Vincentz Infinite Projects [VIP MOD]

[vincentz]

lol, ok. Just so I'm clear. If we like to play at slower speeds, use Epic, not Marathon. As for map scripts, we only use VIP1? not any of the others, like VIP PW, etc?

It looks like the primary thing is Marathon, though at Huge 12player Perfect World, it comes up with a Python Excemption. The reason is that it doesnt "understand" the size coz I put some extra sizes (Large+ and Huge+), and it uses its own mapgenerator instead of the default one (the one that all the VIP1 uses).
Im gonna have a look at Perfect World 3 (newest right?) and see if I can make it use swamps and features, coz its a really nice mapscript.

I'm gonna do a couple of AI runs on huge marathon, and check the results.

 

[Drakarska]

Ok, I'll just wait then. Love the PW3 script.

 

[vincentz]

I did a couple of AI runs, and while it does hold the AI down that Perfect World is scattered with forest and jungle (in VIP jungle can only be removed with Steam Power) so they cannot grow big cities, the factor that seemed to slow them the most was perhaps difficulty level.

At noble the AI will do rather poorly, though at emperor it will do just fine.

The first 3 screenies is on Noble
1, Marathon, Huge, Perfect World. 1000 turns

Spoiler :

2, Marathon, Huge, Big & Small. 1000 turns

Spoiler :

3, Epic, Huge, Big & Small. 518 turns (half marathon=epic)

Spoiler :

while number 4 is Emperor Difficulty
4, Marathon, Huge, Perfect World. 1227 turns (which compares to #5)

Spoiler :

5, Marathon, Huge, Perfect World. 1228 turns (this on noble)

Spoiler :

The difference in the AI on Noble vs Emperor is HUGE (look at what they are teching), which IMHO is wrong.
The penalties should go to the player, not bonuses to the AI for getting higher difficulty.


So, it appears that marathon can be run, and also Perfect World, but it order to get a bit of a challenge, a higher difficulty level is adviced.

That being said, I'm an Emperor player in BtS where I win 90%*, but in VIP I get beaten 90% of the time on emperor, so maybe not go too high on difficulty


*I rarely finish, but often its so obvious that no AI left poses a threat, that it would be boring to complete the game.

 

[J422]

First, thanks for this great (and light) mod!

I played it a few times and after some defeats due to economy problems killing the search rate, I started a game in warlord difficulty just to see more of the mod without bothering about money. I ended up first civ, with good tech advance, would have been a victory if I hadn't stopped in early 21th due to my (sucky) computer taking several minutes per turn...
And it occured that despite being at 100% research rate, having a fair number of cities, science wonders, buildings and specialists, some cities producing research and my spies stealing technologies, I couldn't maintain the "historical" tech rate after renaissance, reaching industrial era only in mid 20th.
So maybe there are too much techs (and some pretty useless) or it needs some balancing, but I really like being "in touch" with history and i'm a little disappointed it seems impossible...

 

[vincentz]

@ J422
I agree with you

What I did at one point was to increase the tech cost at renaissance, a bit more at industrial, even more at modern, and lots and lots at future techs (compared to Zappara's original ROM tech tree which is the one I use). But all in all they got too much, so I need to put a few Research Buildings at those empty useless techs. Im thinking Museums, Computer Labs, SETI, Research Facility etc etc. It really could use some more buildings especially in late industrial/modern era.
But as seen with picture 4 and 5 in the previous post, then difficulty matters ALOT, which means that if going Chieftain vs Diety, then Chieftain AIs might reach Medieval in 1200 AD and Diety AIs might reach it in 300 AD.

To top that, there is also the huge "Randomness Factor" that civ4 always have.
F.ex. here where I made an AI run and Zara "took it all" and have biplane bombers and trench infantry by 1686AD while most other civs are still in renaissance era (Marathon, Noble, Large, Big & Small, turn 1972). This is not just a VIP problem, but also Vanilla, Warlord and BtS problem. Often the human player will be in Zara's boots in BtS and run down Longbowmen with Tanks. That is why I created the National Library/Encyclopedia Civilization/Communication Network and Internet, so "slow" AIs would never get too far behind.

Spoiler :

edit:
Regarding the long AI turns in late game: I found a simple thing such as Map Trading takes a huge amount of time on my (not very modern) computer when the AI trades maps (which they do fairly often even though they already have the map), so in the next version I will add a feature in VIPLoader under "Change Game Rules" that allows to disable map tradings altogether. While ofcourse there is still long waiting, atleast it will be for constructive stuff, and not AI1 changing maps with AI2 every few turns.

Another little trick is to turn down Autosaves, so it doesnt save every 4 turns. I have it on every 100 turns so I can analyse AI autoruns better, but 10 or 20 could also be an option.
Its found in AutoSaveInterval in CivilazationIV.ini in the Documents/My Games/Beyond the Sword folder.

 

[Daft73]

.....
Another little trick is to turn down Autosaves, so it doesnt save every 4 turns. I have it on every 100 turns so I can analyse AI autoruns better, but 10 or 20 could also be an option.
Its found in AutoSaveInterval in CivilazationIV.ini in the Documents/My Games/Beyond the Sword folder.

Heh, I actually switched mine to 1pt. With all the distractions of having 2 children 3,14..I can reclaim lost games due to madness-at-home. Happily my pc is relatively up to date, and can handle the load. (bonus to building own pc's)

 

[vincentz]

Screenie shows how silly the Warlord can be..in this game the monguls are my neighbor and my warlord is having a field day over there

Thought about this when I saw this :

Spoiler :

Its a two side story

edit : and it took 3 axes, not two

dbl edit : unfortunately he got really mad at me for killing his warlord, so 1 turn after I reached Medieval Era*, Eastern (Western) Roman Empire's emperor abdicated to the Western (Eastern) Roman Empire aka the Byzantine Empire.

Spoiler :

* (which historically was started by the Fall of the West Roman Empire)

 

[vincentz]

I tried some different mapscripts, but was quickly bored of the lack of diversity of maps (I kinda like the Big and Small for its earthlike'ishness, so I added some new mapscripts:

Fracturedworld
Tectonics
PerfectMongoose (Perfect World 3)
Perfect World 2f
SmartMap
Terra2
Continents and Islands
BtS Creation
Life
TerraPitBtS
Totestra


any requests beyond those?

 

[Daft73]

I tried some different mapscripts, but was quickly bored of the lack of diversity of maps (I kinda like the Big and Small for its earthlike'ishness, so I added some new mapscripts:

Fracturedworld
Tectonics
PerfectMongoose (Perfect World 3)
Perfect World 2f
SmartMap
Terra2
Continents and Islands
BtS Creation
Life
TerraPitBtS
Totestra


any requests beyond those?

Thanks a ton Vincentz

 

[Noyyau]

Thanks a ton Vincentz

+1

 

[Nineliveslost]

i always wanted a map with a lot of really large lakes

 

[vincentz]

i always wanted a map with a lot of really large lakes

The Life mapscript actually makes some interesting "lakes" (its not freshwater lakes, but ocean, as in civ4 a pool of water beyond 9 tiles is automatically seawater) with low sea level. Best part is they are VIP1 category with features and swamps (most of the new mapscripts are VIP1 )

Life - Low Sealevel - Normal size

Life - Low Sealevel - Large size

 

[Drakarska]

Wow, kudos kind Sir. Just so I'm clear, Optimum play would be VIP1/epic/12 civs for huge map?
not trying to be picky, lol, it's just that I like playing huge maps with lots of civs, so am curious

 

[vincentz]

Yeah, VIP1/Epic/12 civs sounds like a sound choice

I did a Gigantic Archipelago (Snaky continents/low sealevel)/Epic/18 civs with VIP v.088, and that was lot of fun too, but industrial era turns started to be 30 seconds+
(for comparison I have an intel core duo 2 E7300 2.66 GHz/4 GB ram/Gforce 8800 GtS 512 MB/Win 7 64bit (though I had Vista 64bit at the time)

 

[Drakarska]

Hmnn, my specs are a wee bit higher than yours, but not by too much. I do know that I can play RI mod Earth scenario, and around RE to IE the turn times get to be about 30 secs or so. I'll give it a whirl and let ya know, my thanks.

 

[Nineliveslost]

Those are perfect. Thanks

 

[Drakarska]

ok, loving the new map scripts. A heartfelt +1 kind sir,

 

[vincentz]

3 days after my son was declared healthy and fit for fight, my wife, who apparently havent had chickenpox, got it

So it seems like I'm not going to get a lot of work done on the VIP mod the next couple of weeks...

However, I collected the new mapscripts, and made a ZIP file, for anyone who wants to try them.

I didnt create an installer, so they have to be placed manually in the VIP folder.

Easiest way is to rightclick the desktop icon created by the 0.91 installer and "open file location" to get to the mods folder. Then either just merge, or manually place the scripts in PrivateMaps and the MapScriptTools.py in Assets/Python folder.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Ouch! Chicken pox on adults is rough. Will be for her quick and complete recovery.

JosEPh

 

[vincentz]

Ouch! Chicken pox on adults is rough. Will be for her quick and complete recovery.

JosEPh

Thanks. She is "hit" a thousandfold more than my son was, and is suffering quite severly, so I'm staying home with her (which means I can mod when she sleeps) /

Im having a good look at the civics, coz I made space for 1 more in each category and wasnt happy about the current civics. I want to simplify them a bit, so its more manageable.

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