New Advances

[MrFun]

Ok, I am playing a full game and well into it now with modifications I have made and I must say, I am a bit disappointed.

Now I wish to add new advances that really would not give you new units, buildings, or governments - just advances that would be added to expand and slow down the tech tree.

Has anyone succeeded in doing this? Thanks for anyone's help.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

MrFun: I've been working on expanding and rewriting the tech tree, and have just finished my first test of the variant tech tree through Ancient and Renaissance eras. My main purpose, as you mentioned, was and is to slow down the headlong development in the game - in my first 4 games I and the ai players were getting Gunpowder by 500 BC. With the revised tech tree I managed to move gunpowder development back to about 100 - 400 AD, which is still about 1000 years too soon. I'm going to diddle with the sliders for Wage/Workday to slow down tech development some more and run another test. As soon as I'm "in the ballpark" for the time frame (Fuedalism = 1000 AD, Gunpowder = 1300-1400 AD) I'll post the new tech tree for everyone to comment and test.
I've also revised the later tech, but most of that is less adding new tech than it is getting rid of the horribly mangled advances: submarines without electricity, railroads without corporations to finance them, fascism before democracy or communism, etc.

[Celestial_Dawn]

MrFun

Pardon my interruption, but wouldn't it be easier to just increase the technology costs required for advancement rather than add "filler" technologies?

[Colonel Kraken]

My sentiments exactly, CD. However, there are probably some new advances that would be welcome and useful (I haven't thought about which ones yet).

Another point I'd like to make is why does everyone expect that a game timeline should exactly reflect the historical timeline? Now, don't get me wrong, it should be relatively chronologically in order (you need x advance before y), but why should we expect to not get gunpowder before 1000 AD?

In the game you do not have the burning of the Egyptian Great Library that stored the knowledge of the known world, the crumbling of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, a Medieval period, the loss of Incan and Aztec civilizations. The game is really an excercise in "what if".

What if these incredible hiccups in human history had NOT happened? By the year 2000 would we have been able to travel to Alpha Centauri? Possibly. We'll never know.

Have fun with the game timeline. I understand for game purposes the need to stretch things out, but worried about getting gunpowder in 100 - 400 AD instead of 1000 AD I think is missing the point.
[This message has been edited by Colonel Kraken (edited December 12, 2000).]

[Elucidus]

MrFun I have to agree with Colonel Kraken and CD on this one. I think it would be better to add to the tech costs, although some new techs would be welcome, like Kraken said. But it is a game of what-ifs after all, and history and realism not completely fun. I'm not saying they shouldn't exist, just not too much.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Actually, both new tech and more expensive tech have to be used. Without excessive effort, I was getting a new advance every 6 turns or less in the mid-Ancient era in several games. This meant I was coming up with new units before I could build more than one old one per city! I have added only about a dozen ancient techs, and those mostly to accomodate new units (Spearman, Legion, Light Cavalry, etc) or lead up to them. I have not yet found or heard of a formula for the tech advance costs which are in the game, so I've been estimating new advance costs, adding to the basic cost factors and trying them out - strictly on a trial and error basis, I'm closing in on my goal, which is NOT a 'realistic' level of tech - the game isn't realistic and can't be unless we change it much more than anyone wants to. What I'm searching for is an 'average' of getting to Gunpowder in about the historical timeframe. Obviously, a civilization that avoids major disasters, concentrates on science (lots of academies, good government, etc) will be able to get there much faster. The problem is, if everyone or everything (ai players as well) that plays the game always gets Gunpowder and mechanized units a thousand years or more before anyone did historically, then what becomes of the argument that you the gamer are trying to "recreate history" or Beat the Record of some historical civilization? If the game is rigged in your favor by a millenium, what's the point?

[Alpha Wolf]

What difficulty level are you testing this on? I would expect gunpowder to be discovered much earlier in the easy levels, but I'd hate to see gunpowder not until much later on the harder levels.

[MrFun]

Hey, Diodorus - definitely post your tech tree in this forum - I'll be interested in seeing it!

As for those who have the opinion that it might be better to simply increase the cost of the existing advances, I am hesitant with that approach.

For one reason, I do not want it to take forever to obtain one specific advance once I start researching it, but rather, take a little longer to REACH the NEXT advance before actually researching it.

Does that make sense?

[phenyl]

i agree that the tech comes a bit to fast. everyone has made good points.. when modifying the tech system, errors (like getting muskets before cannons) and other minor mods would have to be made. these will be playable even at the impossible difficulties.

once the tree is sound in this fashion, just increase the costs until it comes through? a balance between the two methods would seem to make sense. ah to play test. thats whats needed. through the different ai personalities, and difficulities, etc... no one factor of the game is independent of the others. therein lies the dange!!!

[Colonel Kraken]

Phenyl, I believe your thoughts are right on the mark. In fact, those are exactly the kinds of modifications I am making to my tech tree.

One more solution that my wife and I have found to be, not only useful, but much more fun and realistic is to decrease the cost of all units by about a factor of 5. This allows most cities to be able to build most units within 1-3 turns.

Now before you start going off on the deep end about how unrealistic and imbalanced this would make the game, hear me out. I believe I've come across a balanced realistic compromise.

First of all, I decrease the cost of units as described. Secondly, I make sure the SUPPORT costs of the various units throughout the different eras are sufficiently high to preclude any particular player from creating an enormous army in a relatively short period of time. This, coupled with the types of tech tree enhancements that Phenyl and I have described, creates are logical sequence of military eras.

This way you are able to create units and go to war before those same units become obsolete. My wife and I have both used it successfully and have not found it to be out of control. Just as soon as you start pumping out a bunch of units to go to war you look at your units costs and so "Woa! I better back off on the units" because the support costs reflect the realistic enormous costs of supporting a large standing army/navy.

Also remember, what usually works good for you also works good for the computer. The computer seems to have fun pumping out stacks of 12 units, at least on the defense (still not good offense, of course).

Just a thought. It works for me. Maybe it'll work for you.

[WesW]

What I did with the Med mod was to decide upon what advances I wanted to add, and how to place and link them together, then experiment with cost through trial-and-error.
Remember that changes to city growth and terrain settings will affect your science rate, so it may be best to wait until those changes are made before you get into trying to set research costs.
Gedrin used a spreadsheet program to map out advance costs for the mod he is working on for Ctp1; maybe you could ask him to do such a program for your work.
Finally, I found that for Ctp1, the game seemed to really slow down when it loaded, and become somewhat unstable after more than about 30 advances were added. I hope that Ctp2 is able to handle more than this, but I do plan to try and use a "less is more" approach to this aspect of the game for the Med mod II.

[Harlan]

Less is more! Yes! More important than adding lots of techs at this point for me would be to see the logic of the tech tree improved. I like allowing for alternate history possibilities, but often the logic of what comes first in undeniable in any history. For instance, its easier to make a cannon than make a musket since there are many additional technical difficulties in making muskets due to its smaller size. In just about any alternate universe, cannon would come first. CTP2's tree is just plain wrong on this, as it is with many other things.

Also, how about tech graphics in the great library? Can some of those be stolen from CTP1, since there are a number of CTP1 techs not in CTP2.