Vel Contemplates Mod-Making.....

[Velociryx]

Aussie_Lurker's Thread

Made some additions and edits to my previous post, and I wanted to post a link to Aussie's thread to prompt discussion on what ideas we may be able to use from it. There are more techs proposed in his thread than we have available slots, but the ideas presented therein are all well-considered.

Comments?



-=Vel=-

[Thresh1642]

Vel,

If you would like, I am working on a .txt file for my own little mod that I think would tie in quite well with what your proposing. For the most part they are unit changes, if you like I can finish typing it up and email it to you (and anyone else interested). I think it's still a bit long to post here.

[Velociryx]

Sure thing man! When you get her ready, send it to me at:

WebMaster@velociryx.every1.net



-=Vel=-

[David Weldon]

Hmmm... some tasty morsels to go over here... Before my point-by-point comments, I'd like to raise a few general questions:

I) Are we going to do anything about unit strengths? Things like the "exponential" mod, mimicking Firepower, etc. I know about the HP increase, but is that all we're counting on to make obsolete units "more obsolete"? With more expensive equivalent units in place, it seems like we could be more aggressive without breaking anything. Along with the HP increase, are we changing the artillery RoF to compensate?

II) In general on the tech tree, what's the guiding principal for being "required" or not? It seems that making things required forces everyone to pursue basically the same tech approach, whereas making more things optional (or at least making our new things optional) would allow for tech strategies. I think the AI will almost always research cheap techs before more expensive techs anyway, so I don't think it's really capable of ignoring any optional techs, if that matters.

III) Are we doing anything to try and help the underdogs (i.e. the AI) in the late game? What about distributing the difficulty bonuses so that later eras have larger bonuses by creating "fake" improvements that boost production, science, and tax revenue? I think this would require discipline on t he part of the player to never build such structures because I don't know if we can make them "AI only". What about improving the powers of the palace, so that the one-time bonus decreases the relative advantage of large civs over small civs?

OK, on to Vel's proposals...(if I don't comment, I don't have a comment! Duh. )

1) The Republic requires both philosophy and code of laws. In fact, it's one of many techs that have more than one pre-req. How is that accomplished? Can't we just do the same thing with Diplomacy or is Republic somehow hard coded? In any case, I'm worried about the "whales" idea. Would this require whales to be connected to your trade network? I guess I'm not really sure how this works, but if it works, cool. Personally I don't think that moving contact trading and embassies back by 3 techs will make much difference, but it's better than nothing I guess...

2) Is it possible to make the corruption busters only effective if you are currently using a particular form of government? Or will it only require the scientific knowledge of that tech? If it's the latter, then won't this and 6) just create a bunch of extra FP's that still can't be built where they need to be? Is that what was intended?

3) How about a later age Merc "Guerilla" or somesuch that is about like a marine?

4) See 2) above. Especially if this isn't a wonder, won't every city then be a county seat?

5) and 8) Incense (and wine) already exists, right? So we're making them available later in the game, which will make it even harder to keep people happy in the beginning. Is this good? Contrary to popular belief, luxuries don't influence pop-rushing exploitation because luxuries don't create "guaranteed" content or happy citizens. I could understand adding more luxuries, but I don't really understand delaying existing luxuries.

6) see 2) above.

7) Cool, especially if you remove the 40 turn cap (make it 100 or more). This would definitely give reason to allow your towns to get bigger and start generating science instead of going for gold with science at 10% or pop-rushing and keeping the towns small.

10a) What good does espianage do? I've never used it, but I've heard that it's rediculously expensive and extremely ineffective. Who would build a wonder allowing them to use it if that's true? Can we make it more effective?

11) How about pre-req: Engineering? (need cranes and structural integrity calculations...) This would allow a choice between Feudalism->Chivalry for improved ground troops or Engineering->Adv. Hulls for improved sea-going vessels.

Sounds like this will be a pretty fun game to play.

[IBNobody]

1. You don't want to add any more luxury resources to the game. It would seriously affect balance if there were more to be had.

As it stands now, I can usually acquire 5 luxury resources per game and trade for the other 3. With a marketplace, I get 20 happy citizens (1+1+2+2+3+3+4+4).

Increasing the number of luxury items may or may not crash the game, but it certainly would make acquiring 8 luxury items easier than sin. You wouldn't even need to trade for them.

2. You might want to see if the AI can use "ownerless" types of units. If they wouldn't use them, why should we be able to?

3. The 50% Luxury increase improvement flag isn't used in the game anywhere. Maybe you should add something with that characteristic.

- Nobody

[Spatzimaus]

This is going to seem really disconnected, but the last time I saw this thread it was on page 3.

If you add more techs and/or increase the cost of some, you'll need to figure out a way to change the number of years each turn represents. Otherwise, the game could end in 2050 with everyone just entering the Modern Era, which pretty much would mean that the conquest/domination victories would be the only way to win. Well, cultural would still be possible, but not likely in a close game.

For Barbarians I'd love to see an early/late differentiation. For example, in the Ancient Era (say, before year zero) they're Warriors and Horsemen; in the Medieval Era they're Swordsmen and Knights. Since they stop once all land is colonized, we don't need to go further.
Also, I think the biggest problem is that they're all Conscripts! Currently, I use them to make my Veteran troops, since even a simple Warrior wins one-on-one. I had one city with a single Regular Spearman defending. The "Barbarian Horde" spawned nearby; 8 horsemen attacked at once! The spearman ended the fight Elite with 2 hit points left. That shouldn't happen.

Pollution is just messed up right now (no pun intended). It's reached the point where I simply won't build Factories until I'm ready to build Recycling (except for my core cities) and I won't build Hospitals until I'm ready to build Mass Transit (again, except for my core cities). It's just not worth tying up all my Workers on cleanup, at a time when they're busy making railroads.
That's why we need the Sewer System back. Like I said earlier, make Waste Disposal a new tech that comes right after Sanitation/Medicine (or move Hospitals to Medicine and put it in Sanitation, which'd make more sense), and have a new building, Sewer System, that lowers all pollution by 50% but has maintenance 3. Requiring a resource might be good, too.

It'd be nice to have certain units require buildings in the constructing city (Factory for tanks?) but I don't think it's possible in the editor. The only unit I know of that requires a specific building is the Army. How is that coded?

As for Small Wonders, add a couple whose sole purpose is to act as a toned-down Forbidden Palace, even if it makes no sense for these to be small wonders. Taj Mahal and Statue of Liberty would actually go at good points in the timeline for this.

[Sevorak]

Originally posted by Velociryx
1) New Ancient Era Tech - Diplomacy
Pre-Requisites: Map-Making and Philosophy (Note, since we can't make a tech have two pre-requisites, recommend we get around this by making the "Whale" resource available only after map making....never heard of whaling sans boats anyways! LOL)....in this way, we could make the *actual* (under the hood) requirements for Diplomacy = Philosophy + Whales...looks funny, I know, but it works under the current editor).

Diplomacy then, is the tech that allows for comm trading and the formal establishment of Embassies. How does that sit?

*looks carefully at the editor*

Techs can have up to four tech prerequisites. Map Making and Philosophy is easy. I'll swap Philosophy and Code of Laws' positions to make sure the arrows aren't too loopy when I re-do the backgrounds.

Sounds good to me. But then what does Writing do? I'm kind of fond of removing dead-end techs. Maybe stick Heroic Epic to that?

2) Monarchy - Special Unit: King's Guard: 3/3/1 Infantry (equal in every respect to the Roman UU).

2a) Possible Monarchy-Specific Minor Wonder: Summer Palace (corruption buster) Priced at close to the FP.

Not so sure on making the Legionary less unique. Yes, it comes earlier, but not that much, and the King's Guard's stats will ensure it gets seen...a lot. As it is, corruption stifles Republic a little too much (as you observed yourself), so everyone'll end up in Monarchy. Yes, it needs a boost, but something needs to be done to at least make Republic a viable alternative. Maybe a cheaper tech cost?

As for the government-specific wonders and improvements: at this point there is no way to cause them to stop functioning or unexist upon a revolution. Summer Palance in particular being so good pretty much guarantees that Republic will be the forgotten government.

3) New Category of Unit: As a whole, we'll call these guys Mercs. They are classed as barbarians (no civ-specific color) and require a pop-point to produce (which should, unless I am mistaken, mean that the units *also* require no per turn upkeep)

3a) Privateer - Change attack value to three. With the pop-point requirement (if that's possible, no cost increase needed)

I'd kind of like to reserve judgement on the Privateer until we have all the rest of the naval system worked out. I for one am rather disappointed with the current state of the Frigate being only 1/1 better than the Galley, for fifteen hundred plus years of innovation.

Referring back to my mod, I found these numbers to work decently well. I changed a lot of things in the other units, so they may not work so well here, but just as an example:

Galley 1.1.3
Caravel 1.1.4
Privateer 4.3.6
Frigate 6.6.5
Galleon 1.2.5

In several test games, the ability of the Privateer to pick off galleys, caravels and galleons made it a fairly common sight, which IMO isn't such a bad idea. Frigates served as adequate escort anyway. (Of course, do note that this was part of an ascending scale that eventually sported 42.42.10 AEGIS Cruisers, 48.32.4 Modern Armor, and 24.42.3 Mech Inf.)

3b) Buccaneer - 2/2/1 Foot unit (equal to the newly proposed barb unit - available with Map Making/Galleys)

3c) Highwayman - 3/2/2 Fast Unit - I'd love to include the Stirrups tech, but fear overspending what tech slots we have to work with in the Ancient Era. Would a viable compromise be to make them available at Diplomacy (Diplomacy....at swordpoint?)

Hmmm. I can't see right now what that's going to do to ancient age gameplay, but that's what testing's for. Pop point cost doesn't mean no upkeep, though - all workers cost gold.

4) Democracy should also come with a city improvement "County Seat" - Reduction of Corruption Price:???? (prolly more than a courthouse, but not much more)

Bad Ax (I think) made a pretty good post on Strategy detailing how multiple corruption reducers have increasingly less effect. I don't know about the higher price. And see comments on Monarchy for the gov specific improvements and wonders.

6) Minor Wonder - Senate (particular to Republic) - Becomes available WITH republic - Corruption buster at or nearly equal in price to FP.

See above. You could end up with fully functioning despotic senates.

7) Libraries - moved back to writing on the thinking that there would be SOME PLACE to store written works even before the advent of literature per se....however, the Great Library should remain where it is (this is mostly on the thinking that every non-starting Ancient Era tech should net SOME tangible benefit).

Oh, all right, now I see where you're getting with Writing. OK then.

The Middle Ages:
8) Luxury Items Sugar and Wine become visible with monotheism

Wine isn't really a monotheistic 'luxury' per se...I mean, there are lots of people whose desire for wine has nothing to do with monotheism...

10) New Government - Theocracy: (Available with the advent of Theology). Particulars : None at present.

10a) Minor Wonder particular to Theocracy: Inquisitor's Hall (allows for early game espionage options) Price????

See above for notes on gov specifics.

11) New Tech - Advanced Hull Design (place "at the root" of the Middle Ages Tech Tree

EDIT: Alternate plan: Make "Advanced Hull Design" have a pre-requisite of Invention. Any thoughts or preference on it?

11b) Ships (all seaworthy at this point) - Galleon, Frigate, Privateer (doing this part from memory....please correct me if I have the names wrong!)

If this is to usher in the Age of Sail, something needs to be done about the Caravel, as well. It currently pops in with Astronomy, which is somewhat far. I'd link this to Gunpowder since you need that at the minimum to have cannoned ships.

Some more thoughts of my own on no-effect techs (aka we did all that research for WHAT?.)

The ones currently existing in the game are Polytheism, Philosophy, Printing Press, Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, The Corporation, Steel, Atomic Theory, Radio. We've addressed Polytheism and Printing Press. Ideas for the rest:

Philosophy: No clue. Great wonder, perhaps, like "Plato's Republic"? Or a small wonder with the bland name of "Great Philosophical Work"?
Chemistry: No clue.
Physics: An improved cannon, perhaps? Cannon with 2 range? Some step between Cannon and Artillery.
Medicine: Make this cure flood plain disease instead of Sanitation.
The Corporation: Great Wonder again? Royal West Indies Company (or whatever it was called)?
Steel: Steel mill, some kind of cheap production boosting improvement.
Atomic Theory: Got me here. Maybe it's all right to leave this one.
Radio: Maybe move the Airport here? Flight already gives enough.

-Sev

EDIT: fixed a bracket.

[Velociryx]

Hey hey! Excellent comments/observations!

I shall answer your general questions first:

I - So far....I think that the slight bump up in HP (per gachnar's comments earlier) *should* be enough to remedy the largest percentage of bizzare combat results being reported. While I like the Exponential Mod's inner workings in theory, I"m a little reluctant to carry it that far....what's the general consensus of those reading here? Would using gachnar's scale solve most of the problems, in your mind's eye? If nothing else, I propose that we use that model as a place of beginning, try it out, and see how things go. I figure we can always bump it up later if needs be. (version 2.0 of the mod?) Oh...and yeppers on the Artillery....RoF on all things arty-related have been doubled....this is actually slightly MORE than the gachnar-HP increase, making arty a little bit meaner than it was before.

II - Tech Tree Requirements: I'm kinna on the fence here....On the one hand, we're limited by the overall size of the tree. Even with the three new techs the mod proposes, there are still only 24 techs in the ancient era, making truly divergent long-term strats tough to pull off....at best, we can make some strategic short-term gains. OTOH, you're right....by making MORE techs that are not too interdependent, we create even more options for those short term strategic gains. What do you think of it as it stands at present (factoring in the newly proposed techs)?

III - Helping the Underdogs: Hmmm....good points there. I'd not really built in any fake improvements at this point, but that, or if there's a way to bulk up the AI's "cheats" (give them added production bonuses....say, according to age?) I don't even know if that's possible, but it's something we should definitely discuss. How would the readers here feel about some AI-specific bonuses/builds?

OoO
On Embassies/Communication/and Whales:
To be honest, I'm not quite sure HOW they accomplish the whole tech-pre-req thing....I tried reading over how to go about adding new techs and setting their position on the tree and gave myself a whale of a headache (hmmm...no pun intended there). However, if Sev (who has prolly forgotten more about modding than I will ever know!) knows of a way, then cool!

And, if the diplomacy tech seems weak/not enough separation, then how 'bouts we move those options to somewhere in or around "Education" in the middle ages? That'd build in some additional delay, and lie in a totally opposite direction from the better ships.....thoughts there?

Corruption-Busters: If I'm reading the editor right, it should be possible to make minor wonders/city builds that are keyed to a specific type of government, and not a specific tech. (fingers are firmly crossed here). In the case of FP-like minor wonders though, I began with the assumption that whoever's building it will gun for getting a Great Leader to speed the facility into place.....mostly, I'm thinking here in terms of continent-spanning Empires tho, since I'm pretty much satisfied with the corruption levels as they are now. I agree though, that sans Great Leader, the option of building MORE corruption-busters does nothing to help speed their construction in already corruption-ridden cities. Aside from making them heinously cheap to construct tho, I'm not sure how we can address that part of the equation.

Mercs: Great idea! Hey....if the idea of pop-point driven units is a workable one (should be able to modify the "worker" attributes???), the more different types we have available, the better! Not sure what all the implications are in terms of game play (can a merc unit capture a city? If so, because it is "colorless" who gets the city?? I have no idea! LOL), but it stands to be interesting.....As I understand it, Merc Units (because they are "neutral" can violate another civ's borders without getting you in any kind of trouble.....raiding workers and whathave you......hmmm....and that brings up another question....if the workers are captured by a barbarian (colorless) unit, do they turn into YOUR color, or are they also colorless? Again....I dunno! Will be fun to find out tho!

County Seats: Hmmm.....you're right. On the one hand, considering the land/city ratio, that might not be a bad thing ( ie - even playing on Marla's HUGE earth map, you can't fit nearly as many cities in the Continental US as there really are here....thank GOD...LOL...that'd blow the 512 limit right out of the water!)....so if we assume that each city on the map is really a conglomeration of cities and smaller neighboring towns, perhaps that'd be an okay thing....effectively, it'd give Democracy an additional "courthouse" to further ease corruption woes. OTOH, with toooooo many corruption busters, we run the risk of undoing that stopper to endless expansion.

Earlier Libraries: Especially with not so much comm-trading going on as early, I'm inclined to agree! It makes the early game beeline toward the Great Library that much stronger, giving more weight to that particular branch of the early tree.

Delaying the visibility of luxury items: I thought for a LONG time about that, and here's my basic line of reasoning.

The unhappiness ratios IIRC are unchanged from Civ2, which had no luxuries at all. I think what "hiding" some of the luxuries does though, is changes the research equation a bit. If you start out near luxuries, so much the better! You can proceed as you might normally in a Civ3 game, but if not.....then you're faced with an interesting dilemma. Temples become much more important, research-wise, and, depending on the prevailing terrain around you, you may alter your research habits solely on the basis of revealing potential additional luxury items in territory you control....or....that was the rational behind it....

Also, this at least partially seeks to undo the problem that IBNobody pointed out.....the more resources you eventually get under your belt, the less happiness is a factor at all. Been thinking about that, too.

Perhaps there is a way to "retire" certain luxury items after a time, or change the nature of their effects. Someone earlier posted something to the effect of tobacco, for example, acting as any luxury item to a certain point, and then (surgeon general's warning) actually causing UNhappiness (although the trade benefits would remain). Barring that, if there's a way to delay their appearance, perhaps we can make some fade out over time, so that we keep the total number of "currently available" luxuries constant?? Anybody know if this is a doable deal??

Espionage: Right now, it doesn't do much....or, at least not much that could be considered cost-effective. The biggest gain I've seen from it is that by successfully planting spies, you can see the exact composition of a rival civ's army. That in itself is valuable, and if we priced the build right..... (plus, there's always the hope that espionage costs may be addressed in a future patch, in which case, it strengthens our Theocracy!)

Engineering! Good choice as a pre-req for advanced hulls! I like it!

IBNobody: Excellent points re: the addition of too many new lux items! Something I too had considered, and part of my solution is to retire certain ones as the game progresses, keeping the overall supply fairly constant, but changing what they are as times (and presumedly tastes) change. If it turns out to be possible, then you could use your "outdated" luxuries in much the way you use horses and saltpeter in the modern age....selling them to technologically disadvantaged civs who still need them.

OTOH, if that won't work, we could always decrease the appearance factor for each luxury item as we add more, creating smaller clusters. This would, if done correctly, actually increase trade options, though with smaller clusters, it would decrease the NUMBER of trades and likely raise the value of all lux items in general. Also....having more luxuries would go far in helping to stave off Democracy's hateful war weariness.....?

-=Vel=-
(more ideas cooking in the ol' noggin, but holding off for the moment so we can continue discussion on the finer points raised here so far!)

[Spatzimaus]

Many people have commented on their hatred of "bonusless" techs.

The list, and some suggestions for each:
Alphabet: prerequisite for Heroic Epic (which has none)
Philosophy: prerequisite for Forbidden Palace (which has none)
Polytheism: move Hanging Garden here
Printing Press: Sun Tzu's Art of War, like you said
Chemisty: can't think of anything, except maybe to move Metallurgy's "neutralize Great Wall" ability to here. After all, you already have Gunpowder. Just because you can't bombard the Great Wall doesn't mean you can't make a hole in it.
Physics: Remove Theory of Gravity as a tech (what do you think Physics WAS at that time?) and move Newton's University here. That frees up an extra slot for a new tech.
Medicine: move Hospitals here, or at least move the "eliminate disease from flood plain" ability to here
(if you move Hospitals, you have to add Sanitation to this list. You could then make Sewer Systems here (see my earlier post))
The Corporation: move Universal Suffrage to here (AFTER Factories)
Steel: move Artillery over from Replaceable Parts to here. RP is already too good, and this seems like a nice place.
Atomic Theory: Uranium appears on the map (a LOT earlier than before, but ask the Curies about how long we've known about radioactivity)
Radio: required for the Pentagon, whose requirements decrease to 2 armies (that field is already in the editor); radio is required to coordinate large armies, after all

Any thoughts?

[Velociryx]

Hiya Spat! I *think* we can cover the increased techs by simply taking the shackles off of the human player and NOT limiting research times to 4 turns. Properly ramped up, a human player can make up for the (eventually eleven) increased techs with good research (esp. in light of improved specialists!). Excellent point tho, and in testing, it'll come out for sure. Something to *definitely* keep an eye on!

Master Sev! Good news indeed re: tech pre-requisites....disregard my earlier comments re: whales and such then...lol...was just thinking on my feet trying to get around a problem that didn't really exist!

Oh! And I forgot about the heroic epic....writing as well for that? Whatcha think?

Will go back and re-do all the government specific wonders then, in light of the current condition of the editor...DAMN....that sux too....woulda been nice to be able to set something like that up.

What about Government specific units then? Are they operating under essentially the same rules, or no? Will do some more work on the Royal Guard unit in light of your comments, and also come up with some viable alternatives to that for Republic, in order to make it more competitive against Monarchy.....perhaps by tweaking the government form itself....making it more corruption resistant, perhaps allowing for large cities to support a few freebie units?

Caravel & the age of sail in general! D'oh! I forgot that one! Good point....in fact, what we could do is have a couple of the earlier units (or perhaps just the galleon) available at "Advanced Hull Design" and make the others (Frigate, Caravel, Privateer) available at Gun Powder? That way, they'd appear in a much more compressed fashion, but it's still 3 techs back from where they were. Of course, with us removing the 4-turn minimum on research, this might STILL leave them with a really short shelf life.....

I LIKE your changes tho on the sailing ships! That's great! Privateers especially! I say we run with those numbers for the initial release of the mod, and tweak from there!

Wines and Monotheism: Good point....I realized that as well when I wrote it up.....trouble is, from a "non-gameplay" perspective, it doesn't really make sense to assign lux items to any particular tech.... I like the idea of "hiding" some of the luxuries at game start and forcing research along certain paths in order to get more benefits....what's your take on that?

Techs in general: Total agreement here! With relatively few techs to play with, the notion of having stepping stone techs seems blah to me.....each tech should do....something. Radio = Airports....works for me, but we'll need to jimmy things around a bit so that radio comes after flight...as it stands now, it'd be possible to build an airport before you had planes....easily fixed tho.

Will print out this thread and haul it off to bed with me and ponder some more.....gotta catch a few z's but I must say, the comments thus far have all been excellent and well thought out!

Thanks again to everyone!
-=Vel=-
(as he hits the printer, thinks to himself that with the wealth of creativity in the threads others have posted tonight.....this Mod is just gonna ROCK!)

EDIT: Cross-posted with Spat. Am printing the latest additions of the thread out now. On the surface of it, I like your ideas re: techs....will compile all the notes and see what we've got.....VERY cool sugesstions here this eve!

[Rhuarc]

Ok, just a couple of things I am wondering about, first of all, we need a name for the mod!! I mean we have all this information and no name yet! On a more serious note, has anyone begun working on updating the civilopedia with all of the information we will be changing in the game? Adn along the same lines, with the added techs put in, will we be able to change the in-game tech tree to reflect these changes? Or will we have to make do with a spreadsheet version like in the MedPacks? I haven't messed around with it much, but I would be glad to work on the civilopedia if I can figure out how!

[David Weldon]

EDIT: Yeah, the in-game tech tree can be updated, the question is whether we can make it clear and uncluttered after all the new techs we add...

Vel,

I think some real long-term tech strategies can be accomplished by making most of the techs optional. Other than graphical changes, I don't think there's any game effect to being in a particular Age. You could create chains that start in one era and end in another era by making the root techs literally dependant upon whatever techs are appropriate. I don't know if this is desirable or not, but consider the extremes:

No techs are required: This would allow extreme tech strategies if we don't criss-cross the branches. This would probably eliminate any vestiges of challenge from any AI.

All techs required: This causes complete tech equality at three different points in the game's progression. This definitely helps the "stupid" AI, but eliminates any long-term technological differentiation between civs.

As for Diplomacy, we could make it the last required tech of the Ancient Age, and require Map-Making, Philosophy, Code of Laws, and Currency (all of which seem somewhat appropriate). Otherwise something in the early Industrial Age seems best to me.

Edit, part 2:
I'm 99% sure that Mercs would still be your color, so if you use them to take a city, it would be yours. They aren't colorless, I think it's just that they don't provoke wars. To prevent them from being the primary invasion force, however, we could make them much weaker than the prevailing defensive units. This would let them pillage, capture workers (nobody ever said terrorism doesn't work), and attack roving offensive units, but most likely they would have to run away from defensive units, especially when those units are fortified in a city.

---------
On a completely different note, these posts are getting so long that I think we might be discouraging participation of more casual posters/players. I don't know if it's possible, but if we could somehow discuss certain topics until conclusion, and then move on I think it would be better. Maybe we _have_ to discuss things in groups, but we should probably try to make them small, related groups. Tough to add structure to a forum thread, but I just realized that it took 4 "mouse pick-up and move to top of pad" motions to scroll through a _single_ post.

[Sevorak]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I - So far....I think that the slight bump up in HP (per gachnar's comments earlier) *should* be enough to remedy the largest percentage of bizzare combat results being reported. While I like the Exponential Mod's inner workings in theory, I"m a little reluctant to carry it that far....what's the general consensus of those reading here? Would using gachnar's scale solve most of the problems, in your mind's eye? If nothing else, I propose that we use that model as a place of beginning, try it out, and see how things go. I figure we can always bump it up later if needs be. (version 2.0 of the mod?) Oh...and yeppers on the Artillery....RoF on all things arty-related have been doubled....this is actually slightly MORE than the gachnar-HP increase, making arty a little bit meaner than it was before.

Well, referring to my mod once again (dammit, if only I could find the designer's notes I wrote) what I felt most comfortable with was doubling the base hit points for every level (doubling ROF to compensate) and reworking every unit on a scale that ranged from 1 to 48 (tweaking costs appropriately). Along the way I redid naval combat with the addition of three more units and unified the three lines to the same basic level, by which I mean that the same number represented approximately the same power level whether it was an air unit, land unit or sea unit. The problem I find with Firaxis' numbers is that it believes the numbers should exist independently, i.e. a 4.2.1 fighter is just fine since it's an "air unit" 4 attack and 2 defence. This leads to stuff like a 2 bombard, though, meaning that WWII era prop fighters have less than a 50% chance of striking spearmen. Among the things I did was a major boost to riflemen such that even vs. tanks they provided a fairly good account of themselves.

The rest of the naval units were along these lines:

Ironclad 8.8.4 (4).1.2 (allowing the Frigate and Ironclad to coexist - Ironclad as antiprivateer escort, Frigates the mobile units that do the actual fighting. Frigates had a bombard of (8).1.4, forgot to mention that)
Destroyer 12.12.8 (10).1.4
Transport 1.8.10
Cruiser 16.16.8 (12).1.4
Battleship 28.28.10 (24).2.6
Carrier 6.10.8 (4).1.2 carry4 (representing the WWII gunned carrier)
Submarine 14.12.5 (WWII boat)
Missile Destroyer 32.32.10 BLITZ, no bombard
AEGIS Cruiser 42.42.10 BLITZ, no bombard
Nuclear Submarine 48.38.12
Supercarrier 1.12.12 carry12

Unfortunately, my quest for realism introduces some things casual players unfamiliar with naval combat might not be ready to accept, such as the 32.32.10 missile destroyer compared to the 28.28.10 battleship. I would like to at least introduce the Cruiser and Missile Destroyer divisions and correct them to make a more dynamic naval system (the current one is...kinda weak).

III - Helping the Underdogs: Hmmm....good points there. I'd not really built in any fake improvements at this point, but that, or if there's a way to bulk up the AI's "cheats" (give them added production bonuses....say, according to age?)

Not quite, we can alter their overall production bonus, bonus starting units after they found their first city, free support, and maximum turns of anarchy.

Mercs: Great idea! Hey....if the idea of pop-point driven units is a workable one (should be able to modify the "worker" attributes???), the more different types we have available, the better!

Even easier. Each unit has a "pop cost" box. We could make them cost ten pop if we felt like it.

Not sure what all the implications are in terms of game play (can a merc unit capture a city? If so, because it is "colorless" who gets the city?? I have no idea! LOL), but it stands to be interesting.....As I understand it, Merc Units (because they are "neutral" can violate another civ's borders without getting you in any kind of trouble.....raiding workers and whathave you......hmmm....and that brings up another question....if the workers are captured by a barbarian (colorless) unit, do they turn into YOUR color, or are they also colorless? Again....I dunno! Will be fun to find out tho!

It's been found out...DO NOT READ FURTHER if you want to find out for yourself.

Someone already tried a no-nationality unit, when it captures workers, they become the color of the owning civ, a dead giveaway in other words. I assume city capture would work the same way...wonder how the AI would react? It appears white on your screen like a barbarian.

The unhappiness ratios IIRC are unchanged from Civ2, which had no luxuries at all.

Unfortunately, YDRC. Civ 2's Chieftain started at 6 and counted down by 1 pop intervals to 1 at Deity. And Civ 2's temple made two citizens content, too.

Perhaps there is a way to "retire" certain luxury items after a time, or change the nature of their effects. Someone earlier posted something to the effect of tobacco, for example, acting as any luxury item to a certain point, and then (surgeon general's warning) actually causing UNhappiness (although the trade benefits would remain). Barring that, if there's a way to delay their appearance, perhaps we can make some fade out over time, so that we keep the total number of "currently available" luxuries constant?? Anybody know if this is a doable deal??

No way to retire luxuries or make them do anything than add happy faces. We could supply them with appearance and disappearance ratios like strategic resources, if it appeals to you to do that.

Espionage: Right now, it doesn't do much....or, at least not much that could be considered cost-effective. The biggest gain I've seen from it is that by successfully planting spies, you can see the exact composition of a rival civ's army. That in itself is valuable, and if we priced the build right..... (plus, there's always the hope that espionage costs may be addressed in a future patch, in which case, it strengthens our Theocracy!)

For now, slashing mission costs works all right. Propaganda is the most commonly used one, and it works well if you know the right situation to use it in (i.e. plink at anarchic civs).

-Sev

[Sevorak]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Oh! And I forgot about the heroic epic....writing as well for that? Whatcha think?

Just fills it out more, and that's always good, just IMO.

What about Government specific units then? Are they operating under essentially the same rules, or no? Will do some more work on the Royal Guard unit in light of your comments, and also come up with some viable alternatives to that for Republic, in order to make it more competitive against Monarchy.....perhaps by tweaking the government form itself....making it more corruption resistant, perhaps allowing for large cities to support a few freebie units?

Just like in Civ2, gov specific units do not disappear upon revolution. Therefore, you could conceivably have King's Guards defending the President/General Secretary. This gov specific thing is not well thought out. Yet.

Caravel & the age of sail in general! D'oh! I forgot that one! Good point....in fact, what we could do is have a couple of the earlier units (or perhaps just the galleon) available at "Advanced Hull Design" and make the others (Frigate, Caravel, Privateer) available at Gun Powder? That way, they'd appear in a much more compressed fashion, but it's still 3 techs back from where they were. Of course, with us removing the 4-turn minimum on research, this might STILL leave them with a really short shelf life.....

I agree that the shelf life would be indeed short for the Age of Sail...perhaps increase the technology cost of the later Middle techs, and lower the technology cost of the Industrial techs slightly to compensate?

I don't see how to fit the Advanced Hull Design and Gunpowder things together though, since either Advanced Hull Design becomes a prerequisite for Gunpowder or you can get Frigates and Privateers without Advanced Hull Design

I like the idea of "hiding" some of the luxuries at game start and forcing research along certain paths in order to get more benefits....what's your take on that?

A sound idea, just that wines and monotheism don't really fit. If there was a Weaving technology we could delay furs, silks and dyes to it, but nothing like that exists and I am not seeing where we could logically slot them in.

we'll need to jimmy things around a bit so that radio comes after flight...as it stands now, it'd be possible to build an airport before you had planes....easily fixed tho.

Well, right now you can build aircraft carriers before you can build planes, what's an airport or two on top of that? Sigh. Yeah, Radio will have to come before flight. To make it fit, I'd suggest putting one of the new Industrial techs there.

Rhuarc,

I'm already most of the way into the civilopedia right now, making minor corrections in many areas, mainly spelling, but fixing some comments about game mechanics, adding a few entries, and so forth.

Totally lost on a name though, I can't think of one offhand.

David Weldon,

The first-level techs in any era need to be no-prerequisite. That's what era advancement gets you, the ability to select from the next era's starting-level techs. You can't tie a tech to a tech from a previous era.

I suppose I could throw them all in one and call it The Human Era for a Civ2ish feel, but that would screw Scientific civs.

-Sev

[Badtz Maru]

Lots of good ideas here. I'm not quite at the level of modding skill where I feel comfortable creating new techs, but I've already done some slight rearranging of when different skills and improvements become available. I like the idea of changing where the diplomatic options come into play. I for one think that advanced politics like trade embargoes and mutual protection pacts could stand to be moved forward a bit, to late medieval at least. Recently I started varying upkeep costs for units between different governments, I like the idea of making new Forbiden Palace-like improvements available with different governments. One would probably have to increase the corruption on some governments to make up for the face that more FPs are available, and I'm not sure how to handle religious cultures flipping over to a new government solely for the ability to start a new FP - I haven't played with government-specific improvements yet and don't know if you can continue work on one even though you are no longer that government, but I suspect that is the case considering how it handles units that become unavailable for other reasons.

There is only one problem I'm aware of with seriously changing the firepower scale, and that's that it's based around the idea that population and certain structures have a certain fixed resistance to bombardment damage, throughout the ages. If you double the defensive power of units in the modern age then you will have to modify artillery appropriate for that age to give them a chance of hitting them, but if the resistance of structures, walls, and population is unchanged modern artillery will be ferocious. I experimented with a unit with a 255 bombardment ability, and most of the time it hit a city it lost a structure or a population point, the rest of the time a unit took damage. On the other hand, if you raise the resistance of non-unit targets you have basically made the catapult and cannon practically useless for many tactics it's being used for in games now (i.e. take out the barracks and bump the city down to a town before going in).

[Spatzimaus]

As long as we're on the topic of "A should come before B":

I OFTEN avoid taking Nationalism (which gives the 4/6/1 Rifleman) until after I've already got Replaceable Parts (which gives the 6/10/1 Infantry). After all, Nationalism isn't needed to leave this age, and leads to two techs: Communism (and until the patch Police Stations weren't worth it) and Espionage (expensive but useful). Replaceable Parts, on the other hand, is needed for tanks, gives Artillery as well, and doubles worker speed. Moving Artillery over to Steel would help a bit, but not much; it's still just too desirable.

Other stylistic possibilities:
> Move the neutralizing of the Hanging Garden from Steam Power to Electricity, just to give it an icon
> Move "rubber appears on map" from Replaceable Parts up to Electricity? It doesn't fit thematically with anything anyway.
> Make Music Theory be required for Free Artistry. One less dead end, and it won't have much impact on play.
> Democracy required for Economics?
> Invention required for Education? Seems silly that Engineering and Invention shouldn't lead to things like Astronomy. (I'm an Astrophysics grad student)
> Yeah, you definitely need to add a tech or two that feeds off Engineering. Hull design would be good, but get a better name for it.
> Make Electricity needed for Steel? You can currently get Flight without Electricity, and it'd make the Industrial Age a VERY interwoven time.
> Move Amphibious War way up. We had Marines before we had Steam Power, so put it off of Nationalism or something. Even if you view this solely as the beach landing type of troop, it's still WAY too late in the game to be useful; Tanks are just as easy to reach.
> Advanced Flight should have Mass Production as a prerequisite instead of Motorized Transportation. How does a Tank help you make paratroopers? Keep the Radio prerequisite, though, as it ties in Electronics nicely.

Here's the way I see it. The Ancient Era is full of a bunch of lines that rarely interact; you can get to the end of one, then go back and start on the others. The Middle Ages have two or three lines that seldom interact; you can still get far along one before having to backtrack. The Industrial Era has interwoven techs, with no clear "lines" of development; you can't really go too far before having to diversify. The Modern Era just doesn't have enough, period.

[IBNobody]

In regards to luxury items...

As stated before, you can't make them disappear. You can make them appear (in theory), and you can make them shift locations, but you cannot remove them entirely.

Would you want to actually tie them in with tech? I disagree with making luxury (and bonus items (cows, wheat, game)) appear in such a manner. Having these items on a map let you set goals and plan out your expansion in a more ordered fashion. Instead of sprawling out inch by inch, you can select city locations that maximize your luxury trade and city growth.

Besides, in order to utilize your trade goods, you need to have a good road network, have researched currency, and have marketplaces in every city. Furthermore, if you don't have all your luxury items, you may end up paying out your nose to get them from other civs.


- Nobody

[Rhuarc]

I agree, I don't think that the luxuries sould be hidden at the beginning, but I do think that the strategic resources should appear at their proper times as they do now. I don't believe that should be changed. As far as the HP and FP go, I think we are on the right track. I tried adjusting up the overall HP by one in a couple of games and it seemed to eliminate a lot of the "fake" outcomes that we were seeing. Oh, about the civilopedia, is anyone working on it or the tech tree yet? I'll be glad to do that, but remember, I might need a little help to get started!

[Velociryx]

***Double Post beaten to death with a twenty-pound sledge***
-V.

[Velociryx]

Hey guys! Made a new discussion area over on my website so we could discuss/start a gazillion little sub-threads without cluttering up the 'poly board. I'll also make a master thread where I'll put stuff that's made the "final cut" just to keep it all organized and easy to find.

Will start copying all that over now, but I wanted to let you know it was out there....feel free to head that way and open up as many sub-threads as you wanna....I figure at a minimum, we need a thread on:

Unit and Tech costing

The Luxury Item Debate (Personally, I'm rather fond of the idea of making luxuries more like strategic resources, but I'm not 100% convinced on it, so....change my mind? I mean, if enough people express dissatisfaction with the notion, we can ditch it!)

Aussie_Lurker's Techs (Damn but I wish we could incorporate his whole tech tree addition! Sadly, with so many limited slots and our own ideas to boot, it's not possible at present! So....what can we glean from his work?)

Government Types & Particulars

Others as you see fit....

OH! Almost forgot....the link to said forum is:

Vel's Place


-=Vel=-

[Rhuarc]

As we come to conclusions about the mod will you continue to make updates to this thread on 'poly? We ought to do that so that people here who read the thread to check for updates will know what is going on. What do you think?

[Velociryx]

Total agreement about keeping the folk at 'poly who are interested updated on our progress, but I think, given the size of this thread these days, perhaps we should let it settle to the bottom, and as we finalize stuff, make a new thread over in the files/creation section to give progress reports. How does that sit?

-=Vel=-

[Rhuarc]

Sounds great. Who all is working on this thing by the way? We ought to keep a list of people and what they are working on, so that if someone has a question about something they know who to direct it towards. Maybe that could be kept in the main thread on 'poly. That way readers could direct their questions towards people who are working on the various things.

[darkangel]

An incredible thread - Every post a kernel of knowledge gleaned!Outstanding thinking and a killer foundation for an organized effort.

[Velociryx]

Thank ya DarkAngel! And I justs replied to your PM also.... See you over at the thread on my board? (ahhh, also just pieced together the first rudiments of our "organizational chart" ...



-=Vel=-

[Admiral PJ]

I'd like to see Dragoons back.

If we're increasing hitpoint amounts, we should probably double (at least) all bombardment rates too, so each cannon takes 2 HP's off.

I am going to try HP's of conscript 2,4,7,11 elite, with each one determining a ranks HP.
Stick some HP sauce in too
You could do this exponential hitpoint idea the other way round so the higher the rank the less you increase in skill.. which is more realistic probably.

Maybe partisans could have multiple attacks, so they can destroy 2 terrain improvements a turn, and have them treat all terrain as road (they know the land well, and are small in numbers).

I would like to be able to make Propoganda missions on units too, or some method to bribe them.
Maybe lone units in far off place will join their culture if the culture values more than yours. elite units would be less susceptible than conscripts of course.

Spying costs are too expensive.. I want to be able to investigate a city without spending 2 years GNP to send some spotty journalist into a foreign city! (of course i can always reload afterwards - magic )

Tech - guerilla warfare Gives commandoes and partisans and terrorists (cheaper propoganda missions?) maybe a Terrorist training camp wonder which is a cheaper version of the Espionage Agency sm wonder.
Or perhaps fundamentalism could allow highly skilled spies (possible with the editor)

[darkangel]

Come over and join the team at Vexs site Adm. PJ.