The Altera Centauri collection has been brought up to date by Darsnan. It comprises every decent scenario he's been able to find anywhere on the web, going back over 20 years.
25 themes/skins/styles are now available to members. Check the select drop-down at the bottom-left of each page.
Call To Power 2 Cradle 3+ mod in progress: https://apolyton.net/forum/other-games/call-to-power-2/ctp2-creation/9437883-making-cradle-3-fully-compatible-with-the-apolyton-edition
I re-checked the BIC file of 1.05c - the forum provided 0 happy faces, just as I think it should be. For now I'll assume this is a bug in the 1.06 beta, reset the happy faces to 0 and start a new game (the starting position wasn't that fantastic, after all ). I won't add any prerequisite for forums, though.
"As far as general advice on mod-making: Go slow as far as adding new things to the game until you have the basic game all smoothed out ... Make sure the things you change are really imbalances and not just something that doesn't fit with your particular style of play." - WesW
ok the following questions are open to any and all and i'd love to get feedback from not only the vocal ones like techwins, lockstep, et al (please keep it up!) but from others who haven't posted anything yet
anyways here are the questions
1) Has anyone been able to play an entire game yet? If not is it crashes or some other factor that has kept you from finishing?
2) Does the Blitz mod seem especially crash prone?
3) Has anyone made it to the industrial and modern eras yet?
4) Has the Blitz mod force you to change your strategies any?
5) Has the Blitz mod improved on the Civ3 experiance?
1) No, I have not yet finished game on your mod, however, not because of the inefficiencies of your mod, yet the inefficiencies of the game mechanics of Civ3. It just becomes far too riduculous too have to wait that long, while playing a game.
2) No, this mod doesn't seem all that crash prone to me, except for the early game crashes I reported earlier.
3) Yes, I have made it to the Industrial era twice but both times I never made into the Modern era (refer to #1). Your mod makes the game a lot more fun, at least for me it does, and without this mod there would be no way I would play this game. I found the game to be absolutely horrible, yes I can have my own opinion on the game without anybody being offended, originally but everytime I play a new version of your mod it rekindles my excitement to play the game. However, after the excitement quickly dies down once the true colors of Civ3 kick in (excessive AI expansion, wait times, etc).
4) I'm not really sure if I have had to change my strategies or not. I do think that your mod does add to the strategy of the game, though.
5) I think from my previous four answers you should be able to figure out my answer to this. I'm glad with the direction you have taken in your mod compared to other mods. It seems as if other mods are just adding a bunch of 'fluff' (lame wonders, units, city improvements, resources...) to the game instead of increasing the strategy of the game. Firaxis would be wise to use a lot of your ideas from this mod. One of my favorite new changes that you have made are the changes you made to settlers along with creating a colonist. From the little that I played with these changes it significantly slowed down expansion in a way that actually made expandsion innovative and fun. Overall, you have done a fantastic job and I hope to see a lot more future versions.
I just now realized there was a "get more" link for the smilies.
However, it is difficult to believe that 2 times 2 does not equal 4; does that make it true? On the other hand, is it really so difficult simply to accept everything that one has been brought up on and that has gradually struck deep roots – what is considered truth in the circle of moreover, really comforts and elevates man? Is that more difficult than to strike new paths, fighting the habitual, experiencing the insecurity of independence and the frequent wavering of one’s feelings and even one’s conscience, proceeding often without any consolation, but ever with the eternal goal of the true, the beautiful, and the good? - F.N.
I played with 1.06 till the beginning of the industrial area and had to stop then due to a design flaw. So far there are many promising features in your mod, but it also looks like we all didn't take WesW's advice (see my signature) too seriously. Note that the memos I made during my game cover just tiny parts of your changes. In detail:
The good:
As far as I could put your additional buildings to use, they rock. I especially like the possibility to enhance medieval shield production with mills, but also the 'culture-only'-buildings seem to be a solid concept. One really has to choose between butter and cannons now, as a forum in every city in the early game won't allow you to support a large military without absolutely crippling your science rate. BTW, I noticed that the AI also builds forums.
Increased numbers of hitpoints are a must to smooth out combat results. I won't become an ardent supporter of your 4/6/9/12 scale, but battles actually don't last as long as I feared - I never felt the urge to turn off animations. (Although this may get problematic in the late game.)
When I couldn't build the Sistine Chapel after researching Theology I assumed a bug at first, but it's actually a nice feature that one has to build some cathedrals in advance. Starting a palace and then switching to a desired wonder becomes slightly harder, which is a good thing IMO.
The bad:
I don't know what to think of settlers that cost 3 pop points. Granted, it slows down early expansion somewhat. OTOH, as you usually can't afford to build a settler in your first city right after a warrior because getting to size 4 takes much longer than piling up 30 shields, you insert barracks or a temple in your build queue, and soon you enjoy the benefits of larger borders and veteran units. No interesting choice anymore between builder strategy and really rapid early expansion. IMO, it would be a better tweak to increase the shield costs of settlers (and yes, I know I said that before).
I never liked the idea of a city improvement (Obelisk) that is only available via building a wonder. I have to add now that the game engine can't really cope with a 'culture-only'-building that is granted for free: It won't show up in the Cultural advisor screen (although the additional culture points will be calculated), and worse, the +1 culture of the Obelisk won't double after 1000 years. This just doesn't feel right. I'd say, keep the forum, drop the obelisk and restore the original effects of the Pyramids (granary in every city on the continent).
I don't know the intention of making settlers 'wheeled' units, but when you start on a medium-sized peninsula that a) contains some jungle area (which a settler can neither cross nor stub) and b) is sealed with a chain of mountains (so that your settlers have to make the long way round to get to some promising spots of land), you'll find yourself hopelessly behind even in the early game. It's just a small feature, but it definitely needs to be dropped from your mod.
Ditto for the idea to have to pay maintenance for units and buildings even during anarchy. If you start a revolution to change to Democracy in the late middle ages and suddenly notice that your cash-flow doesn't drop from +4 gold/turn to -7 gold/turn (after all, you have to pay for some luxuries), but to -151 gold/turn, the game is pretty much over if you're not playing as a religious civ. (After 4 turns of anarchy, all your improvements will have been sold compulsory.)
The ugly (read: game-breaker):
I'm aware that the concept of land-units with hidden nationality (partisans) sounded so interesting to me that I put it on my list of 'best proposals to mod civ3'. This was premature. As the AI rubbed in to me, it is possible to wage war solely with partisans in the early industrial age if the opponent is technologically backwards (no calvalry or riflemen) or can be out-produced. This actually means that someone who just built his first couple of partisans (in my game, the AI) can wage war and conquer/raze cities while technically not being at war. (Your military advisor will tell you who burned your cities to the ground, but your foreign advisor will tell you that this civilization is at peace with you - although annoyed with you). This should mean in addition (though I didn't bother to test it) that your opponent won't have to face war weariness as a Republic or Democracy. I quit my game when I realized this and have to say now that the concept of land units with hidden nationality is broken.
Conclusion: I'll start a new game tomorrow after editing the partisan out. I'll try again to cope with 3-pop-settlers, and I'll enjoy building mills, theaters and stock exchanges. If I make it savely to the industrial area, I'll test the Fascist government (or whack some fascist AI). Thanks for creating and tweaking the most promising mod so far, Korn.
"As far as general advice on mod-making: Go slow as far as adding new things to the game until you have the basic game all smoothed out ... Make sure the things you change are really imbalances and not just something that doesn't fit with your particular style of play." - WesW
I don't know what to think of settlers that cost 3 pop points. Granted, it slows down early expansion somewhat. OTOH, as you usually can't afford to build a settler in your first city right after a warrior because getting to size 4 takes much longer than piling up 30 shields, you insert barracks or a temple in your build queue, and soon you enjoy the benefits of larger borders and veteran units. No interesting choice anymore between builder strategy and really rapid early expansion. IMO, it would be a better tweak to increase the shield costs of settlers (and yes, I know I said that before).
ok my goal with this was to slow down expansion, i haven't been able to play test it enough to see what effect it has on the AI but it appears that the AI advances slower as well...this should have the effect of slowing down all players at the same rate including the AI even on the higher levels, whereas if you simply increase shields then this really won't slow the higher level AI down
also does it really take significantly more time to have a size 4 city and 30 shields instead of a size 3 city and either 40 or 50 shields?
run some tests and report the results, if this neuters expansion too much then i'll switch to a 40 or 50 shield two pop settler (which ever works best)
i'll run some tests also
This just doesn't feel right. I'd say, keep the forum, drop the obelisk and restore the original effects of the Pyramids (granary in every city on the continent).
give me another option, because pyramids granting granaries in every city makes me have convulsions from pure annoyance
what i wanted the pyramids to do was to give +1 bonus culture to all culture producing religious buildings (not wonders) but this is impossible with the editor, there aren't any culture only wonders in the game and out of all the wonders the Pyramids, Sistene, JS Bach, Shakespear seem the three most logical choices
so give me a culture only wonder effect for the pyramids (or something besides granaries) that is possible with the editor and is something besides simply +mega mucho culture in this city
I don't know the intention of making settlers 'wheeled' units, but when you start on a medium-sized peninsula that a) contains some jungle area (which a settler can neither cross nor stub) and b) is sealed with a chain of mountains (so that your settlers have to make the long way round to get to some promising spots of land), you'll find yourself hopelessly behind even in the early game. It's just a small feature, but it definitely needs to be dropped from your mod.
well i also wanted to make expansion more difficult early on, my biggest fear is having a civ start in the middle of a jungle but if they did they would be hosed anyway
btw do u have a save of that peninsula game? i'd love to see the start
also your worker building a road allows the settler to cross that area (i am fairly confident that you know this, but i just wanted to make sure)
Ditto for the idea to have to pay maintenance for units and buildings even during anarchy. If you start a revolution to change to Democracy in the late middle ages and suddenly notice that your cash-flow doesn't drop from +4 gold/turn to -7 gold/turn (after all, you have to pay for some luxuries), but to -151 gold/turn, the game is pretty much over if you're not playing as a religious civ. (After 4 turns of anarchy, all your improvements will have been sold compulsory.)
i wanted to do two things
*make switching governments a BIG DEAL and that each switch would take careful consideration weakening tactical government switching
*make being in anarchy PAINFUL! anarchy should be a time of crisis that the player should avoid if at all possible
did i bring too much pain? if not i'll try to tone it down some
I'm aware that the concept of land-units with hidden nationality (partisans) sounded so interesting to me that I put it on my list of 'best proposals to mod civ3'. This was premature. As the AI rubbed in to me, it is possible to wage war solely with partisans in the early industrial age if the opponent is technologically backwards (no calvalry or riflemen) or can be out-produced. This actually means that someone who just built his first couple of partisans (in my game, the AI) can wage war and conquer/raze cities while technically not being at war. (Your military advisor will tell you who burned your cities to the ground, but your foreign advisor will tell you that this civilization is at peace with you - although annoyed with you). This should mean in addition (though I didn't bother to test it) that your opponent won't have to face war weariness as a Republic or Democracy. I quit my game when I realized this and have to say now that the concept of land units with hidden nationality is broken.
most definantly a problem, but an easily fixed one, by moving the partisan to a later tech this problem should disappear because although partisans 8.8 might be leathal to musketmen 4.8, they aren't nearly as bad against riflemen 10.15 where they intended to be a problem and tie up defenders more than being an actual threat, thereby if they were later in the game it would either take a massive population investment to win or an actual declaration of war so you could bring bombard units to soften up the defenders
btw were you on the wrong end of the insurgence?
don't edit out the partisans just move them to replacable parts for now and see how that works ok?
Originally posted by korn469
ok i increased the optimal amount of cities on each map as follows
tiny 12 --> 15
small 14 --> 18
standard 16 --> 20
large 24 --> 30
huge 32 --> 40
In Civ3 v1.07 it was 8/12/16/24/32. After complaints about unmanagable corruption on tiny maps Firaxis changed the values for tiny and small maps in v1.16, but not for the other ones. Therefore, the scale is somewhat distorted now. If you want to reduce corruption further, I suggest a scale of 16/20/24/32/40.
Regarding our discussion about 3 pop point settlers, expect some testing results within a short time.
"As far as general advice on mod-making: Go slow as far as adding new things to the game until you have the basic game all smoothed out ... Make sure the things you change are really imbalances and not just something that doesn't fit with your particular style of play." - WesW
i really appreciate all of the feedback i'm getting, and although it may look like i'm brushing off some of the ideas, i'm not. i really do consider everything being said and if i come to the conclusion that i absolutely won't implement an idea i will try a present the reasons why i made that choice
but without the feedback this mod wouldn't be close to where it is now
thanks for pointing that out
i changed it to correspond to your values
i played a little this morning and here is my save for anyone who wants to play around with it, my civ3mod is slightly different from the beta because of small tweaks but it should work
however from this game i am finding 3 pop wheeled settlers to be quite enjoyable
though i am thinking of bumping of barbarians so they are much more of a threat (but balance this by tweaking the barbarian bonuses)
which of these combos sound the best?
archers 4.2.1
horsemen 4.2.2
archers 4.2.1
knights 8.6.2
longbowmen 8.2.1
knights 8.6.2
horsemen 4.2.2
partisans 8.8.4
longbowmen 8.2.1
partisans 8.8.4
i'm thinking maybe archer/knights with a few bonus tweaks
oh yea and with version 1.16f did firaxis go from .bic to .sav for their savegames? or am i only dellusional?
Originally posted by korn469
does it really take significantly more time to have a size 4 city and 30 shields instead of a size 3 city and either 40 or 50 shields?
run some tests and report the results, if this neuters expansion too much then i'll switch to a 40 or 50 shield two pop settler (which ever works best)
i'll run some tests also
I played 10 starting games as the Babylonians (no double worker rate) - test setting and general results were as follows:
I founded the city of Babylon on my starting position unless a river- or coast-adjacent tile was one turn away (this happened two times out of ten).
I deliberately prioritized food over shield production (i.e. rather worked a 2/0 grassland tile without a shield than a 1/2 forest tile).
Because of the despotism tile penalty, I irrigated only floodplains. In two games, my first improved tile was a floodplain, in another game, my third tile (after having mined two grassland tiles).
In three games I encountered a bonus ressource: a cattle tile with distance 2 from my city (and therefore only workable after my border size had increased), a distance 2 wheat tile and a distance 1 wheat tile which happened to be on a flood plain.
Particular events: One time I was struck with disease and lost a pop point (liable: the wheat tile on a flood plain ).
On average, it took about 13 turns to produce 30 shields with my first city, 16 turns to produce 40 shields, 19 turns to produce 50 shields and 22 turns to produce 60 shields.
The average number of turns to grow the city to size 3 was about 19, whereas it took about 28 turns to grow to size 4.
What could this mean in terms of game balance? I guess that Firaxis wanted to make it possible for a player with average starting position to build two warriors (one for defense, one for exploration, 10 shields each) and then start to build a 30-shield settler to found a second city. After 19 turns (3050 BC), the settler is completed just when the first city would grow to size 3 - this is paradigmatic rapid expansion. As soon as a player starts to build barracks, a granary or a temple (40 to 60 shields each) rather than a settler, he will benefit from larger borders and veteran units, but will also start to fall behind in the expansion race.
Making the settler a 3 pop point / 30 shields unit, the average player can't finish a settler before turn 28 (when the city grows to size 4); in this time, the city will produce about 80 to 85 shields. It is perfectly viable now to insert barracks (40 shields) in the build queue, and a granary or a temple (60 shields) won't slow your expansion down that much either. You are also free to build up to five warriors before your first settler and watch out for nearby civs with weak spots in their defense. You aren't free anymore, however, to put your precious shields solely in a settler to found your second city ASAP - you'd only waste half of them.
... Okay, Korn, that's it so far. I tried to present some facts, but are not sure whart conclusion to draw. After all, you have created this rather awesome mod, so youl'll have to decide about the settler's properties. I'll take a short break and then deal with the rest of your comments regarding my test game.
"As far as general advice on mod-making: Go slow as far as adding new things to the game until you have the basic game all smoothed out ... Make sure the things you change are really imbalances and not just something that doesn't fit with your particular style of play." - WesW
your tests are in line with my calculations from the ICS thread that was floating around before civ3 came out
but right now here is what we have
player (10) 18 turns to expand
AIs
*chieftain (20) 22 turns to expand
*Warlord (12) 18 turns to expand
*Regent (10) 18 turns to expand
*Monarch (9) 18 turns to expand
*Emperor (8) 18 turns to expand
*Deity (6) 18 turns to expand
now we would have to raise the cost of settlers to 60 to slow down expansion any at all
player (10) 22 turns to expand
AIs
*chieftain (20) 22++ turns to expand (120 shield settler)
*Warlord (12) 22+ turns to expand (72 shield settler)
*Regent (10) 22 turns to expand (60 shield settler)
*Monarch (9) 19+ turns to expand (54 shield settler)
*Emperor (8) 18 turns to expand (48 shield settler)
*Deity (6) 18 turns to expand (36 shield settler)
so increasing the cost of settlers to 60 would slow down the player and the lower level AI, but it would not slow the higher level AI at all, plus playing at Diety the player would need to build at least one garrison for crow control, so this would slow the player down even further probably up to the 25 turn mark while the AI could still expand at the 18 turn mark meaning that if you thought the AI expanded fast before, then you have an AI that would be expanding even faster in relation to you
after seeing your testing and arguments what i'm thinking is that either a 40 or 50 shield 3 pop settler should be the way to go, because it would slow down expansion across the board to the 28 turn mark but by increase the shield cost the player would still have to choose between expansion or infrastructure
EDIT: additionally you caught another bug
a barracks is going to be either 60 or 80 shields and most likely have a maintence of 2, that along with more powerful veterans and elites should give the player even more interesting choices to make
Originally posted by korn469
pyramids granting granaries in every city makes me have convulsions from pure annoyance
so give me a culture only wonder effect for the pyramids (or something besides granaries) that is possible with the editor and is something besides simply +mega mucho culture in this city
I'll try, but won't promise anything this time.
well i also wanted to make expansion more difficult early on, my biggest fear is having a civ start in the middle of a jungle but if they did they would be hosed anyway
Only if you don't bring back bananas.
btw do u have a save of that peninsula game? i'd love to see the start
Sorry, no save available. Let me just say the start wouldn't have been that bad with standard rules.
also your worker building a road allows the settler to cross that area (i am fairly confident that you know this, but i just wanted to make sure)
I made a rough estimate in the very game. It would have cost me about 15 turns to build roads on three tiles (I was playing as the Egyptians), and part of the effort (the road on the yet-to-be city tile) would have been wasted.
i wanted to do two things
*make switching governments a BIG DEAL and that each switch would take careful consideration weakening tactical government switching
*make being in anarchy PAINFUL! anarchy should be a time of crisis that the player should avoid if at all possible
I agree that something needs to be done about Anarchy. I just don't think that paying maintenance for buildings that do nothing at the moment is the best solution.
BTW, korn, did I encounter another bug in your BIC-file or have you set anarchy war weariness to 'high'? I mean ... after all, Anarchy is what you get if you don't care about war weariness. Sounds like the perfect vicious circle.
by moving the partisan to a later tech this problem should disappear because although partisans 8.8 might be leathal to musketmen 4.8, they aren't nearly as bad against riflemen 10.15 where they intended to be a problem and tie up defenders more than being an actual threat, thereby if they were later in the game it would either take a massive population investment to win or an actual declaration of war so you could bring bombard units to soften up the defenders
btw were you on the wrong end of the insurgence?
Yep. I was a rather small-sized (10 cities on a standard map) Egyptian empire in the late middle ages. My palace was rather splendid as my people basked in luxuries and enjoyed their new theaters, and mills had also been erected all over the country. Then suddenly the Chinese in the North (25 cities), who had recently discovered Communism, decided that all my bases belonged to them ... without formally declaring war.
don't edit out the partisans just move them to replacable parts for now and see how that works ok?
Already done. I'll try to get some sleep tonight though, so I won't risk to start a new game right away.
"As far as general advice on mod-making: Go slow as far as adding new things to the game until you have the basic game all smoothed out ... Make sure the things you change are really imbalances and not just something that doesn't fit with your particular style of play." - WesW
well if you think of something tell me, but i really enjoy the +1 culture to all my cities on that continant
Only if you don't bring back bananas.
so you want some kind of resource bonus for the jungle? find a mod that has this and i'll co-opt it(with credit of course)
Sorry, no save available. Let me just say the start wouldn't have been that bad with standard rules.
too bad, i was hoping to able to play on it
I made a rough estimate in the very game. It would have cost me about 15 turns to build roads on three tiles (I was playing as the Egyptians), and part of the effort (the road on the yet-to-be city tile) would have been wasted
oh ok i see
I agree that something needs to be done about Anarchy. I just don't think that paying maintenance for buildings that do nothing at the moment is the best solution.
BTW, korn, did I encounter another bug in your BIC-file or have you set anarchy war weariness to 'high'? I mean ... after all, Anarchy is what you get if you don't care about war weariness. Sounds like the perfect vicious circle.
well i'll think of something
but you didn't find a bug Anarchy is intended to have high war weariness...hehe don't you already hear the darkside calling you?
Yep. I was a rather small-sized (10 cities on a standard map) Egyptian empire in the late middle ages. My palace was rather splendid as my people basked in luxuries and enjoyed their new theaters, and mills had also been erected all over the country. Then suddenly the Chinese in the North (25 cities), who had recently discovered Communism, decided that all my bases belonged to them ... without formally declaring war.
hehe i haven't heard anything like that happening in a while in civ games, so i'm sorry it happened to you but apparently the AI knows how to use partisans
but this also makes me think of something that Soren said about the AI...if you could only build warriors and mech infantry then the AI would build warriors as attack units since they have the offensive AI flag checked...this has some interesting implications that need examination, but i suspect that this is one of the reasons that the AI build so many Partisans
Already done. I'll try to get some sleep tonight though, so I won't risk to start a new game right away
well i can't wait to hear more of your field reports
). I won't add any prerequisite for forums, though.
One of my favorite new changes that you have made are the changes you made to settlers along with creating a colonist. From the little that I played with these changes it significantly slowed down expansion in a way that actually made expandsion innovative and fun. Overall, you have done a fantastic job and I hope to see a lot more future versions.
I just now realized there was a "get more" link for the smilies.
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