Wonder Construction? Questions

[ilshur]

Hey, played 1.01 for a few weeks, saw the download in-game mod downloads for 1.03, and downloaded it, and now i cannot construct ancient era wonders until the classical era?


I searched around and cannot find it in any of the changelogs, is this a bug or something meant to prolong the construction of early wonders?

My usual rush to Stonehenge has been nerfed ...

 

[black213]

Delete the previous version of NIGHTS and clear your cache and moduserdata files. That should fix it.

 

[markusbeutel]

Delete the previous version of NIGHTS and clear your cache and moduserdata files. That should fix it.

+1 This should indeed fix the problem.

 

[ilshur]

thankyou, that did it!


This is a wonderful mod, i have some small balance concerns though. i will place those in the other topics.

 

[markusbeutel]

thankyou, that did it!


This is a wonderful mod, i have some small balance concerns though. i will place those in the other topics.

Sounds good. Glad to hear things are working on your end.

 

[ilshur]

This is a bit pie in the sky but i figured i'd put it all down on paper just to get it out there:

I'll take them one at a time.

1. Tidal Estuaries/Canals. One is natural, the other is a tile improvement. The essence is that it'd allow navel units to 'move up river. Obviously, for the former, it'd have to be a part of the map and not a part of the script, unless it was hard-coded (or whatever it could be called) that for a whole river's length (be in 3 tile-edge-lengths or 30), a tidal estuary constitutes 10-25% of the bottom of it, making it possible to build cities 'inland' that still had connection to the 'coast' and allowing both navel and land units to occupy the same type of land tile. I think this would add tremendous depth to the game.

2. <2nd City Type> - call it a castle, a military base, an outpost, or whatever; it'd occupy a single tile, and would perform many functions of a city but it wouldn't grow in size, would have a base production that could only be improved upon through limited construction tree, and it would not grow outward in culture. The reason for this is that for players who like to expand frontiers, it doesnt make much sense to have the heart of your empire the strongest point - i want to be able to fortify my boarders. Citadels and Forts are good and fine, but i want a more durable structure of permanence.

3. Completely overhaul the nature of resoruces. Strategic and 'generic' resources would be a lot more common, luxury resources tremendously more rare (but provide a double or triple the happiness benifit). Strategic resources like iron would be found in a maximum alotment of 3 or 4, uranium in 1 or 2, aluminum in 1 or 2, oil in 2-4, etc, instead of huge windfall lots of 6, 8, etc. The presence of this unbalances the ability of the ai to produce a ton of potent units later in game. By making the resources more common but weaker in tile-concentration, it'd greater balance the progression of the game and the way to ai builds (at least, so i have infered). But this is something done on a map component.



4. Perfectworld3. I am in love with this mapscript, but for all of its greatness, i have found flaws that i feel like should be able to be improved upon. Customizable continent size, the propensity for 'single isthmus connectors between huge continents' and the general customizable notions like sea level and 'rugged' features.

Anyway, i have no idea how to mod anything. i tried to change small things and ended up having to uninstall and reinstall everything because it screwed it up. But i would love to be a part of the continuing brain trust.

 

[markusbeutel]

This is a bit pie in the sky but i figured i'd put it all down on paper just to get it out there:

I'll take them one at a time.

1. Tidal Estuaries/Canals. One is natural, the other is a tile improvement. The essence is that it'd allow navel units to 'move up river. Obviously, for the former, it'd have to be a part of the map and not a part of the script, unless it was hard-coded (or whatever it could be called) that for a whole river's length (be in 3 tile-edge-lengths or 30), a tidal estuary constitutes 10-25% of the bottom of it, making it possible to build cities 'inland' that still had connection to the 'coast' and allowing both navel and land units to occupy the same type of land tile. I think this would add tremendous depth to the game.

2. <2nd City Type> - call it a castle, a military base, an outpost, or whatever; it'd occupy a single tile, and would perform many functions of a city but it wouldn't grow in size, would have a base production that could only be improved upon through limited construction tree, and it would not grow outward in culture. The reason for this is that for players who like to expand frontiers, it doesnt make much sense to have the heart of your empire the strongest point - i want to be able to fortify my boarders. Citadels and Forts are good and fine, but i want a more durable structure of permanence.

3. Completely overhaul the nature of resoruces. Strategic and 'generic' resources would be a lot more common, luxury resources tremendously more rare (but provide a double or triple the happiness benifit). Strategic resources like iron would be found in a maximum alotment of 3 or 4, uranium in 1 or 2, aluminum in 1 or 2, oil in 2-4, etc, instead of huge windfall lots of 6, 8, etc. The presence of this unbalances the ability of the ai to produce a ton of potent units later in game. By making the resources more common but weaker in tile-concentration, it'd greater balance the progression of the game and the way to ai builds (at least, so i have infered). But this is something done on a map component.



4. Perfectworld3. I am in love with this mapscript, but for all of its greatness, i have found flaws that i feel like should be able to be improved upon. Customizable continent size, the propensity for 'single isthmus connectors between huge continents' and the general customizable notions like sea level and 'rugged' features.

Anyway, i have no idea how to mod anything. i tried to change small things and ended up having to uninstall and reinstall everything because it screwed it up. But i would love to be a part of the continuing brain trust.

1. I like the idea - but until we get additional graphical modding functionality, it's not possible, (as I'd like to avoid using existing improvement graphics for any new improvements). But having said that - if there are any further patches and/or expansions coming, I wouldn't be surprised to see something along these lines - just like atolls were added after release.

2. Something like this might be possible with our current sdk tools - but the problem would be getting the AI to understand, which would require .dll access.

3. Making Strategic/generic resources more common could work (provided the amount that policies/buildings give is reduced for later game balance) - but making luxuries rare and worth more happiness would really hurt the AI, and would hurt the human player even more. A few months back I did try out something new with resources regarding science. (I've never really like how Science was tied to your Population - as this completely hampers the possibility for tall empires to succeed in a game in most situations).

I tried out a system where science was purely generated through terrain, with more coming from strategic/bonus resources and buildings, (while luxury resources still just generated happiness). The problem with this became evident very quickly - it was impossible to balance as soon as all the resources/terrain were snatched up - as the natural progression completely stalled. Having Buildings try and offset the lack of additional science also failed miserably - as the AI couldn't be depended on to make proper build choices to improve their science and keep pace. It was an interesting experiment, though.

4. I haven't tried making maps yet with the World Builder, but I do enjoy that particular mapscript, despite some minor shortcomings.

Thanks for the input. If/when we get access to the .dll, many of these suggestions could become a reality.

 

[solistus]

I do like the idea of making strategic resources more 'spread out' in smaller clumps per tile. I like to play on small maps and/or small continent maps; often there is only one '6 iron' tile on the continent and a few '2 iron's, and whichever civ gets the 6 iron tile basically owns the classical and early medieval eras. Obviously, the tile yield numbers for the improved resource itself and/or yield bonuses from buildings would need a balance pass to compensate for more of those tiles on the map, but assuming the numbers could be worked out there, I think it would be better to have the same total amount of each strategic resource spread out more evenly over a greater number of tiles. This might also help the AI get more reliable access to important strategic resources, since I find I'm much better than the AI at making sure I get Iron Working before the land grab is over so I can secure a source of iron if I don't see one already within range of one of my first few cities.

 

[markusbeutel]

I do like the idea of making strategic resources more 'spread out' in smaller clumps per tile. I like to play on small maps and/or small continent maps; often there is only one '6 iron' tile on the continent and a few '2 iron's, and whichever civ gets the 6 iron tile basically owns the classical and early medieval eras. Obviously, the tile yield numbers for the improved resource itself and/or yield bonuses from buildings would need a balance pass to compensate for more of those tiles on the map, but assuming the numbers could be worked out there, I think it would be better to have the same total amount of each strategic resource spread out more evenly over a greater number of tiles. This might also help the AI get more reliable access to important strategic resources, since I find I'm much better than the AI at making sure I get Iron Working before the land grab is over so I can secure a source of iron if I don't see one already within range of one of my first few cities.

While more spread out strategic resources would probably be beneficial for game-play, (during the first few eras at least), I don't plan on implementing something like this. This is mainly because any changes along these lines would result in certain map scripts becoming basically unplayable, and I'd like to keep NiGHTS as friendly/open as possible in regards to custom map scripts. What I could do is alter the yield values of strategic resources so there is less discrepancy between the haves and have-nots.

There are also other potential options, like having buildings generate resources, (although the AI wouldn't make proper use of these), or having certain techs give free resources when they're discovered.