units I do not think should be removed.

I didn't ask for removal Lumenangel did and he only asked for the Obsidian, you are again going beyond the scope of the discussion

However I agree that the Thief line needs some work to make them more active again.

As does the Ambusher, Neander, and animal spawns for southern hemisphere. The Only Part of this discussion where we are actually talking about the same subject.

JosEPh

 

[DRJ]

Ok lets see, what does "more active" mean?

The number of appearances of the unit?

-> like in "two times more Neanders, AI builds Ambushers twice as likely"?
I would say maybe 25% more Neanders wouldn't be a bad idea. The numbers of Ambushers I am experiencing are fine. Thieves I can't tell I started as Japan isolated but I think they are pretty expansive and rightfully so. i don't want to have my enemy spend large amounts of hammer and gold into them and fall behind. On the other side, I myself evade to do so, too - for the obvious reason that on higher difficulty you have other priorities first- only reacting if being threatend by invisible pillagers nearby (which sucks and makes you wish you had taken preemptive action.. its a gamble^^).


The agressiveness of units (attacking with low chances and/or coming near cities and pillage/hide in enemy cities)?

->Barb Neaders used to pillage early on which resulted in not building improvements at all prior to scouts. That was not cool. But now they only pillage sometimes when being lured by a weak unit they follow - a little too less maybe...
Regarding "passive" Ambushers: In my game some Ambushers come into my territory but many more stay home with AI. My theory is that they only send their Ambushers to you if they are more powerful and otherwise use it as defensive as possible, fearing you might infiltrate them otherwise. I lost quite some treasures and also 2 commanders to Ambushers who sometimes took low chances to beat my guarding units and won.. Yeah since then I am ultracareful about these... doubled the guarding units.


The time before they get outdated?

->Thieves can still be built if all Rogues spots are taken by the way - mostly for defense prior to dogs... I would have been able to use thieves for about 250 turns at least while my 1000 turn prehistoric experience. And as I said afterwards some more 250 turns as expansive pseudo-dogs or to-be-upgraded-reserve rogues.


So really I don't understand where the problem is with activity. I can tell you reasons why the activity is mostly consisting of the circumstances and under the right circumstances as I pointed out it will most likely work. In C2C making a good game is not easy - 1000 options, the need for a right map/speed/difficulty ratio etc. I can only say that it runs "active" with deity/eternity/GEM so if you need a test gamesave I will gladly provide you with that. Plenty of animals and stuff - no problems there as well...

 

[Hydromancerx]

Again never said Preh should be empty, your making assumptions and not grasping that theses "processes" as I call them should've come later in the Era and Not become the driving force of the Era. But what's the use, maybe you don't want to see it. I never objected to having techs and religions, and other parts fleshed out. But to new systems coming in too soon and taking over the intent of the Era. Is That plain enough? Or will you now ask another question based of an assumption?

Seriously Joe, you are so vague that all I can do is make some assumptions on what the heck you mean.

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

We understand quite well that there are systems (including, but not limited to, Crime) that you think that should only have started in Ancient, or at the earliest, late Prehistoric. However, your continued persistence in intentionally not specifying exactly which systems you are talking about and how you feel they should, or should not, be applying to things in the Prehistoric era is what is making the problem. Similarly to what you mentioned to DRJ, accusing people of not getting your point when you aren't making one is a questionable tactic. If you seriously want to get your point across, you NEED to specify exactly what "processes" you are referring to and how you think they should and should not apply. If you are unwilling or unable to be specific, then you cannot seriously be surprised when we don't understand. Accusing people of "not wanting to see it" doesn't help any either.

That said, I do agree with you that the topic was the Prehistoric era. That you made quite clear. Thus DRJ's postings (specifically #26 and #29) were inappropriate as you were specifically talking about Prehistoric, and he was talking about late Classical.

However, that said, he does have a good point, though indirectly. The point there is that even though you may be having a bad game (fewer Rogue types & Neanderthals in play then you'd like to see) that doesn't necessarily mean that the game is broken and needs to be fixed. The rate / ratio seem fine to other people. Admittedly, you didn't specifically say that that experience was only from one game, but perhaps try another with different map-script and other options from what you normally use. You might have a different experience.

As to "the Intent and Flavor" being lost or diminished, well, again all I can really say is that that is your perception / opinion. As far as I can tell, the "Intent / Flavor" of the Prehistoric Era is that the player cannot make more cities, has to hunt for most of their food/hammers, and has to be afraid of Neanderthals / Barbarians. Again, from my perspective, this is still intact. If your perspective differs, please explain exactly how?

Something else you said bothers me. You said: "I never objected to having techs and religions, and other parts fleshed out. But to new systems coming in too soon and taking over the intent of the Era." This seems to be self-contradictory, as part of 'fleshing out' techs, buildings, religions, and other things involves linking them up to the systems in use that they should logically be linked to. I'm going to assume that you did not intend to be self-contradictory there and I am asking for clarification. Please be more specific with what you actually mean. Thank you in advance.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

In general I agree with JosEPh_II about how many things like crime are appearing far too soon. The simplest is the "Homeless" building - how can you be upset at not having a home before you have discovered shelter building? You may as well say people in the prehistoric era are upset because they don't have the internet.

The same goes for crime - how can it be a crime before people have made the law/code of conduct/ethics that makes it so? So why do we have crime before Code of Laws is discovered?

As to barbarian units, the I has been improved greatly but before there were two types of barbarians - those that spawned at random and attacked/pillaged the nearest nation (a small but constant threat) and those built by barbarian cities which built up to be a big but not too often threat. We have lost the first lost since they just join the city barbarian stacks. To me this reduces the over all tension of the early period. Note I don't play with Neanderthals on as I feel they are too big a threat. Having a weaker then stronger set of neanderthals may help there.

Note 2. neanderthals and animals use one spawn method and barbarians use another. SO wants Platypings "Pesky Barbarians" included, but as far as I can see they are just a variation on the barbarian invasion events already in game. (I have converted the python but have yet to work on the actual units spawned. I think if we have that in the game it should also replace the invasion and pirate events - but more on that in another thread.)

Animal spawning is a problem mostly because there is so little land in the southern hemisphere of Earth, given the current method being used for defining animal ranges. Lately with most southern animals I just started setting their ranges all the way south rather than using the Earth range but that was after I had done most animals. Using date (turn), latitude and longitude is probably the best method available to us at the moment.

 

[Koshling]

As to barbarian units, the I has been improved greatly but before there were two types of barbarians - those that spawned at random and attacked/pillaged the nearest nation (a small but constant threat) and those built by barbarian cities which built up to be a big but not too often threat. We have lost the first lost since they just join the city barbarian stacks. To me this reduces the over all tension of the early period. Note I don't play with Neanderthals on as I feel they are too big a threat. Having a weaker then stronger set of neanderthals may help there.

Multiple barb factions, and/or multiple barb AIs is on my TODO list, either or both of which would address this - the factions is more to split the barbs away from the animals, but intra-barb splits might also be useful. The multiple AIs would directly address the '2-types' issue.

However, it's rather queued up behind performance work - far more multi-threading to be done once the next version is released (too risky to try to do during a stabilization period), and also I want to spend time on trying to reduce memory usage significantly. Both of those are order-of-an-entire-cycle projects, so it will likely not be until about V34 that I have time to work on the multiple factions/AIs.

If there is a general feel that it's super-important I could possibly do a simple multi-AI split for barbs next cycle however instead (I don't think it is a big task really - a few days maybe).

 

[DRJ]

In general I agree with JosEPh_II about how many things like crime are appearing far too soon. The simplest is the "Homeless" building - how can you be upset at not having a home before you have discovered shelter building? You may as well say people in the prehistoric era are upset because they don't have the internet.

Homeless refers to being in the open without shelter, getting wet and cold and being at danger during the night. So in this case early humans felt homeless in the sense of something they miss and a state they want to get out of. Same with internet, as early as 100000 years ago, the people built a (cultural) network of "spirits" to synchronize their mindsets for tech transfer and intel exchange, for example via simple petroglyphs and hunting paintings as rosetta stones or via initiation rites as social languages, enabling to become part of the "social network" etc so I do think they urged for something like "internet" but couldn't name or technically enable it yet.

Everything we are becoming now was once there already in a sort of unsane (apart of insane or sane!) collective consciousness.

The same goes for crime - how can it be a crime before people have made the law/code of conduct/ethics that makes it so? So why do we have crime before Code of Laws is discovered?

There was a concept of crime before laws were written. Laws just synchronize the punishment (or enforce it as there often was a lack thereof if mighty people did bad stuff). So while people didn't have laws that punished like "stealing" their corn, the people who had no corn left felt like they had been robbed.
Instead of reacting by stealing it back or something more sinister today this is delegated to the state.

So the feeling of injustice is something that even our early humans might have felt for example when they had to abandon a prey they had followed by persitance hunting for hours only to see a lion claim it for himself in the end.

As to barbarian units, the I has been improved greatly but before there were two types of barbarians - those that spawned at random and attacked/pillaged the nearest nation (a small but constant threat) and those built by barbarian cities which built up to be a big but not too often threat. We have lost the first lost since they just join the city barbarian stacks. To me this reduces the over all tension of the early period. Note I don't play with Neanderthals on as I feel they are too big a threat. Having a weaker then stronger set of neanderthals may help there.

Maybe we should have a Neander "Civ", populating caves (1culture on that tile) and moving around with "neander hunter/warrior" and "neander family"
(like nomad camp but only wandering to other caves every few turns, breeding "neader warrior/hunter" every X turns).
The more Neander units you would kill or the more caves you occupy with your own units the more suspicious and agressive the Neander Civ would become towards your civ.
If, on the other hand, you leave them alone, or, if near their units, positively answer possible event like "These people are starving and will die soon if they don't get some soon. Do you want to share your food with them", you would have production bonus for neander culture and also get free neander gatherers/hunter from time to time because they want to life with your kind tribe.

In reality, scientist believe by now that interactions between early homo sapiens and neanderthalians regarding cooperation at hunting large mammals are a valid possibility and also interbreeding is. To represent this alternative timeline aside the "culture:neander" would be cool, of course especially with nomad start, when caves mean defense and thus control over regions - would you want a lot of friendly neanders around or clear the space for your gathering and expansion?