Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD]

[vincentz]

I kind of agree with the blowup spies. sure there was underground fractions especially during the world wars, but that was usually during occupation and would primarily target production facilities or infrastructure such as roads, railways and bridges (where o' civ art thou bridges???). I'll see if I can disable it, as it is mostly just a pain in the a$$ loosing improvements, and they can be rebuild quickly with an idle worker.

Regarding to big armies, I agree on most of what you write, the only problem is the alternative. That with a few units you can conquerer the world. I actually thought the AI was going to find a reasonable army size, especially after I raised the cost per unit from vanilla 1 to 2.
I havent yet had the time to playtest 0.8 so I cant really argue for or against the current army sizes, but looking at budgets for different AIs on 0.79b army size wasnt that big an impact on overall expendures (spell?) Maybe raise it even further would be the way forward. Have to test.
There are some AIs that will build HUGE armies no matter what. Zulus and Aztecs among others have that tendency.

 

[arkham4269]

Well I have been playing on EPIC with the x1.5 modifier so I was surprised how many units there where. I like your way of limiting costs per units but again I feel there needs to be a way around this for upgrading units. Normally I would not care but the minute Civ went to a more promotion based system, you don't want to lose your older units and all their combat earned promotions. It should always be much cheaper to upgrade a unit than to build one.

My main feeling is prior to somewhere around the ACW era, wars should be quick. Historically taking over someone's country was rare. In fact, I like the Rebellion mod because it showed how often it can be easy to take land but holding it? Hold different issue. I've been to Afghanistan so I know first hand. Of course the Rebellion has had some issues because if not tweaked properly you can't expand without your country constantly collapsing into Civil War. However it is very good at showing how hard it is to keep capture territory when your culture is low.

A possible fix (if it could be done) would be to take a page from one of my all time favorite games: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Prior to WW I tech or so, all units would be tied to a city for the purposes of maintenance instead of a Civ wide pool. Bigger cities could afford to foot the bill for more units. However, when these units are killed there would be a penalty which would help shorten wars on top of the general war weariness.

I mean the bulk of your military will be from your big cities and losing production to is going to slow down the war effort which will make it more attractive to settle wars quickly. This would give another reason to use mercenaries: when they die no one cares. So the war-mongering players need to focus on wealth to fund their mercs if they want to go conquering.

The fact that right around WW I military support was more of a country wide thing and not armies fielded from regional regiments (like pretty much pre-ACW era wars) would allow for more combat time which dove-tails nicely with the change in warfare to have a more "Total War" where entire countries fall.

I don't know if you have played Europa Universallis, but their diplomacy is such where when a war goes badly, the losing player will quickly make peace with concessions. Some Civ mods do this well others don't. However for the most part in wars that was the whole point: get in, win some good battles and then get concessions. Rare was it you took over the entire country.

I mean look at Europe. Prior to WW II it was rare for any country to be completely conquered by another and even then revolts later would make them free again.

Another quick thing about espionage: Potentially another way to have "combat" espionage mission in peacetime would be against cities or in a city ZOC where there is a higher % of the non-nation population. Thus if I took over city Calais from France, then France and other nations could do "combat" espionage missions until the % of my nationality exceeded 50%. This could then represent insurgents like what we see in Afghanistan and Iraq or in any conquered area. However, once the majority of the people flip then those groups die out.

In fact, rereading this made me think about how culture and combat would work with the above. A country which focuses on culture is vulnerable to attack because they don't have as many units. However a country which focuses on warfare will not be able to hold much territory form said high culture country because they would be assimilated. The Chinese used this strategy for thousands of years: Go ahead take us over: inside a generation you will be Chinese!

So both paths are still viable. The culture producing Civs have to worry some of their cities are going to be taken over but often times they will "flip" back culturally unless the war-making countries make an effort to deal with it.

To counter this, the war-making countries could pay to garrison the cities to keep down but if unit support costs are high then that Civ is going to be taking in the shorts in terms of gold...just like we are in Iraq & Afghanistan.

 

[arkham4269]

Also, the History of the Three Kingdom's mod has a kick-ass army system. By building generals (expensive) you can combine 3-4 units into an army like you used to be able to do in Civ 3. This is powerful and it enables you to do more w/less units. Plus the AI uses the system very well. Great mod: you should check it out if you haven't seen it.

 

[Soro]

Originally Posted by vincentz
@ OneFoot, I havent playtested/balanced About the unhealth. I made it like that on purpose. In vanilla or RoM I never had any problems with unhealth. IMHO all larger cities are unhealthy (to a certain degree) but especially in earlier eras it was a huge problem, that evolved into Aquaducts, Sewage systems, Health control, recycling stations, Lead free gasolin, low co2 emissioning filters, clean air campaignes etc etc etc. And yet many cities are still VERY unhealthy in the year 2011.
Another way to look at it is purely gameplay : While unhappiness is a hard border for growth, unhealthiness is a soft border, controlling that early cities not grow "out of control".

I think that's admirably expressed. Much as I realize Civ4's a strategy game and *not* a simulation, have you ever considered giving a few ancient or medieval civs good benefits to health for the way they dealt with these matters? The Doric Greeks, for instance, had a guild that came around door to door once a day and collected human excrement, for disposal outside the city. The Japanese were extremely concerned about personal hygiene at a time when Europeans didn't understand the concept. Just a thought.

I'm sure this was just overlooked two pages ago for comment by chance. After all, there have been very lengthy responses since then to all sorts of posts.

 

[arkham4269]

Is there any way to add a "No espionage" to the Custom game screen options? I'm pretty sure I've seen that in other games.

 

[vincentz]

I'm sure this was just overlooked two pages ago for comment by chance. After all, there have been very lengthy responses since then to all sorts of posts.

I think the polution problem is kinda solved by adding 1 health from natural resources and then again with resource + building. There are already quite a few civs that has health boni, but when I get to changing the traits I will consider it

Is there any way to add a "No espionage" to the Custom game screen options? I'm pretty sure I've seen that in other games.

I disabled the gameoptions I never use, plus disabling the espionage screw up cultural victory. It has done that since BtS (search CFC forum for "disable espionage"), and I havent look at it, nor tried to fix it.

If you want to enable it, it can be found at ...Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\VIP\Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml

		<GameOptionInfo>
			<Type>GAMEOPTION_NO_ESPIONAGE</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_GAME_OPTION_NO_ESPIONAGE</Description>
			<Help>TXT_KEY_GAME_OPTION_NO_ESPIONAGE_HELP</Help>
			<bDefault>0</bDefault>
			<bVisible>0</bVisible>
		</GameOptionInfo>

set <bVisible>0</bVisible> to 1

 

[vincentz]

Walls obsolete with Explosives instead of Rifling
Castle obsolete with Explosives instead of Flight
Bowyer/Fletcher obsolete with Flintlock
Bows and Arrows obsolete with Flintlock
Bronze Weapons obsolete with Chemistry
Bronze Smith obsolete with Chemistry
Iron Weapons obsolete with Steel
Weapon Smith obsolete with Steel

Civics :
Theocracy : -50 Warweariness
Pacifism : +100 warweariness
Emancipation : 200 Anger if not enabled (was 400)
Democracy : Enable all specialists

Modified Late Era Starts so researching is faster.

Added : Air Balloon (Recon unit, upgrades Explorer)
Added : Steam Paddler (Seatransport, upgrades Galleon)
Added : Iron Frigate (upgrades Frigate)
Added : Armored Car (upgrades Cavalry)

Animal Event set down to 100 from 300
Oasis "healing" set down from 20 to 10

 

[JosEPh_II]

Hey Vincentz!

Are you doing okay?

Noticed you had made some posts in AND recently. Looking for ideas?

Any eta for next revision of VIP?

JosEPh

 

[vincentz]

Doing fine. Im having Asaf helping me with my first dll modification, which is an old modcomp by TheLopez. It converts resources into other resources. Besides that I looked a bit at the Industrial era, plus I'm messing with Line of Sight, trying to limit the "see the entire continent before 1AD".
Now exploring is not only dangerous, but also quite a task and something to do instead of just hitting end turn. Then I installed the tools for compiling gamecore.dlls, and shopping around for neat stuff like 3rd city radius and multiple production/turn.
So a .81 might be a bit far away, though if everything works out with the new dll, I might just upload it.

I'm not sure that people are going to like the new LoS changes though. It can be a little bit like walking in a minefield.

 

[Bezurn]

It sounds like a neat feature that may add some spice to the exploration side of the game. If you add it in perhaps create a game option to disable / enable it so that people who don't like it after trying it can turn it off.

3rd city radius sounds very cool, as I'd like to not have to squeeze a city into every location to get the most out of my land.

 

[Voyhkah]

Hm. Could I maybe borrow some of the 3D graphics for the resources? I'll credit you, obviously.

 

[Voyhkah]

The music was nice!

It had a lot of nice features.

However...

There was no page on new concepts. I have absolutely no idea what half the stuff does. Much of the text was not filled in. As well as almost all the pedia articles, one corporation and eight or so buildings were actually missing their names.

All those extra building-produced resources were just plain confusing.

There seem to be a lot of techs.

The graphics were very good.

The guilds were a clever idea, but I thought there were too many of them and they clogged out more important things.

You kept the religions down! So many mods today have a bazillion religions, enough for everyone to have their own, clogging up a lot of mechanics. I don't like too many religions.

All in all, an above-average mod!

 

[vincentz]

1) Hm. Could I maybe borrow some of the 3D graphics for the resources? I'll credit you, obviously.

The music was nice!

It had a lot of nice features.

However...

2) There was no page on new concepts. I have absolutely no idea what half the stuff does. Much of the text was not filled in. As well as almost all the pedia articles,
3)one corporation and eight or so buildings were actually missing their names.

4) All those extra building-produced resources were just plain confusing.

5) There seem to be a lot of techs.

6) The graphics were very good.

7) The guilds were a clever idea, but I thought there were too many of them and they clogged out more important things.

8) You kept the religions down! So many mods today have a bazillion religions, enough for everyone to have their own, clogging up a lot of mechanics. I don't like too many religions.

9) All in all, an above-average mod!

1) Ofcourse, and you dont have to credit me. I didnt do them (except for some of the 2D icons
2) I havent made a concept page in civopedia yet, as the concepts are constantly being changed, so I'll wait untill I get to a more "finished" state.
3) Theres also dummy promotions and dummy units. I made them, so thta I dont have to begin a new game every time I wanted to add a unit/building/promotion/wonder.
4) It will become more cleary in v.0.81 as Asaf helped me fix a modcomp by Thelopez that converts resources instead of just spamming them.
5) Its rise of mankinds techtree with a few changes. My goal is 300 techs.
6) and the credit goes to.... not me (except for the 2D buttons and wonder screens)
The talent that has been putting units/buildings/leaderheads into cfc's downloaddatabase for years, have made it a very tough descision every time something had to be added, but still trying to avoid MAFs and the like.
7) but you can pick only 1 from each category. And while they do give a small boost, they are not necessary. They do flavour the game though, IMHO
8) Yep. Its good with a lot of different religions, but the mechanics in Civ4 where only 1 can be spread automatically, discourages multible religions. And whats the point if each civ have thir own.
9) eh thanks, I guess. Wait untill it is finished to give stars

 

[vincentz]

Added Palace expansions:
Trone Room (Government center)
National Treasury (Gold boost)
Palace Garden (Culture)

First to Ceremonial Burial gets a Great Noble
Removed initial happiness and health, but added via tech'ing

 

[vincentz]

Uploaded 0.81

There might be a slight problem with the Convert Resources.

If anyone find any bugs or balance issues please report in this thread.

Thanks
Vincentz

edit :
v.81 has too little happiness in the beginning and will be replaced shortly.

CONCEPTS :

Movement :

Spoiler :

Movementcost for Terrain and Features have been increased.

4 Oasis
5 Grassland, Plains
6 Tundra, Flood Plains
7 Desert, Forest
8 Marsh, Jungle
9 Snow, Fallout

+2 Hills

2 Coast
3 Ocean
5 Ice
6 Reef

Roads and Routes
4 Path
3 Road
2 Paved Road
1 Highway
10 moves for all units Railroad

Techs adding 1 to units

Land Movement :
The Wheel
Chariotry
Cartography

Sea Movement :
Pottery
Ship Building
Compass

 

[Pef]

anyone thought of making "fake" units , ie , wood tanks or rubber tanks , like the ones historically used before D-Day or in the 1st Gulf war.
they would cost 10% of normal Hammers , and be seen as real units by all others ,but only able to defend , also they would they 300% more damage from any attack.
they would cost 0 gold to maintain , but limited in possible numbers , such as national units , maybe 6 per civ.

 

[vincentz]

anyone thought of making "fake" units , ie , wood tanks or rubber tanks , like the ones historically used before D-Day or in the 1st Gulf war.
they would cost 10% of normal Hammers , and be seen as real units by all others ,but only able to defend , also they would they 300% more damage from any attack.
they would cost 0 gold to maintain , but limited in possible numbers , such as national units , maybe 6 per civ.

hehe. not a bad idea making decoys. Unfortunately I think it would only be usable in Multiplayer as the AI can "see through" everything.

 

[NikNaks]

hehe. not a bad idea making decoys. Unfortunately I think it would only be usable in Multiplayer as the AI can "see through" everything.

Is it too difficult to tell the AI that the dummy units are real and make it act accordingly?

 

[vincentz]

Is it too difficult to tell the AI that the dummy units are real and make it act accordingly?

I guess you can just build an old cheap unit and use it as decoy. It will function the same way as a decoy. Of course it wont look like one, but to make x number of units for the same effect will maybe look cool, but IMO be too wastefull of (the limited) RAM civ4 uses.

 

[Asaf]

Is it too difficult to tell the AI that the dummy units are real and make it act accordingly?

But you'd probably also need to add the probability that these units are decoy (based on known techs, rival production limits etc.), for which a human player can make an educated guess.