arkham4269
Court Writer - Orbis Mod
Another thing to possibly steal would be the Army system from History of the Three Kingdoms. Not only is it really cool, the AI uses it!
Uploaded VIP80.ZIP
(1) if you've met the 'four World Wonder' cap
(2) You've probably been asked this question bunches of times: Have you considered merging in the BUG mod?
Regarding monasteries and building missionaries. I've changed it so that cathedrals will also allow you to train missionaries to spread religion. That way even if you didn't get a particular monastery built before they went obsolete, if you have enough of that religion spread throughout your land you could still spread the religion should you choose.
An easy xml change and possibly something to consider adopting.
Thats a very good idea. I'll adopt it
edit : eh.. how?
the <PrereqBuilding>BUILDING_religion_MONASTERY</PrereqBuilding> in Civ4Unitinfos.xml cannot be used for multible buildings.
Playing a game as India w/VIP 80 and I'm still noticing some serious issues.
* Armies are too large: I had a the Incans attack one of my cities with over 40+ units. Most of these were new so pretty much their entire Civ output was military production. That is not a sustainable model historically and is unbalanced game play otherwise.
Better too large armies than too small. I did make an extra speed for Epic and Normal that multiplied unit and building production time, so less armies were produced. If you play at normal speed it is called Normal+. I removed the Epic version, as another player requested shorter building times for epic. However an AI with a big army is IMHO a much "healthier" sign, and provide more of a challenge, than an AI that can be steamrolled with a few units.
* Espionage is totally out of whack: I had my espionage at 25% with 5 with every civ except the Incans at 10 had mausoleums, courthouses & security bureaus in all my cities and still I was getting hacked almost every turn. There needs to be some sort of penalty for having spies get found out. I mean I was catching spies left and right. After a while this should give me bonus. As it stands, I'm going to turn off espionage. It unbalances the game because some Civs seem to use it as one of their prime strategies and that isn't historically viable either.
This is another great news for me. Throughout history people have copied what others do. Not every civilization have invented everything they use, nor has it been properly traded. Most of the time it has been studied and then copied, but other times it has been stolen. It is by far the easier sollution to steal the plans of a spaceship, than to invent it yourself. Intelligence and counterintelligence have very hign priority in real life, and especially the later can be used in game with units such as the agent and special agent.
* NEED DEFENSIVE FIRE! In the 40+ Unit attack on a major city with all the defensive works, the Incans were having FIRST ROUND kills against RIFLEMAN. I have about 5 canons, 2 bombards and a Trebechet and it didn't do me squat. I think you really need to add the modpack where certain units fire first. I've done a lot of ACW table-top miniature fights and I tell you ACW cav attacking into a city without canon support is suicide. That was also the other amazing thing. Except for one canon, all the attacks went in without reducing my city at all and still the 20+ cav were able to wipe out my 30+ defenders.
This is maybe a question about balancing the cavalry, but this is also great news yet again. A 40+ unit attack from an AI. Thats a serious can of wupassI dont know the algorithm for when siegeweapons should bombard citydefense, but will try to experiment with it to optimize it. I do hate the way ranged siegeweapons are implemented in Civ, and really wanted a completely different tactical battle than the 1 on 1 that it is now. That is unfortunately out of my league, but something like and old game : North and South, could enhance it 10 times. A lot of people had big hopes for civ 5, but man... what a bummer...
* Upgrades: I said it earlier but your system to increase costs throws the balance off of upgrading units. Especially if you need to start cranking out the newer units, the cost to upgrade a longbowmen can end up being like 1,000+ gold which is just too much. Need to have some way to upgrade w/o hitting that increase cost threshold.
The reason why upgrades are so expensive is due to the fact that I increased unitcost extensively. F.ex. a longbowman in vanilla cost 50 while in VIP it costs 120, and a Rifleman cost 110 in vanilla and 400 in VIP. However in Vanilla the upgrade costs 3 per hammer while in VIP it only cost 1 (both have a base cost of 20) So the math would be :
Upg longbow to rifle :
Vanilla : 20+((110-50)x3)= 200
VIP : 20+((400-120)x1)=300
I think that it maybe also scales with gamespeed/mapsize, so it seems like a lot more than vanilla.
Beyond that the Global Warming seemed better. Still had a few squares prior to 1800's but there didn't seem to be as bad health issues.
I found a way to change the global warming to another type than desert, and will experiment with a Wasteland terraintype, but will also delay it a bit more to avoid GW before industrial era.
But really, the fact that the AI seemed to be 'cheating' in that the Incan player had about the same size empire as mine (on Prince) and I was barely able to keep up with most of my cities devoted to research and wealth and even then I couldn't seem to break even between building new units and upgrading others.
Here is the cheats that the AI gets on Prince :
....Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\VIP\Assets\XML\GameInfo/CIV4HandicapInfo.xml
The AI always play on Noble, so to see what advantages it gets you can compare Noble to Prince. F.ex. :
<iFreeUnits>8</iFreeUnits> vs <iFreeUnits>6</iFreeUnits> means that the AI can have 8 units it doesnt have to pay for while you on prince only can have 6.
<iResearchPercent>100</iResearchPercent> vs <iResearchPercent>110</iResearchPercent> means that your research cost is 110% while the AI only has to pay 100% etc etc.
Iirc I didnt change any modifiers from Vanilla, so it should be same same.
One way to check out the AI (which actually do some brilliant stuff from time to time, so its also good as a learner of new tricks) is to write CHIPOTLE in Cheats in the Civ ini file in the BtS documents folder. This enables a huge number of nice features, where among others the Ctlr+Z reveals the entire map and makes it possible to view enemy cityscreens. Another is Alt+Z (or X, cant remember) that switches the player civ with an AI.
I'm sorry but the AI really ruins many mods by only seeming to go one route: spam units and attack.
I do see a lot of different AI types, but then again I know what to look for, and I guess its mostly the aggressive ones that get seen![]()
Quick thing about defensive fire: It makes no sense for an attacker to lead with Cavalry without any artillery support. Plus cannons should be the first things to be destroyed which at least allows them to do collateral damage to the attacking army...which is how it should be.
There is sooooo much wrong with the combat system in civ4. We just have to imagine our way out of it unfortunately. Some mods try to improve it, but most can be used by the human player in ways the AI doesnt understand, and is therefore IMHO a cheat. I have tried very hard to avoid those kind of cheats (or advantages for the human player).
Cavalry really need a bad minus in attack cities. It anything it would represent them having to have 1/4 of their people holding the horses. Plus, if it could be done, cavalry attacking cities shouldn't have a chance to retreat since they are actually attacking as dismounted infantry anyway.
That is doable and together with a early siege penalty for defending in forests, I'll implement it.
Another thing that seems weird. In a previous attack, the Incans lost about 20+ units with very little to show for it. They should get some seriouspenalty to get them to want make peace faster. No one back homes likes to a war to start by having their boys come home in body bags with nothing to show for it.
In general I think the WW (war weariness) is too soft, but I kind of remember a thread describing the AI not really suffering from WW at all. A quick Ctlr+Z check would reveal if or how much WW impacts on AIs. But I might increase it alot anyhow.
Might make a "bishop" type of missionary like this. Not a bad idea.Ah I should have explained. I made a new unit called "priests" that fulfill the role of spreading religion from Cathedrals. Just cut and pasted the missionary code and changed it so they require Cathedral to be built. I gave the priests more movement points but limited them to 2 per civ. I also increased missionary build costs to make priests a more efficient way of spreading religion.