Too many cities?

[Gray_Lensman]

Okay, I've created a new Civ advancement "Emigration", and set it up as a prerequisite for producing settlers, the next thing I did was adjust the number of starting type 1 units (settlers) for the AI civs. However where does someone adjust the starting units for the Human player chosen Civ?

[Antrine]

Scenario Tab in Editor, enable, (tick) the following, Custom Player Data, Custom Map, Custom Rules. Then Alt+Enter.

Next Players Tab; Player 1 (center top ), Human Player ticked to right.
Go to Unit window (it will be default Settler) underneath choose How Many.

Have Fun !!

Oh and save out of course, as well note all the 'other' editor goodies located here !

[Gray_Lensman]

Antrine:

Do you have to pre-generate a map first? Before saving that is? It seems to me, to only work without a start locations error, if you pre-generate a map before saving. This is not too big a deal, but the general map is then viewable in the Conquests folder, when you select it, which takes away from a truly random/hidden 31 player scenario.

[Antrine]

No. Maybe polluted somehow. Pull up another blank generic in the Editor, import the rules only that you modified and save as something else. Maybe this will straighten that out.

[Gray_Lensman]

Antrine:

Earlier you mentioned that you had turned off tech trading also. I was under the impression that the only thing affected by turning off tech trading was between the human player(s) and the AIs, ie., tech trading still occurs between the AI Civs. Can anyone verify which way this feature works?

[Antrine]

Well, 'no tech trading' hampers ALL players. However, there is still a loop-hole for the human player, sneaky little weasles they can be!!

STEAL the tech! Turn off the seed preservation in the scenario folder main tab or available at start-up. Then you can re-load until stealing pays off. It took my a few times to get by doing this.

Also there is something else that affects AI tech trading found on the Difficulty Tab. I know this affects tradable techs. However, AI stealing them, I have now knowledge, nor have seen it.

[Proserpine]

Originally posted by Antrine
Then you can re-load until stealing pays off. It took my a few times to get by doing this.

Well may you blush, Antrine. That's an exploit. "Let the cards fall where they may".

[Antrine]

Duly noted... I now proudly leave the 'preserve seed' ON.

[Dis]

I'm very tempted to mess around with the editor now.

But can you mess around with any text files instead of the editor? I don't like playing as scenarios. I want to play as a normal game.

And I will defeinately back up any files.

[Antrine]

As I understand this game culture here, a scenario is defined as using a pre-made map and further with pre-designated starting locations and maybe even units/cities already posted on said map.

So here is the layering.

Rules
Rules/Scenario Preferences
Pre-made map
With/without starting positions designated, whole cities replete with improvements all maybe populated with units, with or without alliances.

Now, you can play on a random generated map with no designated starting positions and still,
A. Rework or mod the Rules et al in the editor
B. Rework and tweak the scenario parameters

This is a MOD, not yet an scenario. When you load it, there is yet no map and it will be generated as per usual.

An scenario has different levels of modding, however what is common to all is a pre-made map.

Upon this pre-made map you can, leave all else blank and proceed to generate a new game only knowing the map, but not any starting places and there not being any units or cities pre-built thereon.

My favorite set-up is thus; Edited Rules/Scenario, this as my own mod, second a pre-built map, overlaid with a pre-built road grid and some tile improvements. Third, thirty-three carefully chosen starting positions, the map is large (200 by 275) with only eleven civs.

So I hit random civ at start-up and the game places all eleven of us randomly in eleven of the thirty-three starting slots. This gives essentially, a different game each time on the same map. Each time I am a different civ, starting on one of the thirty-three starting places with neighbors near and far, all laid out differently each time.

In all the above you can add units, techs, buildings, morph the tech tree and amend the text files accordantly (by all means back up) and when done correctly (as per syntax) everythings works as above.

With the above scenario I have some 60 start-up units for each AI and the human player. But the play is shuffled by the starting sequence. Also I could 'import the rules and scenario settings' and load up as Mod with no map, and start-up on a randomly generated map. I sometimes do this.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by MattPilot
the AI not only tries to figure out where the best place for a city is, they will also build cities to grab land. This means they will build cities .... everywhere!!

So what i did was lower the number of culture points required to expand the boarders significantely. So now you got rapid boarder expansions (i think i set it to 5, instead of 10), and the AI doesn't put down a city everywhere. Infact, they spread out quite nicely, like i do.

In addition to that, I doubled the culture output of all culture-producing buildings, and added culture to a few: barracks, harbor, and marketplace have a point each, and courthouse gives two. It dosen't take much to justify it from a "realism" standpoint, either.

This has the added benefit of AI military civs not being quite the cultural deserts they usually are.

[player1]

And makes War-time mobilization very powerful.
(since you can get culture in captured citites by building barracks)

[The Mad Monk]

I hadn't considered that, since I never use it, but how powerful can a single point be, given that four (or eight, with age) point temples and six (or twelve, with age) point libraries will abound?

One reason I doubled everything else before tacking on points was to keep their impact low, while helping out the early spacing.

It's also great in that there's no way you'll capture a city with an intact barracks, harbor, or airport.

[The Mad Monk]

I hadn't considered that, since I never use it, but how powerful can a single point be, given that four (or eight, with age) point temples and six (or twelve, with age) point libraries will abound?

One reason I doubled everything else before tacking on points was to keep their impact low, while helping out the early spacing.

It's also great in that there's no way you'll capture a city with an intact barracks, harbor, or airport.

[The Mad Monk]

BTW, not upping max cities to 1,024 when you can play with 31 civs at once is criminal.