A new way to calculate REFS

[The Rusty Gamer]

Some of this problem with building REFS has to do with it being directly tied to liberty bells. Is it ONLY tied to liberty bells?

How about it being tied to a number of things such as all the various political points, number and size of colonies, gold in treasury etc. My thoughts on the matter would be that, at the lower difficulties, it would check against the LOWER of the different sets of points and at the upper difficulties, the HIGHER of the different sets of points.

This would have an interesting spin off in another way in that we could get a variation of reports of why the king has increased his REFs.

egs: "The King is jealous of your growing religious freedom and has increased his REFs". (religious points)
"The King is gaping at your growing riches. He has increased his REFs". (gold in your treasury)
"The King is coveting the new land you have discovered and is building up his REFs." (exploration points)

The formula might go something like this. If, for instance, the difficulty level is at the lowest, it may take the lower of (ignoring 0 point results, otherwise this could be a gameplay exploit):

political points
religious points
military points
trade points
exploration points
number of colonies x total population
gold in treasury
total hammers produced
max total of any resource stored in your warehouses/wagons/boats on a turn
number of turns
refusing the king

and then compare it to the last noted points when the last REF buildup was triggered. If it is greater than this, then more troops are added to the King's REF.

(Note: The poiltical points etc would obviously be the total you have generated for the game regardless of whether you have spent some.)

And in another approach, REF buildups could be made completely independant of gameplay, simply building randomly, the size and frequency tied in with difficulty level only. I'm thinking this could be a check option in the custom game screen, something like "Calculate REFs independantly of gameplay"

[The Rusty Gamer]

Is the above possible with a MOD?

[Steve Clark]

Or the number of guns and cannons you are stockpiling right under the King's nose?

[snoopy369]

Anything is possible in a mod, pretty much. Whether that would be easy or not...

The way Civ4 works, though, your method (lower of, higher of) isn't really kosher - the game doesn't generally make decisions based on the handicap, just levels of effect. The way it works now (levels of effect) makes more sense both in terms of ability to make adjustments, and in terms of ease of balancing; anything where you have that many possibilities, AND you choose the 'highest of' or 'lowest of', would be an incredible mess to balance.

This is why game design is hard - you simply can't make everything work the way you want to; you have to make it work smoothly, easily, and logically. Anything that has that many elements in it simply will be too hard for the player to take into consideration - no player will keep all that in his mind; either he'll keep precisely one of them in mind at a low level (thus having 0 REF if it's the lowest level) or he just won't pay any attention to it at all - which of course is exactly the wrong thing for a strategy game.

Keep thinking about these things - but I suggest thinking about something less complex and more in line with the current game's structures, if you want something that could possibly be implemented. KISS indeed. You'll see Dale and I making quite small changes here and there, but having quite a lot of effect on the ultimate balance of the game... and often negative effects, I have no doubt. It will take months to balance to my satisfaction, and even then it won't be nearly perfect for everyone.

[The Rusty Gamer]

I've been thinking since I wrote the OP and had already decided to simply take the maximum of the various points I was talking about and then, as you say, use the levels of effect based on difficulty level.

The problem, as I see it now, is that players fnd a way to work around REF buildup by not generating LBs in the early stages.

By basing it on a number of things, there is simply no way for the player to work around the REF build up. I think the game would also be more exciting to have a whole variation of reasons for the king to build up his REFs.

"The King is in awe of the amount of ore that you have" etc etc.

Because you are only taking the maximum of a range of points, the buildup can still be in rough proximity to what it is now but there won't be a direct work around the system. That's what I'm saying. And the player's gameplay is still having a direct affect on

Where is the code for building REFs? I 'd love to try modding this myself if I could. Does code have to be compiled? Are there any instructions for modding?

[Aerion]

Does anyone know what the criteria for the REF was in Col I? That might serve as a good starting point.

[The Rusty Gamer]

Actually, I should start slow, presuming I can work out how to mod.

The first thing I would do is simply change the trigger from the number of liberty bells to total political points. If I can get that working sucessfully, then I'd try to move on from there to add more.

[TimmyKGB]

The REF should depend more on your relations with the king (raising liberty bells should lower this). I find it really annoying that with a relationship of pleased the king wants to spend a fortune building up a ridiculously huge REF to go beat up on guys he gets along with.

[dooshbagg]

I think the simplest way would be to start with a fairly large REF, then add to it over time regardless of what you do.This would rule out an early WoI, and encourage the building of an economy to enable a war later on.
This, and a tweak to unit strengths that would make building forts a viable strategy(rather than the ridiculous abandoning then retaking of colonies) would improve the game vastly i think.
If only I could mod I'd do it myself!

[Supr49er]

Welcome to Apolyton dooshbagg.

[TimmyKGB]

The argument for not connecting the REF just to time is that it allows you to do very broken things. That being said, connecting it to liberty bells results in really annoying micromanagement (because the AI doesn't avoid placing bells at all costs).

[dooshbagg]

Originally posted by Supr49er
Welcome to Apolyton dooshbagg.

Thanks!

Originally posted by TimmyKGB
The argument for not connecting the REF just to time is that it allows you to do very broken thing

Could you explain please, I don't see the down side? Thanks

[Sir Alkis]

The simplest way is to link the REF to time and time only. Initial size according to dif level. Small size for lower dif levels (Good for those of us who don't like Civ4 battles).

I wouldn't mind taking the revolution war out completely. I propose as an alternative to be able to win when you have 100% rebel sentiment plus 40 or more citizents.

[TimmyKGB]

The problem with linking the REF to time and time only is that liberty bells then have no downside, and every good strategy would involve maxing liberty bells. This would result in an equally one-dimensional game but in the opposite direction.

[The Rusty Gamer]

That's why I've thought there needs to be a link for REFs between time, liberty bells, crosses, colony growth and other things so that some increase in REFs as a direct result of your gameplay simply can't be avoided.

For instance, suppose REFs was linked to crosses as well as bells. It would not be designed to then have further increases in REFs than there are now but simply more like an either/or or maxmimum of the two. If someone decided to hold off on producing liberty bells but produced crosses instead, then that would trigger off more REFs. Thus the delaying production of liberty bells strategy no longer works. If both crosses and LBs are avoided as much as possible, then colony growth may trigger it, or just time.

There has to be a way of dynamically creating REFs which is triggered by gameplay rather than just a detached linear thing.

I think the first thing I would do if I knew how to properly would be to link REFs to crosses as well as liberty bells by taking the maximum of the two for the triggers.

That change in itself might make quite a difference to the game.

MODs have already been designed BTW that generate linear REFs.