MOD: The BALANCER

[Elucidus]

Sorry, if we've offended you. It is, though, just a game. Not even a simulation, at that. And as far as the Reichstag... I know nothing about it historically, that was Monkspider's creation. If it is inaccurate I will fix it.

I have to admit that when the idea of the camps was first brought to me, I thought it was a little...hmm, what's the word...tasteless, maybe. But it was Monkspider's creation and if that is what he wanted, then so be it.

Like I said, however, none of the gov specific bldgs will be in, so it is a moot point anyway. If we ever have the ability to control a buildings effects by which government is active, we can start it up again.

You will probably notice quite a few changes from Monkspider's version to mine. It is still the same basic mod, but with a few additional things changed.

[Synthetik]

Im pretty sure I was using the latest version, as I DLed it recently.

I also noticed that if you were one govt, and built that specific govts specific buildings, you could then change govts, and build the others, without losing the abilities of the previous ones.
so I agree with removing that as well, good call.

I did a little editting on my text file and icons file, as well as the scripts file. to point them at the correct pcx files. then made the small/large pcx files of the wonders, my game would crash on the large wonders everytime I built them when it would try and bring up the splash.
also, the wonders still would not show up in my build menu, or the civpedia. I even experimented by making the splash point to a buiilding/wonder pic that was included with the game, still crashed, so Im not sure what was wrong.

[Elucidus]

That's definately interesting. I tested it before I sent it to Monkspider, but that was right before I lost my internet connection so I was pressed for time.

I am doing everything from scratch (except making the splashes and icons). The changes will be basically the same, but this will ensure combatibility, but will take a little longer.

Please bare with me.

[Elucidus]

Status 2.0a

Okay, here's where I stand. The biggest job was merging my old civilopedia with the updated one from the new patch. I have finished that and am working on the standard Bic changes. Here's what I have done so far:

I am still working on these citizen upgrades, but they are technically added to the bic. So hopefully it works out.

Citizens:
Added:
Comedian: Available with Printing Press, 2 Luxuries
Accountant: Available with Banking, 2 Taxes
Alchemist: Replaces scientist until education is discovered, 1 Research
Scientist: Available with Education, 2 Science
Researcher: Available with Computers, 3 Research
Police Officer: Available with Communism, 1 Tax, 1 Research (to represent less corruption)

These here are complete and working.


Colonist created: roughly 2/3 the price of a settler and has treat all terrain as roads. Expansionist civs only

Difficulty Levels: Changed the Optimal Cities percentage
Made Regent optimal Cities percent- 100% (up from 90%, as this seems to make sense)
Made the harder levels flow easier from regent, which means they are 1 level higher (5%), except diety (10%)
Made the easier levels actually have a higher optimal cities percent
Chieftan is 120%
Warlord is 110%

Forest value in shields changed from 10 to 15
Fortifications now give +50% Defense (to match what the new 1.17f Civilopedia says)
Level 2 City is changed from 6 to 7
Level 3 City is changed from 12 to 14
Starting treasury changed from 10 to 15 (this was just for poops and grins)

World sizes +1; 16 civs max in all; Up to +25% max cities per size
Tiny; 80x80; distance 10; max cities 15; tech rate 90
Small;100x100; distance 12; max cities 20; tech rate 120
Standard; 140x140; distance 18; max cities 30; tech rate 160
Large; 180x180; distance 24; max cities 40; tech rate 200
Huge; 240x240; distance 30; max cities 52; tech rate 240


Jungles now give 1 Food and 1 Shield
Mountains now give 2 Shields unmined and 4 when mined
Cure for Cancer now adds not only one happy to all cities, but gains a -1 unhappy in all cities as well

Great Lighthouse now produces Veteran Sea Units as well
Great Wall; removed "Doubles city defenses" and Added "All cities on the continent gain Walls"

Longevity Available with Scientific Method
United Nations now gets +1 Trade in each trade producing tile
Wall Street renamed Wall Street to Stock Exchange
Clear Jungle Changed from 16 turns to 13 turns

[Elucidus]

Well the new citizens seem to be working okay. A few problems though.

I would like to make the older ones obsolete. Can't figure out a way to do it though.

I would like to make their icons match what they do. Right now they seem to be a red citizen, some mad some happy. It does let you know what they do by puting the correct number of icons over their picture in the city screen. But I would like to work that out.

One other concern is, will the computer utilize the new ones? Will it know a scientist is better than an alchemist?

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Elucidus
Well the new citizens seem to be working okay. A few problems though.

I would like to make the older ones obsolete. Can't figure out a way to do it though.

If you succeed in making specialists obsolete, every modmaker will be in your debt. But I'm afraid it's not possible at the moment.

From the latest readme of monkspiders/your mod, I especially like the earlier availability of Longevity, which may become a useful wonder after all. Also, the changes to jungles and mountains seem plausible - IIRC, this has been also included in other mods (e.g. Plutarck's). If you have any testing results how this affects gameplay, please report them.

[Elucidus]

Without being able to use any boolean logic in any kind of script, I don't see that as happening.

Now, I finished adding Fascism to the mod and noticed a problem with all previous version of the Balancer Mod. Some how the Require Maint. was unchecked. Which ultimately means that all city improvements were free (like in anarchy). Anarchy is, BTW the only government to have this item checked. So that is why many people found Fascism to be much too strong. I restored all other settings, to their original values and we will see if this clears things up.

[Synthetik]

cool, great work, I cant wait to try your version out El !
everything sound good so far.

[Elucidus]

Synth,

Most of the previous additions are in place, all that is left...by my accounts, are most of the unit balancing we had done. I will have to reverify this, however. This should put us back in par with the 1.5 version. For sanity sake, both the user's and my own, I will not include all of the previous changes as they are all or mostly being redone, so I will treat it as new.

Luc

[Elucidus]

Been thinking about something. Why on earth does desert give a shield and normal grassland not? So I was thinking. What if the Resources per tile were adjust by approx 5? What I mean by approx. 5 is that some tiles would only get a couple (grassland 2 shds; desert 1 shd; plains 4 shds). these are preliminary and would of course need a whole lot of testing. As all costs would need to be adjusted. It is just a thought and I wouldn't be able to work on it until after version 2.0 comes out. I am still testing that.

[Synthetik]

I try and build cities that are near rivers and floodplains, with mountains close by, this gives me a huge production, while still keeping me with plenty of food.

one thing I miss with Civ2, was the advance of refrigeration.
I would try and learn that as fast as possible, so that I could start to outgrow all the other civs, and then my scienceproduction output would follow.

if there is a way to include ref. and double food output, that would be awsome.
I do agree with the 2 shields on mountains, and maybe 2 on desert, but I utilize the grasslands/floodplains for my growth, and adding a shield could imbalance that enough to cause rampant pollution.

[Mizaq]

I was thinking about something like this for my mod. However, the game being as it is now, I would have make city size 1 cap at 10, and size 2 cap at 20. I was thinking about doing this and making much more food output be given per square. Also for my mod I was considering making settlers obsolete after a certain period of time so that there was some check on the rapid growth. I was actually going to create a tech called advanced hyroponics which created a building (requires hospitals to be built) that allows size 3 cities, which could grow to a huge number if you haven't placed them every two squares.

[Synthetik]

that would be cool, I thought of hydroponics during civ2, but I never really got into MODing, so I am at a complete loss as how I would have done it, Ive messed with civ3 a bit, editting the bic file a few times and such, but no real heavy MODing.

the one thing Im not clear on is why my game crashes when I use any MODs, I used balancer, and it worked for a bit, then would just crash, tried LWC, same thing, hell, that would crash as soon as I started a new game.
unit mania, I tried that, and it just gave me error after error, and wouldnt even open the game, I had to hard boot everytime I tried using that.
all these were done on a clean install of civ3, I even removed the reg files for it

[Elucidus]

Hmm. that is a bit odd. Have you tried any mods that did work? When was the last time you reinstalled Civ3 from scratch?

[Elucidus]

I am changing something in the mod. I am moving the Government Specific Wonders to elsewhere in the tech tree, as opposed to being available when you discover the tech for that government. For instance, the Monarchy wonder will be available when you research Republic and vice versa. I am not sure where to put all of them though.

Monarchy, Hagia Sophia, available with Republic
Republic, School of Socrates, available with Monarchy
Democracy, Statue of Liberty, available with ???
Communism, Classless Society, available with ???
Fascism, Reichstag, available with ???


Any ideas on this guys? I don't want to make them available right away, thinking when you get the wonder it will make the government more powerful, and it seems more logic to have that happen later on. The wonder is supposed to help improve the governments by minimizing their particular weeknesses. I think you should have to experience those weeknesses for a while before getting the wonders.