What Kind of Changes Do You Make When You Mod?

[bigvic]

And why? And what are the results? I've monkeyed around w/ the rules a lot, for better or for worse. Honestly, though, I could not stomach this game if I could not mod it. I'll hold off on spouting out all my changes until I hear what others are doing. Plus its late and I'm about to pass out. Probably won't touch a computer til sunday as I'm going out of town way too early tomorrow. Hope I get a good response.

[notyoueither]

All I've done is increase minimum tech time to 8 turns and maximum to 60. Increased tech cost by 10%.

Much, very more interesting game. The ages actually last for a while (at higher levels).

[star mouse]

Here's a list of mods from my current mod:

CITIZENS
Tax collectors - Give 3 gold, require Currency
Scientists - Give 3 science, require Invention


COMBAT EXPERIENCE
Conscript 2
Regular 3
Veteran 4
Elite 6


GENERAL SETTINGS
Barbarian unit = Archer
Barbarian advanced unit = Horseman
Barbarian sea unit = Privateer
Minimum research time = 3 turns
Money resource from goodie huts = Gold


RESOURCES
Horses give +1 shield and +1 commerce


TERRAIN
Jungles also have Game and Incense
Plains also have Game
Flood Plains also have Game
Tundra turns into Grassland with global warming


UNITS
All naval units except Galley have +1 movement and are double strength
Swordsmen etc. upgrade to Marine (doesn't work with 1.17 patch)
Longbowmen upgrade to Marine


WORLD SIZES
Tiny: Min distance = 14, optimum cities = 16, science = 80
Small: Min distance = 16, optimum cities = 20, science = 100
Standard: Min distance = 18, optimum cities = 24, science = 120
Large: Min distance = 20, optimum cities = 32, science = 160
Huge: Min distance = 24, optimum cities = 40, science = 200

[Beren]

Minimal Tech time: 2 turns (If you do it high, you can only get tech by trading)
Max Tech time: 80 turns

[Jaybe]

World Sizes: Increased Optimal Number of Cities by 50%

Difficulty Level: Attack bonus against Barbarians:
Chieftan: 300; Warlord 100; all others: zero (I play at Regent)

Units: fighter-type aircraft defense upgrades to allow offensive air superiority missions. bombard strengths also increased (citizens & buildings now defend with 16).
(A/D; Bombard/RoF)
Fighter: 4/4 2/1
Stealth fighter: 0/0 8/2
F-15: 8/8 6/2
Jet fighter: 8/7 4/1 (7 to make F-15 slightly stronger)

Chance to Intercept air Missions: 66% (changed from 50%)

World sizes: (increased Tech Rate by 50% to counteract increased AI tech trading in 1.17).
Also...
Tech Trading: Minimum Research Time: 6 (from 4)

[Spiffor]

Tax collectors renamed "Merchants" and produce 2 coins. Come with currency.
Scientists produce 2 beakers. Come with education.
All units have twice more hitpoints
All bombard units have twice their rate of fire
Swordsmen-like upgrade to riflemen (to do it with 1.17, you have to make your swordsmen upgrade to legionaries and legionaries upgrade as immortals, and then immortals upgrade to riflemen).
Longbowmen upgrade to riflemen
Frigates, privateers and Man-o-wars upgrade to destroyers
Ironclads upgrade to battleships.
Cavalry upgrade to Tank. (as you see it, I don't like having tons of useless units in my production list)
Galleys have 4 moves; Caravels have 6; Frigates, Galleons, Man-o-wars and Privateers have 8; ironclads and subs have 10; Carriers and nuclear subs have 12; Every more modern sea unit has 15.
French are white, Barbs are pink, English are red, Romans are orange.
Added some city-names.
Airports produce + 50% gold.

[bigvic]

Originally posted by star mouse

WORLD SIZES
Tiny: Min distance = 14, optimum cities = 16, science = 80
Small: Min distance = 16, optimum cities = 20, science = 100
Standard: Min distance = 18, optimum cities = 24, science = 120
Large: Min distance = 20, optimum cities = 32, science = 160
Huge: Min distance = 24, optimum cities = 40, science = 200

These responses are great. Exactly what I'm looking for. Well, I must be going, but could not resiet a peek to see what showed up. One question - what is the deal with the above? I don't quite get this one. Will post (or begin posting) my mods when I return (there are quite a few). Looking forward to discussing not only effects on game play/balance, but also historic acurracy, etc. Also look forward to learning stuff I overlooked (with such a complete rulrbook and well organized civivapedia, how could one miss stuff? )

[Coracle]

Changes?? Too many to mention them all.

Everything related to Espionage (Small Wonder, advance, missions) is reduced by a third. Espionage still is hardly worth it!

Manhattan Project edited so that no one can make it until the game is almost over - just change Required Advance and the like to "Integrated Defense".

Theory of Evolution Edited down a bit as we have no choice of what Advance we get from it.

Every unit's values changed as soon as gunpowder comes in, and knights become 5.2.2. Civ III's values for units after Ancient times are far too low. Naval units increase in speed and strength; bombardment eliminated for pre-ironclads.

Resources, esp. iron and coal, edited up so they are rare but not insanely rare.

Other stuff too. Firaxis' mod looked slapped together, and there remain far too few units and too few techs.

[ixnay]

I've just increased the max. # of civs on all maps to 16. Nothing like playing an incredibly crowded tiny map deathmatch.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by star mouse
Swordsmen etc. upgrade to Marine (doesn't work with 1.17 patch)

I just recently made this change myself, but haven't had the opportunity to test it. Could someone explain to me why it doesn't work with 1.17?


Dominae

[Spiffor]

In the v.1.17f, UUs are in the upgrade path. For example, tank upgraded pre-patch to modern armor ; now it upgrades to german Panzer and Panzer upgrades to Modern armor. About Swordsmen : in the 1.17f, swordsmen upgrade to legions, and legions upgrade to immortals, which upgrade to nil. This way, if you are the Persians and want to upgrade a warrior to immortal, the cmp will see you can´t have either swordsmen nor legions, then it will upgrade to immortal. In the editor, you have to make immortals upgradable to marines to have swordsmen or legions upgradable to marines too.

[kailhun]

Uhm, lemme think. Of the top of my head:

-doubled the number of max. cities
-reduce corruption flag to barracks and a couple of others
-turn most of the small wonders into forbidden palaces (corruption wise)
-turn the Iroqious into the Dutch
-put Espionage after Literature (reducing relevant costs)
-cavalry now upgrade to tanks
-took the victorious army prerequisite from the Heroic Epic

Bound to be some more, but I can't remember.

Robert

[player1]

Hmm,
My own MOD (see link below post) has list & resons for EVERY chage I made.
But I didn't touch any thing related to corruption, techs rate or similar.
Since there is no GOOD solution jet.

If don't know how to fix something for GOOD, don't try to fix it.
You can make new problems.

Like: get quick ships --> air unit become slow (max range of 8 in editor)

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Increased ship movement. I left the galley the weenie it is, but gave the rest +1 (wooden) or +2 (modern) movement.

Gave the privateer some balls - 3/2/6. It can sink wooden ships, but is still helpless against more modern ones. Basically a weaker, faster frigate. This is my default barbarian ship, as well - I must actually care about where they are. Those conscript galleys in the default are not even worth avoiding.

Increased optimal city #s by about 25% and added "reduces corruption" flag to police station. I like to play on a modified MarlaMap, reducing corruption is a must. (I also changed almost all tundra on that map to mountain, which eliminated about 100 AI towns from the game - turns took too long, otherwise. Besides, a metropolitan greenland just doesn't sit well with me...)

Increased disapperance rate for some resources, including horses.

[SpencerH]

Changed terrain values for jungle
Added new strategic resources (copper, lumber)
Added new techs (stoneworking, Alchemy)
Rearranged existing techs into "lines of research"
Added new units including some UU's
Completely changed unit stats (except warrior)
Increased hp for veteran and elite units
Added resource requirements for some Great Wonders, some naval vessels
Use Snoopys terrain graphics, variety of new flcs from a number of sources (including my own).
Probably other things I've forgotten about.

Gee! Its like a whole different game!

[Spec]

-Corruption
-Ship movement
-Pollution
-UU values

[Spec]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Changed terrain values for jungle
Added new strategic resources (copper, lumber)
Added new techs (stoneworking, Alchemy)
Rearranged existing techs into "lines of research"
Added new units including some UU's
Completely changed unit stats (except warrior)
Increased hp for veteran and elite units
Added resource requirements for some Great Wonders, some naval vessels
Use Snoopys terrain graphics, variety of new flcs from a number of sources (including my own).
Probably other things I've forgotten about.

Gee! Its like a whole different game!

Dude, can you send me a zipped file please at rx_7@videotron.ca? I wanna see this. And your game never crashes?

[Spatzimaus]

I've got a few different versions, and made a TON of changes, but here's the basics. The primary goal of these changes was to make the AI players stronger; their "attack on all fronts with a variety of units and research techs evenly across the board" approach needs to become viable.

A ton of stuff was moved around; most resources now appear several advances before you can use them, to give more time to trade or plan. Every Small Wonder now has a prerequisite tech, so that it appears on the tree. Some units were moved also, so that every tech now gives something (unit, wonder, modified rule); no more worthless prerequisite techs.

Removed Theory of Gravity tech (moving the wonder to Physics), added Nautical Science (off Invention, required for Astronomy) which gives Caravels and Privateers; Privateers no longer require Saltpeter but can't sail on oceans until Caravels do.

Amphibious War was moved MUCH earlier (off of Steam Power, required for Combustion), and gives Ironclads (now 6(4)/4) and Marines (which are now 6/4/1).

Some techs now have more requirements; Electricity is now needed to get Steel, which keeps people from rushing to Replaceable Parts.

New buildings:
Armory: a late-game City Walls, basically gives the 100% Metropolis bonus even to towns, and helps defend against bombardment
Sewer System: reduces pollution by a set amount (3 or 4, I'm still tweaking), at Sanitation. This is great, since it allows you to make Factories in the Industrial era without having totally out-of-control pollution.

Harbor was split into Docks (+food, ancient era), Harbor (trade links, middle ages), and Shipyard (veteran units, middle ages); Docks are a prerequisite for the other two.

New Small Wonders:
Internet (research bonus, one happy person in each city, one unhappy person in each city, and a few other things)
Hollywood (one happy person in each city, increases money in home city)
Taj Mahal, Statue of Liberty, Arc d'Triumph: act like Forbidden Palace, but each has extra requirements (Cathedral, Harbor, and two victorious armies), higher costs (400/500/600), and comes later in the game than the ones before it.

New Great Wonders:
Theory of Relativity (acts like Theory of Evolution but comes in the Modern Era)
KGB (acts like the Great Library but comes at Espionage)

Citizens: like a lot of other people, I made Tax Collectors and Scientists come at later techs and add 2 instead of 1.

Units:
HP goes 3/4/5/7. Naval units move much faster. All bombardment units have Rate of Fire doubled (to make up for the HP scaling) and their range increases by 1 (usually). Swordsmen and naval vessels upgrade. Archer units have a defensive bombard ability (range 0, rate of fire 1, power = attack power) which makes them good support units to stack with the main attack. More units have Zone of Control. Armies get Blitz. Submarines have hidden nationality. Battleships get Blitz (so they can bombard like crazy).

Barbarians are Swordsman, Knight, Privateer. Now, they're an actual threat; their conscript level still works against them, but it's no longer safe to use Warriors to scout everywhere.

Then, in a later version I added a dozen or so new units; some Sniper-type units (the continuation of the Archer line), some attack infantry (so it now goes Swordsman - Man at Arms - Marine - Paratrooper - SEAL, with Samurai being a UU replacement for Man at Arms), a skirmisher line (like the Impi), an upgraded Worker (the Engineer; he can be airlifted and is 0/1/2; faster, and is destroyed instead of captured), the Pirate (upgraded Privateer), Trebuchet (between Catapult and Cannon), some modern units (Modern Battleship, Supercarrier), the Balloon (0/0 Air unit, only does the Recon command), and two new varieties of Army.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Spectator

Dude, can you send me a zipped file please at rx_7@videotron.ca? I wanna see this. And your game never crashes?

I can send it when I get home later today. You just want the bic right? I cant say it never crashes, but pretty much never. Two points on that note, I havent got around to adding the civilopedia entries yet and I stopped working on the tech changes and tech graphics until the next patch (its a LOT of work).

[SpencerH]

Spatzimaus

I think your ideas are very interesting. How would you say your changes have altered the game, especially your tech tree mods?

Most of my mods have been combat, unit, and graphics related. I started working on the tech tree but have temporarily halted until after the next patch. Adding techs seems to work OK (in terms of having the desired effect), but I've been dissapointed so far with the more structural changes to the tree. I'm not sure I can make the kinds of changes I'm playing with because of editor limitations.

[Miznia]

Has no one else made these two changes?

1. more expensive Settlers (expand at a more comfortable pace)
2. ban contact- and map-trading until much later in the tech tree (actually have to EXPLORE the world, and personally discover new civs)

I'm surprised to see folks slowing down tech acquisition (must be a 1.17f necessity?). My biggest gripe with the standard game is that the land rush is over so, SO much earlier than the tech race.

Miznia

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Miznia
Has no one else made these two changes?

1. more expensive Settlers (expand at a more comfortable pace)
2. ban contact- and map-trading until much later in the tech tree (actually have to EXPLORE the world, and personally discover new civs)

I'm surprised to see folks slowing down tech acquisition (must be a 1.17f necessity?). My biggest gripe with the standard game is that the land rush is over so, SO much earlier than the tech race.

Miznia

Forgot to mention these. Settler require 3 pop points and towns above three require fresh water or aquaduct (really slows things down and can make a 1 city civ possible).

How do you ban contact?

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

I made settlers 3 pop, and banned contact until navigation. after I see the new patch, i want to totally rework the tech tree. I made barbarians; archers, elephants (3/3/2), and galleys. I love the idea of privateers as the naval unit but since i like large water worlds, it makes any water exploration next to impossible. i made elephants (indian UU) available at horse riding but it requires ivory. I'm playing around with increasing culture points so that I can increase modern armor's speed to 4. I dont want to do this increase until i'm sure that some cities will expand out past 4 so that mass rushes of modern armor cant conquer an entire civ in one turn. its just too easy to wipe out a civ if the modern armor can roll in from outside the borders in one turn. the goal being to give the defending civ at least one turn to gather troops and draft for its defense (lots more fun this way). I increased HP to 3/4/6/8 which drastically decreased the "unrealistic" combat results but doesnt eliminate them. I increased naval movement to 5 for multimast sailing ships, and 10-12 for modern surface ships. Subs are 6, nucs are 10. I also added variations of ships such as pre-dreanaught BB, a dreadnaught, and AEGIS Battlecruiser. I've been experimenting with roads as 4 or 5 trying to determine which one is better. Increased foot units; rifleman (4/8/1), infantry(8/10/1), marine(12/10/2) and paratroopers(10/12/2). altho not totally realistic, I decided that infantry was WW1 and marines/paratroopers were WW2 thru mech inf (14/18/3). Tank-types also get bombard. Havent seen the AI use that yet tho I increased town/city sizes to 8/16 from 6/12. Also made palaces remove population limits so a capitol can grow with no improvements. unfortunately, population pollution is still an issue.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

Originally posted by SpencerH
How do you ban contact?

if i remember correctly, its an option under Advances that allows communication trading. I turned it off in an attempt to slow down AI tech give aways.

[Spatzimaus]

Originally posted by SpencerH
How would you say your changes have altered the game, especially your tech tree mods?

It's really helped, the AI is MUCH more capable of keeping up now. Note that I didn't change the number of techs; I subtracted one, added one (in the same era), and moved a bunch of others around, so there are still 82 techs. Adding more techs tends to cause problems and slow the game down.

The big difference is that the AI isn't as outclassed any more. A human player would know not to build certain units as being "inferior". A human player would go along one side of the tech tree to get a key technology, while the AI would work across the board; for example, a Human knows to get Replaceable Parts ASAP (it wasn't uncommon for me to get Infantry before Riflemen), while the AI would spend time on Communism and Espionage, or would research a no-gain tech like Steel without immediately following it up with the next tech in the line. But, make Electronics be needed for Steel, which is required for Replaceable Parts, which in turn is needed by Electronics, and then move Artillery to Steel, and both problems are solved. Human players can't make a beeline for a good tech, and no tech is worthless in its own right.

Some of the changes were just for balance reasons. Harbors, for example, were too strong and too cheap. By splitting up the benefits you increase overall cost, and it favors specialization; every coastal city will want a Dock for food, but you'll only have a few cities with Harbors (only need one per continent, really), and Shipyards will be pretty rare.

Adding more Forbidden Palaces really helps the AI; in the late game in an unmodded game it makes a HUGE difference where you put the FP. For example, if I'm at one corner of the continent, I'd want my FP to be as close to the center or far edge as I can get, but the AI wouldn't think that way. With more FP options the AI builds them as it expands, but since they're spaced out (one per era) it won't build them all in one area.

[bigvic]

having connection probs. typed big ass post twice, could not post. luckily copied second. will post it (if possible) soon.

[chriss]

having connection probs. typed big ass post twice, could not post. luckily copied second. will post it (if possible) soon.

Hahaha thats because RNH servers Suck!




Chriss

[lockstep]

Spatzimaus, your changes are very interesting. A question regarding the new Forbidden-Palace-type small wonders: Did you notice that the AI builds them also?

[SpencerH]

Spatzimaus

Interesting, you've gone for the opposite strategy WRT the tech tree and I think your logic may be right for the AI as it stands. Unfortunately, I didnt really notice much difference in the gameplay after changing the tech tree, and I was constantly worrying whether the AI could handle the changes (since I was stomping them).

My attempt was to generate "lines of research" that allowed players to bypass (to some extent) tech lines for which they felt they had no need (ie if I'm going for a cultural victory do I really need to research riding and feudalism etc). I countered the propensity to go for the military techs by moving almost all of the wonders into peaceful lines, and plan to do away with sun szu (next iteration).

I still dislike having to acquire virtually every tech before I can move onto the next era, but it may be the only way to keep the AI in the game. In addition, since we cant win with diplomacy or culture without a powerful army anyway, maybe the lines of research concept is an idea for civ4?

[star mouse]

WORLD SIZES
Tiny: Min distance = 14, optimum cities = 16, science = 80
Small: Min distance = 16, optimum cities = 20, science = 100
Standard: Min distance = 18, optimum cities = 24, science = 120
Large: Min distance = 20, optimum cities = 32, science = 160
Huge: Min distance = 24, optimum cities = 40, science = 200

Originally posted by bigvic
One question - what is the deal with the above? I don't quite get this one.

I tweaked these for these reasons:

* Min distance in an attempt to increase the civ spacing on the map.
* Optimum cities to reduce corruption.
* Science is a multiple of the optimum cities instead of the minimum distance.