Vel Contemplates Mod-Making.....

[gaikokujin]

Dissent (not Dissident): Making the game harder to beat by toning down your strategy is the whole idea behind the proposal to put in either more expensive variants of the resource-dependent units, or by creating a weaker, non resource-dependent version of an era unit. I think these are very good ideas. Consider this:

1) Weaker or resourceless civs would have more staying power (and that could be you);

2) This would strengthen Builder approaches: You would have the _option_ (always a good thing) to not engage in the resource competition, settling for fewer or slightly weaker units (a defensive posture). Which would also eliminate the tiresome (because, inevitable, predictable) chore of pouring rush money to build culture improvements into otherwise useless corruption maxxed out cities, just to control far away resources

Pyrodrew: Yes, oasies and bananas - why did they take these out?

Stockmarkets/Supermarkets/Refridgeration/Superhighways, on the other hand, tended to be "super" unbalancing, as the AI doesn't build them all. This is a problem generic to many late game improvements, which might explain the relative barreness of the later tech tree (hint, hint).

[David Weldon]

The best way to remedy this is to increase the strength of bombardment IMO.

Actually, if you increase HP and break bombardment, then you need to increase bombard rate of fire to fix it, not just bombard strength. The problem you run into next is that with increased RoF, bombard units can do much more damage to terrain and cities than they previously could.

If you want to fix "obsolete" units, definitely just add firepower back, by multiplying all desired units by some fixed number (say, 10). This would lead to relative A/D numbers that don't change at all w/respect to "new" units, but it would make "obsolete" units _extremely_ easy to defeat with newer units.

Ex:
Pikeman: 1/3/1
Infantry: 60/100/1
Tank: 160/80/1

If a tank attacks infantry, it still has a 16/10 chance of winning each round, just like before. If it attacks a Pikeman, however, it just crushes it. When Dan said in a chat that Firepower was a usless complication, he was absolutely correct. The same _exact_ function can be accomplished in this manner. (I may have made a mistake on the A/D of units 'cause I'm working from memory, sorry if I goofed).

Of course this does nothing to differentiate experience levels, that's a whole different ballgame...

[Venger]

Originally posted by Zurai001
I'll weigh into this again: Changing unit hitpoints breaks bombardment.

No no no! First, until ships can be sunk and ground units potentially destroyed, bombardment is already broken...

BUT, when you double HP, you simply need to double the ROF value. This works, trust me, I play with it. It's actually very cool, artillery can do between 1 - 4 HP of damage, instead of just 1 - 2. This absoltutely preserves the balance of the game.

Note: do NOT change the bombardment strength, I believe this number is used to determine the chance of success, doubling this WILL break the system.

I recommend that if you plan on altering combat, work with the attack/defense/bombardment values ONLY. Hitpoints have an extreme impact on the combat system, and some elements of that are unchangeable through the editor.

Please try these changes, you'll see it works as advertised. Adding HP gets rid of a lot of freak results (galley sinks Ironclad, swordsmen kill tanks, etc...). This won't be fixed nearly as well by monkeying with A/D points. PLUS, it's a central change that is easy to implement - change the A/D and you'll change them for most of the units in the game...

Venger

[Venger]

Originally posted by David Weldon

Actually, if you increase HP and break bombardment, then you need to increase bombard rate of fire to fix it, not just bombard strength.

DO NOT INCREASE BOMBARD STRENGTH. This is used to determine the chance of successful bombardment against a target, and that SHOULDN'T change. The only change you want is to double ROF to allow double damage on a successful bombardment, to account for the doubled HP. That's it.

The problem you run into next is that with increased RoF, bombard units can do much more damage to terrain and cities than they previously could.

??? Are you sure about that? If a bombard unit scores a hit, it destroys the target, not damage. It's a 0/100 setup, a hit destroys the target, period. Changing the bombard strength is what will increase the amount of destruction.

When Dan said in a chat that Firepower was a usless complication, he was absolutely correct.

AIIGGHH! Why can't people get this? Dave, the best way to see the effect of firepower and why it ISN'T superfluous is to use this example:

Unit 1 : 10/10/10 (A/D/HP) with 1 Firepower
Unit 2 : 1/1/10 (A/D/HP) with 10 Firepower

You would concur that these are evenly matched, yes?

If these two units fight, you will NEVER have a damaged unit 1. Ever. Why? Because it is either never touched or totally destroyed. Firepower influences the damage curve ESPECIALLY in limited round combat.

The same _exact_ function can be accomplished in this manner.

Nope, see above...the above units are balanced, whereas your adjusted units simply never lose. Firepower is an easy to implement trait that would only enhance the game combat flavor. It is a heavy stick that can subtly change how a unit works when used properly.

Venger

[arthurdent]

It seems that the consensus is that the Pyramids, Sun Tzu's and Hoover Dam are too powerful, why not turn that on it's head SMAC style and make a certain tech give the same effect as the wonder. There were several techs in SMAC gave you buildings in every city, this would effectivly cancel the bonus from the offending wonders.

Dave

[BanastreTa]

Originally posted by Venger


??? Are you sure about that? If a bombard unit scores a hit, it destroys the target, not damage. It's a 0/100 setup, a hit destroys the target, period. Changing the bombard strength is what will increase the amount of destruction.

Venger

I'm not sure the bombard number is that simple. What about when units are the targets? I agree that the bombard figure obviously has no sort of "damage" factor when it comes to destroying buildings or improvements, but shouldn't it affect how many hitpoints a targeted unit loses?

[David Weldon]

Venger:
First, bombard on terrain. Higher RoF=more likely to hit within a single round, no? More likely to hit=guaranteed destruction, no? All of a sudden, 5 artillery is enough to decimate everything as far as you can shoot, using one per square instead of needing to shoot multiple times at each square.

I agree that increasing bombard strength would have a similar effect, but I'm not sure what can be done. Perhaps the bombard defense of tiles/improvements can be increased somehow?

Next, Firepower. While I applaud your conviction, and sympathize with your exasperation, I don't see your point:

Unit 1: A=10/D=10/HP=10 FP=1
Unit 2: 1/1/10 FP=10.

My alteration would be to ignore FP and simply multiply A/D by 10 (in this case). This leads to Unit 2:10/10/10. Seems self-evident that these are as equally matched as they were with FP.

As for the argument about never seeing a damaged unit 1, I think that's a _negative_ aspect of FP, not a positive one.

OK, so I see from your example that it's not completely equivalent, but I don't see why it isn't even better than the FP solution.

[Venger]

Originally posted by David Weldon
Venger:
First, bombard on terrain. Higher RoF=more likely to hit within a single round, no?

I don't believe so - I believe the bombard factor determines a successful hit.

More likely to hit=guaranteed destruction, no?

Yes, but ROF determines damage after a hit, not if a hit occurs.

All of a sudden, 5 artillery is enough to decimate everything as far as you can shoot, using one per square instead of needing to shoot multiple times at each square.

I haven't noticed any increase in successful terrain destruction by bombard units. I am fairly sure the bombardment strength controls the to hit chance.

Unit 1: A=10/D=10/HP=10 FP=1
Unit 2: 1/1/10 FP=10.

My alteration would be to ignore FP and simply multiply A/D by 10 (in this case). This leads to Unit 2:10/10/10. Seems self-evident that these are as equally matched as they were with FP.

But to say it will give you the same results is INCORRECT, which is my point. Firepower and having higher attack number is NOT one in the same.

As for the argument about never seeing a damaged unit 1, I think that's a _negative_ aspect of FP, not a positive one.

I chose the outlier value to demonstrate the in practive difference. However, some units you would expect to cause massive damage or miss entirely (this is why cruise missiles in Civ2 had that damage pattern - little damage or alot, most of the time).

OK, so I see from your example that it's not completely equivalent, but I don't see why it isn't even better than the FP solution.

First, your changes and mine are NOT mutually exclusive.

Again, firepower changes the damage curve, A/D changes the likely outcome curve. As your A/D numbers get out of hand, you'll remove any chance from combat. With both tools you get a refined advantage.

Venger

[Badtz Maru]

I've done a few things to smooth out the transitions between ages when it comes to units.

First is that I made swordsmen upgrade to knights. This makes sense to me - they are both offensive melee units. This allows you to make use of all those warriors you have left over from the ancient era right up to cavalry.

Second change I've made, I've done differently on two systems - on my wife's install, I made cavalry upgrade to armor. Both fall into the niche of 'fast offensive unit'. There is a drawback, though - you will have a LOT of tanks right after getting the tech for them, which seems unbalancing. My wife likes to play on Chieftan and doesn't care if the challenge is low (she wants to dominate! ) so it doesn't bother her, but I tried something different in my version. I changed the helicopter to an Attack Helicopter. It is now a land unit with a move of 3 that treats all terrain as roads. It's not as strong as tanks, but has a decent defense (it's maneuverability and use of terrain makes up for it's lack of armor). It also has a low-moderate bombard ability, about like what jet fighters have (BTW, I gave tanks a weak bombard ability as well). I haven't got to use them enough yet to see how balanced they are (I didn't get a chance to play until after I got the patch and I reverted to default rules to give them another chance). Attack choppers are a modern equivalent of cavalry.

Third change I made, to address the lack of a decent offensive substitute to cavalry is beef up the offense of riflemen and infantry a bit (giving the second a smallish bombard ability, to simulate mortar and other light artillery modern infantry will use) and flagging them as both offensive and defensive units in the way AI uses them. This makes for wars that more closely imitate reality - the AI will send large groups of riflemen marching into my territory along with their cavalry. Since their attack is still not as good as their defense they die a lot, but if you look at the Civil War you will see that attacking with masses of riflemen gets very bloody. This also tricks the AI into using combined arms strategies more - just as I will acompany cavalry with riflemen and infantry, so will the AI (of course the AI DOES attack with the footmen more than I do, but he does seem to know to use his better offensive units first). Anyway, when modifying units I can't stress enough that you should look into changing the AI behavior.

I've made a lot of other changes, but these are the ones that seem to effect warfare the most. Maybe someone can use my ideas.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by David Weldon/Venger
First, bombard on terrain. Higher RoF=more likely to hit within a single round, no?

I don't believe so - I believe the bombard factor determines a successful hit.

Hmmm, looks like we need to test this, to see which exactly determines the chance a bombardment hit actually does damage to a terrain tile.

If only one determines the chance to hit, then we will be able to double hitpoints, and double the bombardment attribute that doesnt affect its chance to hit. Then the "crazy" combat rounds where spearmen defeat tanks will become much more rare, as they should be

As to what else will help fix the combat system, bombardment and planes should be able to sink ships. If a warrior entering an enemy city can sink dozens of battleships and carriers, why cant a state-of-the-art bomber, artillery unit, or rocket launcher sink ships?? Its just wrong to see wooden ships hit by rockets, and still be there after the rocket has hit. Its like dropping a nuke on a warrior, only to have him stand there and wave back to you

Speaking of nukes, they should destroy small cities. Any way to make them do this?? I was thinking like under size 6 would automatically be wiped off the face of the earth, while cities larger would be halved as currently happens. This change would help make nukes a weapon to be feared.

btw: Thanks Vel for starting this

[David Weldon]

Originally posted by Venger
Yes, but ROF determines damage after a hit, not if a hit occurs.

I haven't noticed any increase in successful terrain destruction by bombard units. I am fairly sure the bombardment strength controls the to hit chance.

The reason I believe this is the case is that I have used Artillery (RoF=2) against a defender, and only done 1 point of damage. At other times I do 2 points of damage. This tells me that RoF is exactly that: a separate attack is made for each point of RoF, and the result of each one is separately determined according to bombard strength (i.e. one "roll" per RoF point). This is a guess, and it's certainly possible that the real system is different than this.

It could easily be tested by jacking RoF up to 100, and then see if you ever "miss" a tile improvement. I don't think you'll destroy all things within a city even with an absurd RoF because there seems to be some code that forces the artillery to first pick a target (single improvement, unit, or population) and then determine it's effect on that one target (using all of it's RoF on that same target).

But to say it will give you the same results is INCORRECT, which is my point. Firepower and having higher attack number is NOT one in the same.

I agree again, just as I did in the post you quoted.

First, your changes and mine are NOT mutually exclusive.

Again, firepower changes the damage curve, A/D changes the likely outcome curve. As your A/D numbers get out of hand, you'll remove any chance from combat. With both tools you get a refined advantage.

You're right about the non-exclusivity, but we have to deal with the cold hard fact that we can't mod FP into the game right now. We can mod A/D values to operate 99% equivalently to FP. The only thing we can't do is create "all or nothing" units, and while that's definitely a drawback I don't think it's such a big deal that it should stop us from fixing what we can.

I totally disagree that A/D numbers will get "out of hand" or "remove any chance" from combat. It can be shown statistically that the % likelihood of each unit winning is exactly the same with or without FP, as long as the A/D numbers are changed appropriately (there may be some rounding issues if fractional A/D numbers are required, but that's a different problem). What will be different (as pointed out already) is the HP of the survivor. It should also be pointed out that in most "normal" cases, the remaining HPs won't even be very different, there are only a few extreme cases where this effect would be pronounced.

I think, however, that the purpose here is not to reproduce FirePower, but rather to create more "realistic" combat results with modern vs. obsolete units. To this end I don't see why it matters if the remaining HPs are different.

To conclude: The win/loss results that were obtained in CivII via the FP mechanic can be exactly reproduced in CivIII via modification of A/D values. The HPs of the victor will be slightly different if this approach is used, but who said that the FP system was perfect in the first place? The bombard % chance of success against tiles and cities will get wierd if bombard defense can't be altered in some way.

[Thresh1642]

Badtz,

What bombard numbers did you give the Tanks and Infantry?

And, have you played with your Mod post patch to see how it works?

[Slax]

Thread a little long to read it all, so I hope this isn't repeat.

Due to the lack of rivers, I think it would be a nice addition to have a Wonder that allows irrigation from the city that produces it (without rivers and before electricity). Call it "The Great Well" or something (I suppose that might be confusing, eh?). Maybe there is a real well to name it after.

I'm not sure if this modification is possible in the game, though.

[gachnar]

Originally posted by Slax
I'm not sure if this modification is possible in the game, though.

Not really, no.

But if it was, we could have it decrease population by 1 every 20 turns (which also cant be done) until you build The Great Timmy Rescue, which would require a new stategic resource: Collies and a new Wonder: The Uber-Translator.

Seriously, there are some good ideas here, but many of them are simply not possible yet.

Hey Firaxians... Any new stuff for the editor soon?

[Slax]

Oh, and of course, a spy satellite unit. Large sight range and speed, impervious to attack. Perhaps with short lifespan. Requires Rocketry + other techs?

[Nadexander]

Originally posted by Spatzimaus
6> Pollution: I'd like to see a building that reduces this before Recycling and Mass Transit. For example, after Sanitation (which leads to Hospitals) add Waste Disposal, which lets you build a City Dump (reduces all pollution by half). Maybe have one of the new techs be Environmentalism, which just reduces pollution across the board by 25%.

Bringing back Sewer System and using it to reduce pollution would be cool!

8> Synthesized resources. Many of the existing resources can either be synthesized (Rubber), designed around (Saltpeter and Oil, or Uranium for the spaceship), or simply use an inferior material (Iron).

This could be done by having a certain technology make available an equivalent unit that makes the old unit obselete.

Specialists: I would like to see more of these with more powerful effects. There should be a significant advantage to having a size 30 city over a size 20 city. As it is one is hardly any better than the other. Actually its better to mine plains to get yourself down to 20 and take the added production. This is just lame. Yet again another step back from smac. I would like to see some kind of laborer that brings about increased production and steadily improving versions of the "taxman" (change that name!) or the scientist as you get better techs. I think economics and scientific method and computers should give their respective specialists a boost for example.

Food: This goes hand in hand with ideas for better food technology. As the game progresses you should have a smaller and smaller proportion of workers on your tiles. Definately need at least two different major improvements in food productivity, one at the agricultural revolution in the early industrial era and one at green revolution in the early modern era with possibly an additional bonus after genetics.

[Deornwulf]

I have an idea - advanced governments

I know I started a thread on this but all it got were alot of views and very few comments but I'll state it again.

Even if it has to be done through mods, there need to be advanced forms of government. The British Constitutional Monarchy has little resemblance to the the monarchy of King Richard. Some may feel that they come too late in the end game to be of any use but that is when I find myself in trouble with Democracies and Republics when the inevitable AI war breaks out.

[gachnar]

Originally posted by Slax
Oh, and of course, a spy satellite unit. Large sight range and speed, impervious to attack. Perhaps with short lifespan. Requires Rocketry + other techs?

Sadly, this is a good example of my earlier statement

Units and Improvements can only require a single technology. They can require multiple resources, but only one technology.

EDIT:

Actually some of this could be done... for a price. What you can do is require the Satellite tech, and Aluminum. Aluminum requires rocketry (I think) and thus you emulate requires 2 seperate techs.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Thresh1642
Badtz,

What bombard numbers did you give the Tanks and Infantry?

And, have you played with your Mod post patch to see how it works?

I haven't played with any modifications post-patch, except for my wife's simple 'upgrade cavalry to tanks' mod on her box.

I believe I gave infantry and tanks both 6.1.1 bombardment in my most recent modification, which is almost finished. BTW, this time I'm creating a text file as I make the changes so I can document everything I did so that I can feel right posting it here. I gave Riflemen a 6 offense in this latest version, and Infantry an 8 offense. I believe I gave Marines a 10, and I'm rebalancing the costs of all the units to make up for it - most things are more expensive now, but I've made other changes that can increase productivity (i.e. the Pyramids have 6 culture and raise production the same as a factory now, but don't create granaries). The higher average offense is compensated in part by my increasing the defensive value of towns and fortresses. I've found that documenting all my changes makes me a lot more thoughtful about the balance of what I'm doing - my first mod I was just playing around, I didn't do anything with the costs of any of the units, and I made UUs probably a bit too powerful - that's why I never posted it here, just linked to it once or twice when I mentioned it. I'm really happy with what I've done so far in this one, I'm combining everything I've done before with a number of new concepts and I'm going to post it here Sunday night, maybe sooner.

I've noticed that many mods don't do much with terrain - I like to fiddle with where resources can be found and defensive values a lot. I've made desert cost 2 to move across (won't slow down footmen which only move 1 anyway, but hinder fast units), and I made jungle a lot more useful by giving it 1 production and making game and fish show up in it. Oh yeah, I also made it give a 50% defensive bonus.

[Velociryx]

As always, a slew of excellent ideas here! I'm gonna try to start culling through them and putting a definitive list together over the weekend and see just what all we've got!

I too, have been thinking on the specialist problem....tentatively, I"m inclined to bump the outputs to 3 beakers for scientists and 3g for tax collectors, tho that might be too much after all the multiplicative factors are taken into account. Will ponder on it more as I sleep.

Advanced Governments: Love the concept! Constitutional Monarchy is a good choice (and may well lead to another middle ages tech as a pre-req), as is Facism from the mod bearing the same name.

Others? If you don't have any specific thoughts on how they oughtta be structured, that's okay, we'll worry with it later....just ideas for gov. types is cool for the time being....

-=Vel=-

[Badtz Maru]

I doubled the effect of Scientists and Tax Collectors, myself.

I also added two governments, Fascism and Theocracy. Fascism is basically an improved despotism (no tile penalty, more free units per city, more military police, higher draft limit) limited by it's rampant corruption - it becomes available with Nationalism. Theocracy (comes with Theology) has no unit support requirement, but to limit it's strength I made it so it's impossible to hurry units, and it has the same tile penalty that Despotism had, and military police don't work. I had Theocracy in my pre-patch mod and it seemed to work pretty well - most civs at around that time went to it for wartime, but the slow production kept them from becoming dominant. One other advantage I gave it was that it was very resistant to propaganda and cultural takeover, ESPECIALLY against other Theocracies (Heretics!!!).

As far as progress on mine, I think I'll finish it up in the morning when I get off work, as I'm mostly done - I have done all the changes to terrain, improvements, general rules, government, and almost all of the units (just the UUs are left). All I have left is my tweaking of the advances (I need to make Nationalism more expensive as it now allows you to build police stations and switch to fascism) and playtest it.

[Sevorak]

Vel,

Tax collectors and scientists are not affected by any multiplicative factors at all. They're added on at the very end as a straight +.

My mod makes them +4 each, but gives them higher tech requisites (Banking, Education). I don't think losing the ability to make tax collectors or scientists in the Ancient Age matters much - specialists really only show up in late-Industrial/Modern.

-Sev

[Venger]

I like that mod Sev - though preferred, I think it would be a conversion to +4 at those techs, with +1 before... may be asking for more than the editor can do (once again...).

Venger

[Velociryx]

Tentative Changes proposed by Vel’s Mod:

First, big HUGE change
All the music files will be updated, but I’m NOT telling you with what….it’ll be a surprise….

Terrain
Cows begin the game invisible until the Ancient Era Tech “Animal Husbandry,” which has Pottery and Horses (The Wheel) as pre-requisites.

Wheat Stalks begin the game invisible until the Early Middle Ages tech “Crop Rotation.” (exact placement unknown, but it will be among the first techs)

Bananas are back! +2 food (Jungle Tiles only)(Plea for graphics: Can someone who has talent in this area make a banana tree graphic that would look cool as both part of the jungle terrain set and as a standalone (after the jungle is cleared)? I’m not exactly a rich guy, but would certainly be willing to talk money before work begins on the graphic. If anybody is interested, PM me!). Jungles get +1 shield/+1 commerce (consider them poor forests).

Salt Flats: Desert w/shield bonus (+2) another plea for graphics

Oasis: +1 Food/+3 Commerce Puhleeeeeze…..?

Reasoning: This goes far in balancing early game starts (Plains, Jungle, Tundra, and Flood Plain). Eventually, with attention to certain areas of the tech tree, plains become superior (as they should be!), but the game is not quite so hopeless if you start out in the jungle/tundra, and it’s actually arguably better if you start on a flood plain! It also brings more strategic choice to the early game’s tech tree. (right now, you race for iron or you’re hosed….this way, considering the power of the despotic pop-rush, you have a viable alternative. Massive numbers of pop-rushed archers could overwhelm an early game swordsmen force, making the “food path” a viable alternative). Note that Salt Flats and Oasis will be relatively rare, making the Flood Plain still the most viable of desert starts.

Specialists
Taxmen and Scientists now generate 3 gold/beakers respectively (pre-requisites of Banking and Education, per Sev’s recommendation) – MIGHT be swayed to increase this to four….convince me?

Reasoning: Since each pop point “costs” two food to maintain, this makes them profitable again, as opposed to being essentially leeches. It also sets up the possibility of viable specialist cities again, and prompts city growth beyond 20. Again, more strategic choice, which is the essence of the game.

Research Rate
Minimum Research Time (in turns) has been set to zero.

Reasoning: This takes the shackles off of players and allows, again, more strategic choice. Note though, that even with minrate = 0 the advantages are short-lived, as the techs you already know become correspondingly cheaper for the AI to research. Note that this MAY require late game techs to be ramped up in price.

Unit Hit Points
Gachnar’s HP scale has been adopted. Note that in addition to that basic change, the RoF of all artillery pieces has been doubled (making artillery slightly more effective than it was before, since unit HP’s have not quite doubled).

Military (land) Units
All missile troops have been given ZOC

Musket Men have been given +1 Defense, and ZOC (per above). (price may drop)

Explorers have been moved back to the tech “Map Making.”

Zero-Resource Units
Middle Ages:
Frontiersman (the equal to the Musket Man, price doubled)
Man-At-Arms (Foot soldier equal to the Knight - price tripled)
Light Cavalry (5/2/3) – Price tripled vs. “normal” cavalry

Industrial Ages:
Partisan (pseudo-rifleman) – price doubled
Guerilla (pseudo-infantry) – price tripled
Light Tank (same –1 attack, same d/m, no blitz) – price tripled

Modern units still being developed and considered. Another plea for graphics! In the short term, I’ll simply wing it with existing ones, but a distinctive graphic for the Man-At-Arms would rock!

Defenses:
To be announced, though they will be increased dramatically (especially fortification defenses!)

New Luxury Items:
Coffee
Sugar Cane
Tobacco
(at a minimum!) with graphics for all duly requested!

More Government Types:
Constitutional Monarchy
Fascist State
Theocracy
Others??

More to come (I’ll simply edit this post)! Just wanted to put up what I had threaded together so far.

[Velociryx]

Random Ideas, thoughts, and more on the overall vision of the mod....

1) I think that given the seminal nature of the ancient era techs, every single tech should do something.....every single one. May not be a big thing, but there should be no such thing as a "stepping stone" ancient era tech. These are the bedrock concepts upon which all else in our civilization was based. This is important stuff.

2) By making every tech DO something, and by including important dead-end branches (like the food thing), it opens the game up to more strategic possibilities. (Oh, forgot to mention it earlier, but I DO plan to increase the cost of "fast" units to reflect their power in human hands). Thus, there are four viable strats in the ancient era so far:

a) Iron-rush/swordsman sweep
b) Mongol Horde (horsies)
c) Food-rush (access to more food making pop-rushing en mass viable)
d) Great Library/Tech Hound

With potentially more on the way! This is MUCH better, IMO, than the system we had before where it was essentially Iron Rush/Beatdown and a (much weaker) Great Library Beeline. ::shrug:: or maybe it's just me.

3) Navy: LOTS of work will be done here. I wanna make the age of sail more interesting, and worth building ships in! This will mean that the sea-worthy sailing vessels should come significantly earlier than they do! (Someone mentioned making another sea-faring tech "advanced hull design" or somesuch. If I can hook up with some enterprising, graphically oriented individual, I think we'll be brining the age of sail to life quite nicely (perhaps even an improved privateer and some landward units to go along with that....don't know yet, but I'm working on it)

4) Modern Age: At least four new techs, tho I'm not sure exactly what or where and will be MOST eager to get ideas from the forum! Again, if I can hook up with an artistic type, I envision numerous additional units in the modern age....got some spooky ideas on that, actually...

Essentially, it's all about increasing the range, scope and depth of STRATEGIC CHOICE in the game. More decisions that truly impact the direction and well being of your civ = more player involvement. More player involvement = (for me at least) more fun....whatcha think?

-=Vel=-

[Zurai001]

Here's a couple unit suggestions for you.

1. Attack Helicopter: Instead of making it a ground unit that ignores terrain, why not make it an air unit that *isn't* Immobile? I've tested it and found no flaws at all with it, as far as gameplay bugs are concerned.

2. Spy Satellite: Best way I can think of to do this is to make it a Stealth air unit, immobile, with a huge operating range and its only available air mission would be Recon. *Note* I just checked, and the maximum operational range allowed by the editor is 8. Grr. Still, I'd imagine that can be hex-edited to a higher number; the question is if that will blow up the game.

[flbknight]

Velorix,

when can we expect a first version of the mod to try out?
i'm eager to play it

[Velociryx]

Hmm...well....the short answer is....I'm not sure! I can get by without using new graphics for some of the units I'm proposing, especially if there's a way to make the new ones show up as "barbarian" or something (no civ-specific color). That way, I can recycle existing graphics and you'd still be able to differentiate between them. (and, in the case of "weaker variants" of the same unit, I could always just use the same graphic, and make the weak one upgradable to the regular one, provided the proper resources were on hand).

For some of the stuff though (esp. the new resources and luxuries), new graphics will be pretty much a necessity before they can actually be added into the game.

I guess if push came to shove, I could wing something on my own, graphic wise, but my work would almost certainly do more to detract from the look of the map than enhance it (I fear I'm not much of a graphic artist!).

The other potential snag is adding new techs. I read a tutorial over in the creation section on how to do it, but after the first read-through, I came away totally mystified! I guess I really have no future in any sort of programming after all! ::sigh:: But, I'll re-read it with the benefits of some sleep and see if it makes sense to my brain....

As I understand it (from reading in another thread), we can only add eleven new techs, so deciding exactly what techs to use and where to put them is critical. There is a HUGE temptation to slap down tons of new ancient and middle ages advances, but one of the more common complaints I've been reading about is a ho-hum feel to the modern era (and admittedly, there aren't many techs there!).

This makes me think that no less than 4 of the tech slots needs to be reserved for the modern era, and possibly more than that.

Another common complaint is the lack of builds in the industrial age. I've got some ideas on that (specifically, a couple of new minor wonders that essentially act as additional Forbidden Palaces and corruption busters), and I found Aussie_Lurker's EXECELLENT post over in the creation thread detailing a number of fascinating new tech ideas and governments (along with unique units for government types). Good stuff, but the total number of new techs exceeds the number of available slots, so again....care must be taken with their selection and placement.

Overall, my goals are to increase research path options in the tech tree, creating multiple, viable research beelines that could stand up in competition to each other, and to increase the number of meaningful strategic choices presented to the player: (ie- Ancient Era - do I rush for iron so I can build swordsmen, or, do I focus on getting to Animal Husbandry first so I can bulk up my food production? Middle Ages - Do I want to beeline for Theocratic Control of the masses (I'm adding a new Minor Wonder (possibly for Theocracy only), "The Grand Inquisitor's Hall" or somesuch, which will allow early espionage, and possibly crush discontent), or do I scrap that and run for knights?) Stuff like that, I believe, will lend itself to dramatically differing styles of play.....

-=Vel=-
(and as to the new music...well....I'm experimenting)

PS: One of the other changes almost certain to make it into the mod will be changing the "default" barbarian unit from Warrior to Swordsman....ignore them at your peril....

[Arrian]

Changing the "default" barbarians to swordsmen?!?!?! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! You're kidding, right? I usually bump into barbs before I even have spearchuckers! How in the world would you stop swordsmen that early in the game??

The other parts sound cool... I like the concept behind the whole thing - multiple strategies, and having to chose between them.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Well....about that....

I was thinking a LOT about the barbs, and there are a couple of interesting things about them.

Soren indicated that they use a vastly simplified AI routine, and it shows. It's very easy to lure them away from your cities if you pop a goody hut that's a bit removed from your holdings....they'll chase your units indefinitely, and sometimes, you can lead them into enemy civs territory, and they'll go after their cities.

Also, in my mind, the picture that I get when I think of a barbarian is Atilla the Hun. Big, savage fellow, and an absolute terror in his day.

Barbarian cultures are all armed to the teeth and bada$$. A far higher percentage of the population in Barbarian culture is trained for battle at an early age (esp. compared to a more "civilized" tribe). Right now, with warriors as the prinicple unit, this is not reflected so well when you meet the barbs. Your warriors crush their warriors, as a rule, and unless there's a massive barbarian uprising, they're really more of a nuisance than a genuine threat.

This way though, the early game would be filled with even more of those strategic choices! Do I dare risk popping that goody hut? Ohhhh, the prospect of a new tech could set me light years ahead of the competition, but if it unleashes four swordsmen, then all my border towns are in for it!

OTOH, it's really not so bad even then, since the barbs can't capture towns. Worst case, they rape a few of your units and savage your fledgling treasury, but I think the sight of half a dozen screaming barbarian *swordsmen* bearing down on early game cities would do a lot to get the ol' pulse jumping.

Warriors just don't do it...

Still...if you guys think that's over the top, I'm sure I could be talked out of it....

-=Vel=-
PS: Your initial response...."RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!" To me....that sums it up....*That's* the reaction a barbarian invasion should evoke, IMO.....nobody ever breaks a sweat when the warriors come calling....

PPS: Damn...LOL....I just thought of something else....a nice side-benefit of changing the default to swordsmen would be that it would strenghen the "Expansionistic" civ-trait in a roundabout way....certainly it'd make it more attractive....