[MOD] Age Of Discovery 1492-1792

[Fireb]

DAR: France vs Europe

The first few years are taken up by exploring the scenario, switching to nationhood, building colonies, caravels and settlers. Lots of aqueducts are built to allow for growth.

Soon after, a large (15+) army of arquebusiers are drafted. After spying on amsterdam (open borders), which is relatively well defended, they decide to attack Saxony instead, to get that silver.

1505: Cologne is taken by the draftees. 11 die in the process. The final 4 are victorious and the city is taken. Normally I would be horrified by such horrific losses, but since they are cheap draftees, using upkeep costs and easy to replace, I'm happy with the exchange.

1509: Rhine is taken, a bombard driving down the defences first. Only 3 arquebusiers die this time.

1513: Bremem falls effortlessly to the bombards, with an arquebusier with 'cover' killing the last defender. No attackers are lost this time. The bombards seem overpowered: they reduce defences and have a higher strength than any other unit, and have a city raider promotion...a look at the tech chart shows that they have the same strength as the later canons! Surely this is wrong? Anyway, saxony is dead now.

'Indian' barb warriors are having a good old time against fortified arquebusiers. It would be great to paint an arrow on their heads, or change the warrior sound effect to an indian war cry

Summer 1514: Astronomy brings sugar and canadian bananas from the new world. As I founded my first two colonies on the resource tiles, there's no need to bother with workers/barbarian plunderers. Europe is where all the action will be anyway, the new world is just there to ferry resources. That's how I'm using it, anyway.

Socrates is born and sent to build an academy in paris, to speed up the arrival of musketeers and riflemen draftees. If arquebusiers rock (I've changed my mind about them ) - then musketmen (due in 13 turns) will dominate. Riflemen will just anhialiate anyone researching anything else....

Summer 1515: Amsterdam is taken, at the cost of 4 arquebusiers (the bombards were just used for bombarding, as they were injured). Holland is no more (didn't build any colonies). Caravels are started for the planned invasions of England and Genoa.

Notes: The AI's don't seem to be very good at settling the new world...in fact I havn't seen a single AI colony....just barbs. Perhaps if colonising nations were were given a starting colony (size 1) they might be tempted to expand?

Other ideas:

Old world fortresses: In civ2 there were strong units with 0 movement, representing fortresses - making cities with them impossible to take until strong later units were researched. There was also an intermediate 'town' defensive unit which could be built. Perhaps this could be a good way to stop france or spain from overrunning their weaker neighbours using cheap draftees early on? Draftees are fine, but perhaps they should be raced to the new world, rather than for conquest in the old world.

Leader traits: having an expansive leader really makes a difference on this scenario, as all but the river cities started out with unhealthiness. Having started the scenario in napoleonic style (massed levies raging across europe, with no regard for losses or diplomacy other than for trade), it would have been nice to use napoleons agressive trait, which would have made the arquebusiers even more powerful. Still, as I said above, they're already extremely powerful, so having a raging napoleon is perhaps best avoided Ironically I only started drafting troops because of all the unhealthiness! Otherwise I would have tried a peaceful colonisation/wonder building reign

Tech tree:
It's quite logical that protestantism leads to lutheranism which leads to anglicanism, or whatever it is. In a mp game, this means that the nations might race to discover a religion, and then swithch to other research as soon as they have founded one, whilst the other nations try to research the next available religion, and so on...although having them in the same branch seems to be slightly unbalanced.

Since all cities are christian/muslim to start off with anyway, there isn't all that much point in trying to discover a new religion. Of course the income from a great prophet is nice, and the hapiness bonus on higher levels is important for free religionists and temples, but the millitary branch of research seems so much more...lucrative.

Speaking of which - it also seems unbalanced to have all land based millitary (other than grenadiers) units in one research branch. As I mentioned above, it makes researching anything else dangerous and possibly foolhardy.

Ok, that's it, for me, for now. Great work so far!

A screenshot of the new world, absent any AI colonies:

[koningtiger]

Now you say, i havent seen any ai colony in year 1525

[Mandla]

Summer 1514: Astronomy brings sugar and canadian bananas from the new world. As I founded my first two colonies on the resource tiles, there's no need to bother with workers/barbarian plunderers. Europe is where all the action will be anyway, the new world is just there to ferry resources. That's how I'm using it, anyway.

It's funny how differently people play the game and how the civ you go determines the style of play. In my game the new world is where all the action is. Starting with only two cities means I've used Inverness and Edinburgh to build the ships and settlers and then to ferry over workers and military units to back up the new colony. I'm simply not interested (yet) in doing anything in the old world other than packing my cities with defenders and improving the small amount of land I have.

Another difference in my game is that the AI seems to be colonising America quite nicely (maybe this is connected with the fact my game has been largely peaceful with only a couple of short wars). The eastern seaboard of America is basically full now and you have to go quite some way inland to find space for new cities.

I've also kept my cities within a touching distance of each other, all linked up with roads and borders for mutual protection etc.

The barbarians are pretty much tamed in the east. I take back what I said before about them being too powerful- it's right that the colonies need to be protected robustly and I've found that it is possible to get over that initial onslaught and establish a thriving new country (even with some harsh lessons and lost cities along the way). I stand by what I said about the gunpowder units though. It'd be nice to see the barbarians with some unique units to replace rifemen etc, even if these new units were equally powerful (a swordsman with +50% when attacking or defending in forest for example). I don't know if that's possible to mod right now so ignore me if it isn't.

At the stage I'm at now, my colony is the centre of my civ and I've got to the point where I feel my technology rate has caught up with most other civs, even the French and Spaniard are only three or four techs ahead.

The Dutch- I'm not saying this is necessarily a negative thing but they were very weak in my game. Starting with only one city makes it very difficult for them to build a new colony and their technology seems even worse than Scotland's. I just easily wiped out their small (3 city) colony which was impeding my own colony's expansion.
Having said that, I'd relish the challenge of going them in a game just to see if I can keep up with my bigger neighbours.

Also (and this is an observation rather than any sort of problem with the game) I really don't see the fun in going the Spanish or French (on any of the mid to lower difficulty levels at least). Surely it must be relatively easy to dominate Europe and the new world when you start out with ten cities. For me the challenge and fun lies in taking charge of a tiny nation and trying to keep up. Worrying all the time whether the English will decide to wipe you out, trying to keep mainland Europe on your side, desperately trying to develop the new colony so it can become the heart of your industrial base while simultaneously fighting off the angry natives etc.

Oh, one more thing- villages- would there be any way of incorporating them into the new world- obviously they'd have to be modded not to give you new techs (unless new techs were added corresponding to native wisdom or something) but villages with gold, maps, settlers (representing friendly tribes), angry Injuns etc would really add something to the game and make exploration more rewarding.

Anyway, this post has been far too long.

Thanks for the mod.

[Mandla]

I forgot to mention: I noticed the same thing Fireb did with regards to the bombards and cannons. I could be missing something here but it seems strange that the bombard upgrades to (what seems to me to be) an inferior unit.

Perhaps, as Fireb implies, the answer is to slightly weaken the bombard (to 10 power perhaps) rather than to improve the cannon.

Cheers.

[Dale]

Thanks for all the comments folks.

I'm really glad to hear the initial beta of this is looking a bit of a hit.

Here's my current ToDo list from your comments:

AoD TODO List!
--------------

- Texts in other languages
- Arab leader: Sulyman?
- Explored squares in New World (caused by original starting locs)
- City diversity: pop size, units
- Europe begin diplomacy
- Cordoba --> Sevilla, Vigo --> Santiago
- Scoring victory condition?
- City lists
- Scottish spelling
- Leaderheads
- Barb gunpowder units removed
- City food shortages
- Minor civs. Playable or not?
- Game hints on load to AoD ones?
- Dawn of Man text
- European gold/silver to go
- Macemen --> Men at Arms.
- Arquebusier cost/balance
- Starting civics
- Tech tree: more cross pre-reqs
- General unit tweaking

I'll update this list as I go on.

Dale

[Mandla]

Originally posted by Dale
Thanks for all the comments folks.

I'm really glad to hear the initial beta of this is looking a bit of a hit.

Here's my current ToDo list from your comments:

AoD TODO List!
--------------

- Texts in other languages
- Arab leader: Sulyman?
- Explored squares in New World (caused by original starting locs)
- City diversity: pop size, units
- Europe begin diplomacy
- Cordoba --> Sevilla, Vigo --> Santiago
- Scoring victory condition?
- City lists
- Scottish spelling
- Leaderheads
- Barb gunpowder units removed
- City food shortages
- Minor civs. Playable or not?
- Game hints on load to AoD ones?
- Dawn of Man text
- European gold/silver to go
- Macemen --> Men at Arms.
- Arquebusier cost/balance
- Starting civics
- Tech tree: more cross pre-reqs
- General unit tweaking

I'll update this list as I go on.

Dale

Minor civs should definitely be playable IMO.

A couple more things-

I noticed that in my game the french had built Rock n Roll and Hollywood (and Broadway I think) by the late 16th, early 17th century. I'm not sure exactly what techs these wonders come with in the mod but I feel they should be delayed to avoid Elvis and James Dean making an appearance while sailing ships are still the height of naval technology.

Also, I've noticed there are very few sea resources. To tell you the truth I haven't found any yet, although I've hardly made an exhaustive search. Is this deliberate? Related to this- I don't know whether it really matters or not but it'd be nice to see accurate locations of oil resources (such as the North Sea) -

[Mandla]

Originally posted by koningtiger
Now you say, i havent seen any ai colony in year 1525

Here's my map in 1652. Not sure if it's too small to see properly but all the major European civs have little colonies- you might notice the Spaniards, French and Scots are the main players in America. For some reason the English haven't really established many new cities.

[Fireb]

You're quite right Mandla - playing as the french provides a completely different challenge to playing as the scots (or dutch). It doesn't mean it should be easier though. To answer your point on technology: if you look at the tech tree (f6 ingame) you'll see that all the modern techs havn't been reworked. They're not really meant to be researched at all. I'm not sure what the best solution to this is...if the tech costs are increased, then minor nations will fall hopelessly behind.

Regarding AI colonisation, they are definately slow in colonising, even if they do eventually get there. Playing a bit as the dutch (arguably the slowest starting civ) on monarch I was still able to establish coastal cities covering all but one of the resource tiles in north america...which is not ideal in terms of gameplay.

Great people are also very easy to come by (playing as holland), which meant that running at 100% science with a deficit of 60/turn I was still making money (from great merchants) faster than I could spend it. As a (historical) trading nation this is probably realistic.

The barbs started out well. At one point there were 13 of them in Moscow (New Amsterdam)'s city radius. Beating them off was good fun, until the arabs built a town next to it and the barbs stopped coming. They didn't come much at any of my other cities though, even with barb cities nearby.

In terms of relations all cristian nations are at about +8 with each other, due to peace, open borders and same religion...they should be fighting each other more. Only england and france started a war by 1550. Spain also attacked arabia, which is normal. Maybe diplomatic events (either historical or randomly generated) would make this better.

Overall, playing as holland, I had the impression that there was nothing to do in the old world (apart from spawn merchants), with only 1 unproductive city, and not much to do in the new world, with no competition, except grow..and grow...my single caravel also had nothing to do except ferry the ocasional great person back to europe.

I believe there there should definately be good reasons for nations to have to move ships backwards and forwards between the old and the new worlds - even, and especially, after big new world cities develop: so that some meaninglfull naval action can take place (similar to that in civ 2 or colonisation), requiring raiders, transports and escorts. I'm not sure on how this could/should be done though. But something along the lines of gold galleons from south america, tobacco and cotton from north america, and colonists/advanced soldiers from europe. Is it possible to have different build options in cities belonging to the same nation?

So...to finish on a positive note...I had great fun playing as the tryanical french earlier, which I'll be happy to do again.

Just a note Dale: Just because I (or anyone else) suggest something, doesn't mean it should necessarily be done...

[Dale]

Just so you guys are aware, the only python so far in is the "Dawn of Man" window.

Via python you can make the AI concentrate on an area of the map (in this case the east) similar to EU2's defining a nation's area of influence (Asia, Africa, Oceania, etc). So expect so better AI colonising when that's in.

Also, via python I want to allow accumulation of luxury resources in the New World that require shipment back to the Old World. This should allow for navys.

Dale

[Fireb]

[Mandla]

Originally posted by Fireb
You're quite right Mandla - playing as the french provides a completely different challenge to playing as the scots (or dutch). It doesn't mean it should be easier though. To answer your point on technology: if you look at the tech tree (f6 ingame) you'll see that all the modern techs havn't been reworked. They're not really meant to be researched at all. I'm not sure what the best solution to this is...if the tech costs are increased, then minor nations will fall hopelessly behind.

Regarding AI colonisation, they are definately slow in colonising, even if they do eventually get there. Playing a bit as the dutch (arguably the slowest starting civ) on monarch I was still able to establish coastal cities covering all but one of the resource tiles in north america...which is not ideal in terms of gameplay.

Great people are also very easy to come by (playing as holland), which meant that running at 100% science with a deficit of 60/turn I was still making money (from great merchants) faster than I could spend it. As a (historical) trading nation this is probably realistic.

The barbs started out well. At one point there were 13 of them in Moscow (New Amsterdam)'s city radius. Beating them off was good fun, until the arabs built a town next to it and the barbs stopped coming. They didn't come much at any of my other cities though, even with barb cities nearby.

In terms of relations all cristian nations are at about +8 with each other, due to peace, open borders and same religion...they should be fighting each other more. Only england and france started a war by 1550. Spain also attacked arabia, which is normal. Maybe diplomatic events (either historical or randomly generated) would make this better.

Overall, playing as holland, I had the impression that there was nothing to do in the old world (apart from spawn merchants), with only 1 unproductive city, and not much to do in the new world, with no competition, except grow..and grow...my single caravel also had nothing to do except ferry the ocasional great person back to europe.

I believe there there should definately be good reasons for nations to have to move ships backwards and forwards between the old and the new worlds - even, and especially, after big new world cities develop: so that some meaninglfull naval action can take place (similar to that in civ 2 or colonisation), requiring raiders, transports and escorts. I'm not sure on how this could/should be done though. But something along the lines of gold galleons from south america, tobacco and cotton from north america, and colonists/advanced soldiers from europe. Is it possible to have different build options in cities belonging to the same nation?

So...to finish on a positive note...I had great fun playing as the tryanical french earlier, which I'll be happy to do again.

Just a note Dale: Just because I (or anyone else) suggest something, doesn't mean it should necessarily be done...

A few points (again): Personally, I found it quite difficult to build new cities initially (as it should be IMO) due to financial constraints. It was only really after I'd built Versailles in America that I was able to expand without worrying about the cost.

Also, I've had quite a few naval battles, specifically against the Dutch, the Genoese (if that's the right term...) and the Portugese. I've lost four shipments of units over all because I hadn't escorted them with enough Frigates or Ships of the Line in wartime. But the luxury resource shipment thing sounds like a great idea.

And finally: wonders. It seemed to me as if the French had built Hollywood and Rock'n'Roll etc long before they should've been able to (just going by the general technological stage everyone seemed to be at), although they are by far the best civ in my current game and I've not had much contact with them.

[platypotamus]

It would be neat if there was some sort of privateer type vessel, though I'm not sure the best way to implement.

I'm thinking of a sort of water based pseudo-spy. The privateer would have actual combat values and be able to be used in combat, but would be able to attack the vessels of civs that you weren't at war with. Not a direct parrallel to the way privateers worked, but a decent parrallel.

If the privateer got "caught" (percentage chance, potentially diminishing with upgrades), relations with the target nation would diminish.

If it attacked a ship bearing resources from the new world, they could be plundered (ships bearing resources should be slower than those without too, if possible).

The privateer itself could only be attacked by either other privateers, or units of a civ with which war is declared.

I'm admittedly not sure if this is a great idea, or doable, or if it fits, but the golden age of piracy comes towards the end of this era.

[Mandla]

Originally posted by platypotamus
It would be neat if there was some sort of privateer type vessel, though I'm not sure the best way to implement.

I'm thinking of a sort of water based pseudo-spy. The privateer would have actual combat values and be able to be used in combat, but would be able to attack the vessels of civs that you weren't at war with. Not a direct parrallel to the way privateers worked, but a decent parrallel.

If the privateer got "caught" (percentage chance, potentially diminishing with upgrades), relations with the target nation would diminish.

If it attacked a ship bearing resources from the new world, they could be plundered (ships bearing resources should be slower than those without too, if possible).

The privateer itself could only be attacked by either other privateers, or units of a civ with which war is declared.

I'm admittedly not sure if this is a great idea, or doable, or if it fits, but the golden age of piracy comes towards the end of this era.

I really like the idea but wouldn't it be better if the privateers were fair game for anyone and able to be attacked by any civ? This would reduce the appeal of building too many of them because I think otherwise they'd be too powerful...

[conmcb25]

How long till Beta 2? Im not rushing you but I probably wont get a chance to take a look until this weekend, and dont want to d/l beta 1 if beta 2 is right around the corner.

Also how easy is it to uninstall beta 1? Or will beta 2 just "overwrite" it?

[platypotamus]

Originally posted by Mandla


I really like the idea but wouldn't it be better if the privateers were fair game for anyone and able to be attacked by any civ? This would reduce the appeal of building too many of them because I think otherwise they'd be too powerful...

Yes, it probably would, though I think if they were fair game for everyone they'd probably need some sort of ability to keep them from being attacked constantly. Perhaps some semblance of the "false colors" trick that privateers often used, flying the flags and carrying the documents of multiple nations so that they could appear to belong to whoever was nearby to avoid unwanted conflict. Maybe modding the submarine into this unit, with submergance concept converting into the false colors?