my god i must change this game before i get an anurysm

[GreenReaper]

i have to change the rules of this game, if i dont, ill go insane. core game is fine, but the rules are pissin me off big time.

please...someone tell me theres a "for dummies" editor out there...i have no programming knowledge whatsoever, but if i must play these idiotic rules any longer i will surely do something crazy...like uninstall this pile and put civ 3 back on.

im not talking about the world builder...that thing is hopeless. is there some sort of GUI editor for units/buildings/rules, whatnot?

[Solver]

No, you have to edit the files by hand.

What would you want to change exactly?

[xxFlukexx]

Yeah, you have to go into the xml files and change the values you want changed, World Builder is more for scenarios and testing and stuff.

If you are really interested in modding the xml files some help can be found at http://www.civ4wiki.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Modding takes more time than you would think, you really have to want to complete a mod and have lots of time.

I dunno what stuff you'd want to change though, Civ3 gave me an aneurysm, most of the rules is civ3 were a complete joke, civ4 is much more balanced, you might not see it at first, but civ4 is much more balanced than civ3 could ever dream of, I suggest you give civ4 another shot.

[Enigma_Nova]

I'd like to help the original poster, but I've been trained to automatically ignore AOLese. Can I get a translation of the original post into English so I can try to help?

[GreenReaper]

i guess its not so much balance as gameplay. theres just a whole slew of stuff i want changed and its wayyyyy out of my ability to do it. when i click on an XML file it says it cant open it, so i dunno where i go from there.


basically i can sum up the gist of what i want this way: slower progression, much faster unit build speeds, faster travel.
if you read up on history, there were armies and huge power changes happening all over the place in the early years. usually, NOTHING happends in civ from 4000 to 1 bc. EVER. maybe you wage a quick couple turn war to wipe a smaller guy out...but nothing drastic. ancient era units are obsolete as soon as you start, and most times i dont wage a war (or have one waged on me) untill knights or gunpowder is involved. even then, war is unbearably slow and well nigh impossible to wage anywhere away from your borders.

it really doesnt take 1000 years to circumnavigate the globe!

[djpsychonaut]

Originally posted by GreenReaper
i guess its not so much balance as gameplay. theres just a whole slew of stuff i want changed and its wayyyyy out of my ability to do it. when i click on an XML file it says it cant open it, so i dunno where i go from there.

You can edit an XML file with Notepad. XML is similar to HTML in that it has opening and closing tags surrounding the data.

basically i can sum up the gist of what i want this way: slower progression, much faster unit build speeds, faster travel.
if you read up on history, there were armies and huge power changes happening all over the place in the early years. usually, NOTHING happends in civ from 4000 to 1 bc. EVER. maybe you wage a quick couple turn war to wipe a smaller guy out...but nothing drastic. ancient era units are obsolete as soon as you start, and most times i dont wage a war (or have one waged on me) untill knights or gunpowder is involved. even then, war is unbearably slow and well nigh impossible to wage anywhere away from your borders.

it really doesnt take 1000 years to circumnavigate the globe!

If you looked at certain historical events and tried to replicate them in Civ, you've notice a similar outcome... the decline of your civilization. If you tried to pull off what Rome did and conquer everyone under the sun by 200 AD you'd have HUGE maintenance costs (much like the empire actually did with all the corruption), and the civilization would be overwhelmed by another civilization.

Also, quite a bit happens in civ between 4000BC and 1 AD, at least in my games. I'm usually contending with Barbarians trying to wipe me out and in some cases they actually have. If you look at the names of the Barb cities, you'll notice that they are intended to emulate minor nations and tribes in history.

The point of Civ is not to directly replicate history since no one civilization has dominated for 6000 years, the torch has been passed back and forth. If you want to repeat the follies of history, go for it, the game is prepared to make you lose much like what has actually happened in the past.

[djpsychonaut]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
I'd like to help the original poster, but I've been trained to automatically ignore AOLese. Can I get a translation of the original post into English so I can try to help?

[xxFlukexx]

Hmmm, in my last game I was attacked by 4 archers in 2000 B.C. by Victoria, that was quite a suprise. Mostly the early game has barbarians as your opponent.

As for game speed, well you can go into gamespeedinfo.xml great thread on modding that file here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=134109 It's pretty simple, the hard part is having to test it out so you see if you like it.

Ancient Era units last quite a while, unless you are playing on low difficulties like prince or noble. Still even on those low difficulties, war is definetly possible and troops don't get obsolete that fast, if you switched your production from libraries to axeman, you will see that tech is slow but your army is big. ou probably won't see that much conflict during the Ancient era because well the game lasts for over 450 turns, would be lame if the game was basically decided in 50-75 turns.

As for war being expensive and slow, I believe that was a design decision and a correct one. Big problem in Civ3 and Civ2 was blitzkrieging, ie killing a whole nation in a few turns. Wars are pretty bloody on higher difficulties, on low difficulties the AI isn't as good because well it's on a low difficulty it's supposed to be easy.

As for travel, yeah I think roads are too slow, there's a long time inbetween 3 movement roads and railroads, too long imo. For what you want to do is go into Assets/XML/Units/Civ4UnitsInfo.xml and modify "iCost" which is the hammer cost for units and "iMoves" which is the base movement of units. Mod those whatever you want. Just know that the game itself is pretty balanced and you might get a wacky game.

[GreenReaper]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
I'd like to help the original poster, but I've been trained to automatically ignore AOLese. Can I get a translation of the original post into English so I can try to help?

i was gonna use my why in gods name is a computer dork insulting me speech, but instead:
KISSMAHASS! (whitney houston. seriously, if you dont know the vid you should download it)

to those who actually helped and didnt act like a pr!ck, thank you. im reading up on xml right now.

to the guy gave me a history lesson, thanks. rome didnt buckle under its hugeness...it buckled under crappy leaders. i know what you're trying to say though.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GreenReaper
basically i can sum up the gist of what i want this way: slower progression, much faster unit build speeds, faster travel.

Check the mods in the Creation forum.

[bonscott]

Try Epic or Marathon speed as well.

And I have had many an ancient war. In one game I was up to 3 cities with the Spanish right next door. I knew I was in trouble since we were different religions. So I started building all military and good thing I did since she attacked me. We had a long drawn out war with mostly archers, axemen and chariots as the units of choice. I beelined to catapults which allowed me to finally take her capital on the hill.

So keep in mind that every game is different and a lot of times early war depends on who you start next to. If you want early war then just make sure you have a different religion and keep them mad at you.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by GreenReaper
i was gonna use my why in gods name is a computer dork insulting me speech, but instead:
KISSMAHASS! (whitney houston. seriously, if you dont know the vid you should download it)

to those who actually helped and didnt act like a pr!ck, thank you. im reading up on xml right now.

to the guy gave me a history lesson, thanks. rome didnt buckle under its hugeness...it buckled under crappy leaders. i know what you're trying to say though.

Running AOL2ENGL.EXE ...

Originally posted by GreenReaper
I was going to use my "Why in god's name is a computer dork insulting me" speech, but since my speech-writing skills are sub-par:
GENERIC COMMENT OF DISMISSAL! (By some crappy irrelevant celebrity, who I like for no sensible reason and will promote here)

To those who actually helped babysit me through my problems, thank you. I'm pretending to read about XML now, but will not understand it and will make several poorly-typed threads complaining about this.

While I am a computer dork, there is no way you could infer this by what I had written. You're making assumptions about me, to protect the "I'm better than my opponent" mentality that you need to have in order to argue without wetting your e-pants in the face of a much stronger adversary.

While I respect your pride, No. Stop being a wimp that hides behind name-calling to shelter your ego. If you have to assume that Computer Dorks are weaker than yourself (Despite their higher intelligence, higher pay and same popularity within their social groups), and assume that someone you've only read one post of was a computer dork, then you're better off not writing anything - lest you be proved an idiot.

There are many reasons why I insult you. They include:

• Tribalism / Cliques / Social groups
  I consider people with active brains to be part of 'my tribe', and people without active brains to be part of 'other tribes', and proceed to e-beat them with e-clubs.
• Childhood trauma
  Perhaps during my childhood, I was subjected to discomfort that was caused by the stupidity of others. I now globally resent stupid people as a result.
• Bullying
  As a Teenage Male, I have a primal urge to beat stuff. Since I am intelligent and an expert at trolling, this urge manifests itself in the bullying of those with weaker intellects than I.
• Defiance
  I percieve AOLers as part of 'the man', or society's hold over conventional beliefs. In a desire to make my beliefs known, I am defiant against those who uphold conventional virtues - such as AOLers upholding the virtue of "don't think, just bash the keyboard".
• Vengeance
  I have been emotionally hurt by people in the past, by their inability to understand my theories, and have developed a vengeance and a desire to hurt those who do not try to understand.
• Balance
  In a world where idiocy is tolerated and aggression is not, there needs to be some aggression against idiots to balance society out - and I embody this balance for some conveniant reason.
• Stubborn Conflict
  I stubbornly consider those who expect me to change my views as the enemy, and would prefer to fight them on principle of them being the enemy rather than analyse what the benefits of co-operation may be.
• Conditioned Reflex
  From many years of conflict with idiots of some kind or other, I have learned, as a conditioned reflex, to do battle with any idiot I meet.
• Pride
  A Person who thinks his ideas are above my criticism insults my pride, and in defense of my ego, I react aggressively.
• Attention
  Having unconventional ideas and attacking those that do is a good way of getting attention, and we all like attention
• Spam
  Pick a random topic and post about it.

Here is are two reasons which probably aren't correct:
Idiocy:
Strong Emotions being judged more important than your respect is a more likely cause than an error in judgement on my part
Being a Computer Dork:
There is no mystic force that makes computer dorks resent AOLers. There are several examples of amiable computer dorks in this thread

In short, I don't like you, get off my internets, you idiot.

[Kuciwalker]

Enigma_Nova, you are an AWESOME DL

[Medic911]

go enigma

consider people with active brains to be part of 'my tribe', and people without active brains to be part of 'other tribes', and proceed to e-beat them with e-clubs.

nice wordage, and i totally understand what you mean, but i think you sorta snapped there man. aside from that though, GO ENIGMA!

[Enigma_Nova]

Enigma_Nova, you are an AWESOME DL

I'm not a DL! Your accusation makes me sad.

nice wordage, and i totally understand what you mean, but i think you sorta snapped there man. aside from that though, GO ENIGMA!

Yeah, I wish I phrased it better, too. But I'm not skilled enough. >=(