MOD: Long Winded Changes Mod: Improvements increasing Balance, Accuracy, and Fun

[Eytanz]

Suggestion - Horses and roads

Here's a suggetion that occured to me about the early game -

- Horses should always appear. After all, even if your civilization doesn't know to ride or harness them yet, they still must be able to see them running up and down those hills and plains - they're not Iron which must be mined, after all.

- Maybe have roads only available after the Wheel is researched?

Eytan

[Plutarck]

Sorry for the delay in replying to all the posts I've had to skip over, but I'm instead spending the time on remaking the mod.


I've updated the first post in the thread, so take a look at that for more information


I'll just let the full list of changes speak for itself once I release it

But yes, Horses will be visible from the begining (so far that's what I have planned, anyway), and they also provide +1 food. Sorry to all the horse lovers out there, but I'm afraid they were food sources until recently (and still are in many countrys).

[Daveraver]

*a big old fat BUMP!*

Pluty, any update?? I really want to play this mod.

[SithUK]

Dave: Gotta agree there =)

BTW Plutark I found s'thing interesting in a 'corruption and waste after patch' (general board) thread:

Posted by habadacus
I found that if you edit the default rules (double click civ3mod.bic in install directory) and set the optimal city % to 600%-800% you can take care of this problem and still be able to build the forbiden palace when you're supposed to. Outlying cities still experience corruption, but that can be reduced with the couthouse/police station. It's worked for me so far.

I'm going to attempt this fix in my last save and see the results. I haven't played Civ3 since the corruption effectively stopped play as the vast majority of my cities were useless due to corruption. It'll be interesting to see if anything has changed (no more 1000turn FP!?!

Anyways looking forward to your next installment, I don't mind if it takes you another week, just make sure you release when you're HAPPY with it, don't do a Firaxis on us

L8erz,

Sith

[Plutarck]

Information Update

Just wanted to give everyone an update on my progress so they don't have to guess

I have most of the actual changes completed except for the Units, and I have most of the land unit changes and bombard unit changes done. But they aren't complete and do need more changes still.

I haven't done much adding, but I've added 5 ground units at this time. They are Man At Arms, Musket Infantry, Shock Troops, Rifle Infantry, and Assault Troops (in order of their appearance in the game, more or less). (All units subject to change, but that's what I have so far.)

I've also added 4 technologys so far, and they are Sattle (who's name might change...just not sure what to call it), Hullmaking, Squirearchy, and Volunteerism. All are also subject to change, of course.

With the completed download I will also include a modified .html file which calculates combat statistics to make it easy to see what the changes to the units mean. I'm using 2 that are already available, but I changed them to make them easier to use and will also be updated for all the new units/changes.

With exception to Horseman (which will come later in the ancient age, but be more a little more powerful and probably more expensive) and Chariot (which now is alot like the former Horseman) most of the Ancient Age units are currently unchanged. Only defensive units haven't currently changed in the Middle Ages while all other units there have changed alot (they have had their attack increased, mostly). The Industrial age pretty much changes completely, and the Modern Age changes quite a bit too.


As an idea of unit changes, we'll take the Cavalry for instance. Formerly against a Pikeman fortified in a walled town/city it had a 53% chance of winning; with the pikeman fortified in the open the Cav had a 67% chance of victory (that means that the Cavalry wins only slightly over half the time in the first instance, and a little over 3 out of 5 times in the latter instance). However the Cavalry cost 80 shields to build in the game while Pikeman take only 30, meaning you can build 2 pikeman for each Cavalry and STILL have 20 shields left over. And the Cavalry comes at the tail end of the Middle Ages, while the Pikeman comes at the very begining!

Now the Cav have a 69% chance of victory in the former instance, and an 82% chance of winning in the latter instance. This may increase, but I'm still thoroughly testing it. Seems good on paper, but remember the Musketman is available much earlier in the age than Cavalry.

Just as an idea of what percentages mean, in my game I had a 4hp warrior fortified on a hill be killed by a barbarian 3hp warrior that was attacking (on Monarchy level, so no bonus against barbarians). The bariarian had a 13% chance of success.

That's how probability works, after all

So it's not a gigantic change in probability, but still a significant one and may still be altered upon more testing.


I'm also experimenting with tweaking unit hitpoints a little, and am liking the results. Only a minor change but it does seem to smooth out combat results nicely. Changing the "Normal" hitpoints by 1 seems to swing the probabilitys about 3-5% in the favor of what victory was most likely anyhow. So a Tank is less likely to loose to a Pikeman, while a Pikeman is more likely to win against an attacking Swordsman (when fortified, that is).


The changes.txt file currently lists the changing of 100 different item in the game (changing a technologys cost and requirements would only be counted as 1 change, for instance), and I haven't added any unit info yet

At this rate there will probably be over 150 changes/additions in this release version, . I also haven't done the governments yet either


So it's probably going to be at least into next week before a release version is ready, though I might put out a late-beta version to make sure all the kinks are worked out and give you all something to play with

This will definately spice up and improve the game _alot_ in my humble opinion.

One last note: I found corruption totally mangabable as-is, so the addition of the corruption reducing improvements might be all that's needed to keep things going smoothly throughout the game. But this could just be my new strat which builds less citys than normal and gets the capital up to max size so early...dunno

[TheRascalKing]

Not to be picky...

But do you mean "saddle?" Well, if you change the name, make the advance "stirrup" since the stirrup was a much more important development than the saddle.

All in all, good work though!

[Claymore]

Thanks for the update

I am sure like me...many here wondering how things were going.

[Daveraver]

WOO HOO!

Dude, sign me up to be a beta tester. I loved the earlier incarnation, and would love to help streamline this one as well.

[Honour_Shogun]

I as well am glad to hear that things are progressing well. I await the new version with the anticipation of a child on Christmas Morn .

[Claymore]

Maybe sometime in the future.....

I think it would be fun ...and more accurate of we did not see the world map and our location at the start of a game. This understanding might come only after mapmaking is achieved.

[Kolyana]

Claymore, have you ever seen some of the early maps? Lord have mercy, Europe was all screwed in shape and utterly wrong.

I thing that a global map should come somewhat later ... i mean, we were still discovering the world when we came across America, right? And back then they thought that they had landed in India ...

[Alex The OK]

Plutark,

Thanks for making an awesome mod. Here are a few humble suggestions.

Are you planning on using any of the graphics mods others have done (trees, jungle, etc) ?

If the infantry doesn't need rubber as a resource, the explorer class definetly should . . . seriously though I enjoy the resource balance aspects of the game and eliminating too many requirements for units detracts from some fun tactics. Particularly the oil req of modern armour and stealth aircraft (they need fuel don't they). When I go to war I like to position carrier groups to bomb roads to strategic resources.

How about train stations as a city improvement in the Industrial era, increases happiness and commerce (and perhaps a little of the dreaded corruption? Connect those far off outposts) allows construction of a Grand Central Station GW.

A prison city improvement that reduces corruption

I agree with a previous post and I think Nuclear Power plants should defenitly need access to water (being a civil engineer and all), can you think of any real ones that dont?

Units I would like to see:
A french foreing legion unit for the french

A Modern Amphibous unit (think marines in hover crafts). I would love to be able to succesfully launch a amphib. assault in the Modern era against Mech Infantry. please please please

Special Forces . . . More useful paratrooper with absurd shield req. they should have a small bombard capability (think phoned in air strike).

Nuclear carrier, more plane capacity

Terrosit unit only accesable to barbarians (functions similar to a nuke strike). you would need to have some way to keep the barbarians around longer too (really high spawn rate at later ages? so they pop up occasionally when cities are razed?)

The explorer unit could be OK if it came out much earlier and was set up so that it could flee attacks from slow moving units.

Great wonders:
The golden gate bridge or the chunnel (decent culture and commerce bonus)

Artificial intelegence: Research Bonus, requires SETI and computers

Small Wonder:
Internet Porn, increase commerce but brings culture way down. OK maybe just the internet.


I love the early parts of the game, maybe thats why all most of my suggestions are for the Modern era . . .

Thanks for all the hard work!

[Honour_Shogun]

I have a question. Why was it decided that we no longer have the ability to see the entire map with the construction of a wonder(say, SATCOM)? Even if the FoW is left on, it would make it nice for late games. Give it research bonus(figure that is reasonable), and perhaps a small(large?) culture bonus. Perhaps I am dreaming in technicolour, but it would add a nice touch to the game. To ensure it is not abused, make it a modern age wonder, perhaps with the advent of satellites advance?
Just a thought

[DarkWingNZ]

v.8

finally i am able to register

i also had the problem many of you were having with v.8. however after a little experimenting, i worked out that the problem is with the graphic for the stone resource. as soon as it appeared on the map the game crashed to fix the problem i went into the editor and changed the picture to be the same as the mighty stallions, which fixed the problem, but now stone looks like stallions. (only a minor inconvinence)

so if any of you are still trying to play v.8 of this excellent mod try this and it should work fine for ya.

DW

[Claymore]

Ideas.....repair Ship..ship movement

Perhaps the idea of a specialized modern ship...one specialized in ship repair..perhaps only for the less damaged ships in lieu of returning to port has merit.

Should/can we consider reduced unit movement that results from damage taken ?