MOD: korn's Blitz Mod

[TechWins]

Sorry but I don't have any time to make a real reply, but I wanted to first provide the link to the fire galley. Here it is.

[korn469]

Elucidus

gramphos's tool will do this for you

techwins

thanks for the link

________________________

anyways...about my latest game

apolyton was down on sunday so i have been doing EXTENSIVE play testing, and this has been one of the most frustrating civ experiences ever, yet the one more turn feeling IS SO there

some of these things are my causing

the governments aren't balanced, monarchy needs improvement, as does communism, and fascism needs to be toned down some

then here are the most frustrating parts of the game

#1
i don't have any libraries, schools, or any science buildings or wonders, and i have set my tax as high as possible (i have to spend some on happiness) but i am able to buy a new tech about every 8 turns because of devaluation and tech whoring

#2
there is something wrong with airmissions, when attacking units inside of a city about 4 out of 5 missions say "bombardment failed" and don't inflict any damage, this appears only to happen when units are in a city though, it is very frustrating!

i'll write more in depth later on today

[Elucidus]

Yeah, I found this out a little earlier today. Thanks though.

[korn469]

Ok when i typed my first post i had yet to fall asleep, so if it is being understanding forgive me

anyways to the more detailed post

I was playing as the Americans on a standard sized world, a pangea map, deity/raging, against Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, French, Germans, Indians, Egyptians

The map was roughly doughnut shaped, with the following starting positions: me at 11 o'clock, french at 12, greece at 2, germans at 4, babs at 5, indians at 6, persians at 7, and egyptians at 9

Until MPPs the game played out as an AI gangbang, Persian declared war on Egypt and soon the rest of the world was also at war with egypt, and while from time to time egypt would make peace with one or two of those civs they stayed at war constantly with Persia who took over all of their cities, i was too small and weak to intervene so i helped egypt by supplying them techs but they took out the egyptians, with no wars breaking out amongst any of the other civs, just the world vs. Egypt, then after Egypt was dead there was a short period of peace and the the world declared war on India, and no other wars broke out until india was dead, then as soon as MPPs came into play germany declared war on me and then i managed to get the other civs to gang up on germany and then they went and destroyed germany

By this point in the game Persia was enormous, with Greece being almost as large, but with more wonders and it had the tech lead, france had lots of cities but most were on the smaller end, with me and the babs having compact fairly well developed empires, so i used MPPs to arrange a war between the rest of the world and persia, and then greece started chewing persia up and just running out to a very large lead, and being the first civ to hit the modern age by a wide margin

As far as my civ went, i did not build any libraries or science buildings at all, just market places, banks, and stock exchanges along with happiness buildings and i bought all of the techs i needed, in the first part of the game i was always the last civ to buy techs, but by the industrial age basically greece discovered the tech first, then i would pay the babs or france a large sum (mostly the babs in the later stages) for older tech and then they would buy new tech off of greece then i would buy that tech off of them

without diverting any resources to science it is 1090ad and i am in the modern age being only one tech (fission) behind every civ except for greece

As far as governments went, the greeks or persians discovered republic first and then all of the civs switched to republic without a single one switching to monarchy when it became available, even when they were at war, then the greeks discovered democracy and all of the civs switched to it, upon entering the industrial age and the scientific civs discovered Fascism most of the civs switched to that, a few stayed in democracy for a while, but once they were at war for a few turns everyone (including me when i was at war with persia) switched to Fascism, even after discovering communism none of the civs switched to it, and all have remained in Fascism

well my basic strategy was to make it fairly intact until the modern age, then use F-15's to seize control of the skies then to pound civs from the air and then let my ground troops follow close behind

well that was what my strategy WAS going to be until i found that there is something very wrong with airpower, it seemed like i was getting WAY too many "air bombardment failed" messages, so i went into the editor and changed the bombardment value of a F-15 to 1000 i changed its RoF to 10 and i lowered the building and citizen defense of the city to 1...even then i still had way too many failed airmissions

my first little test was this, i had five F-15's in a city that was close to a size 1 city that didn't have any building in it and it had three military units in it: one elite infantry unit, one veteran infantry unit and a damaged partisan, but you cannot bomb a partisan since it is invisable, though i would imagine if you had a unit that could see invisable units then airpower would be able to attack it

out of my 15 bombing missions, 12 of them failed...and this is with intentionally overpowered airunits used as a test
i cannot explain why this happened, except that something is amiss with the air bombardment system in civ3

i then rebased those 5 F-15's to a different city, and then attacked a size 7 city 10 times with the following results

*killed citizen
*killed citizen
*no report (probably damaged a unit)
*no report (probably damaged a unit)
*killed citizen
*failed mission
*failed mission
*failed mission
*failed mission
*killed citizen

again this is with 1000 bombard strength 10 RoF F-15s attacking 1 defense strength buildings and citizens, so i should have experienced a failed air mission 1 time out of 1001 tries, instead of 4 out of 10 tries

now i have a feeling about what was happening in the size 1 city, air bombardment can target units, citizens, or buildings; however it cannot damage the last citizen since air units cannot kill cities, since this city didn't have any building and it was only size 1, the air units were most likely trying to attack buildings or citizens, yet since they couldn't inflict any damage on these it gave the bombardment failed reply; however, this is a very poor implementation of bombardment rules, all bombard units should always attack targets that can actually be damaged first, my F-15's should have attacked units until they were down to 1hp first, and then the best implementation would be that since aircraft can't damage 1hp units, nor destroy size one cities without any buildings in it that those targets shouldn't be targetable, but even barring that, actual targets (building, pop, units with more than 1hp) should always come first

however the second situation i cannot explain, statistically the attack should not have failed that many times unless something else determines the success of an air mission, and if something else determines the overall chance of having a successful air attack then that should be in the editor

one of the big parts of the blitz mod is making airpower more powerful but as it is now we might need another patch before that is possible

________________________________

anyways for those of you interested in how the buying tech only strategy worked out

the tech cost for the map was 150 and the tech cost for fission was 280

to purchase the tech from the French who were in awe of my culture (gracious) would have cost my world map and 1806 gold, originally they asked for my world map and 1990 gold

to purchase the tech from the babylonians who were unimpressed with my culture (gracious) would have cost my world map and 1830 gold, originally they asked for my world map and 2020 gold

i was fascism in a golden age (one of my F-15's had just should down a bomber) and my income breakdown was the following

2906 gold in reserve
7.0.3 tax rate
+774 gold from cities
+50 gold from interest
-113 gold for entertainment
-66 gold from corruption
-167 gold from building upkeep
total: +478 gold per turn
or at that rate i was able to buy techs about every 4 years (3.77~)

just for a test i changed the world size tech rate to 1 and the tech cost for fission to one and the french wanted 17 gold, or my world map and 10 gold for fission

anyways i will post again soon

[korn469]

for those who are curious, here is the save game

it contains the 4000 AD save to play from there, a save in 740 AD and 1090AD where all of the air bombardment failures were happening

[korn469]

Lockstep

i looked over your excel spreadsheet (i actually have it open right now) and i'm not sure about reducing maintence costs from there current levels, though i loved your suggestion about more expensive stock exchanges, and that IS going to be part of beta7.3 (which was delayed because of play testing but i will have it out either tonight or midday my time tommorrow)

first off, i don't think that a straight 1.17f to beta7.1 can be made, and this is why

in 1.17f most of the buildings are essential because many buildings have overlapping functions, like science and culture, air trade and air military units, etc. in the blitz mod you can build the proper set of buildings for each city you need (but now suddenly i realize that i need to do something to airports to make them slightly more useful) so it is less likely that each city will have every improvement, and then on top of that the stock exchange does increase gold output by 50%, so when you figure that in, the relative upkeep rate rose by roughly 22%, and if i used the lower upkeep figures then the relative upkeep rate would have rose by only about 4%, compared to like you said a about a 45% increase in shield costs

i think that the higher upkeep levels force the player to make tougher choices in which strategy to pursue so for now i'm going to leave it

also i was thinking about how to improve monarchy compared to republic and i think i have finally came up with a good way of doing this...monarchy needs better support compared to republic, so instead of bumping up it's city by city support, i have instead opted to change it's upkeep to 1 gold per unit and to keep the 2/3/4 city support system

so that and switching their corruption rates should make monarchy perform better

one kind of crazy idea i've been thinking about is to switch the republic support system to 12-15 free units per civ with 1/1/1 cost 2 support, what this would do would make republic much better in smaller more compact civs where their corruption rates and unit per city rates would be much more favorable, while in larger more spread out civs monarchy would be a better choice with its better corruption rates and support rates when you had more cities, so what does everyone think of that

additionally two other areas of government that we haven't mentioned are the resistance rates, propaganda rates and the the entire cultural menu

right now there are six entries under the cultural menu

in awe of 3:1
admirers of 2:1
impressed with 1:1
unimpressed by 3:4
dismissive of 1:2
disdainful of 1:3

what i am going to do is add in at least one more section, called either equal to or on par with and set it at 1:1

then i will probably switch around the rest like so
4:1
3:1
2:1
*1:1
2:3
2:5
1:4

so does anyone have any thoughts on that?

as far as CSU balance goes i think the only two onits i'm going to change right now are the war chariot and the legionair

i am afraid that at 10 shields and horses a 2.1.2 unit is too powerful, so i think i am going to change the war chariot to 1.1.3, which would still make it a good unit

ok here is a little quote from the civilpedia

Nearly unstoppable on the attack, the legion was relatively weak on defense.

uh, and they get +1 to defense?
what i'm trying to decide between is +1 movement or treat all terrain as roads to simulate the quickness of the legions

both choices have their ups and downs, +1 movement wouldn't make them as fast as all terrain as roads, so that is a good thing, but it would give them the ability to retreat and it would prevent mounted units from retreating, which would make them completely overpowered

so i am seriously leaning towards treat all terrain as roads, which would make the roman legion much more dangerous than it currently is

[lockstep]

Originally posted by korn469
Lockstep

i loved your suggestion about more expensive stock exchanges, and that IS going to be part of beta7.3

Glad to hear that.

now suddenly i realize that i need to do something to airports to make them slightly more useful

I was going to comment on the airport's current uselessness. Time saved.

the stock exchange does increase gold output by 50%, so when you figure that in, the relative upkeep rate rose by roughly 22%, and if i used the lower upkeep figures then the relative upkeep rate would have rose by only about 4%

Umm ... no. The stock exchange adds another +50% to the marketplace's +50% and bank's +50%, therefore increasing the total tax multiplier for a city that has built them all from 2.0 to 2.5. This results in a gold output that is 1.25 times (2.5/2.0) higher. The relative upkeep rate rises by a factor of 1.83/1.25 = 1.46. With the reduced upkeep costs I suggested, relative upkeep would rise by 1.56/1.25 = 1.25.

i think that the higher upkeep levels force the player to make tougher choices in which strategy to pursue

Relative building upkeep costs of +25% plus support costs of 2 or more per unit sounds tough enough to me.

right now there are six entries under the cultural menu

in awe of 3:1
admirers of 2:1
impressed with 1:1
unimpressed by 3:4
dismissive of 1:2
disdainful of 1:3

what i am going to do is add in at least one more section, called either equal to or on par with and set it at 1:1

then i will probably switch around the rest like so
4:1
3:1
2:1
*1:1
2:3
2:5
1:4

so does anyone have any thoughts on that?

First, I really like the idea of an 'on par with' cultural level. Please adopt it.

Second, I suggest threshold values of
3:1
2:1
5:4
*4:5
1:2
1:3
1:10

This will result in symmetric judgements of cultural levels. If civ A is impressed by civ B's culture, B is unimpressed by A's culture. If civ C is in awe of civ D's culture, D is disdainful of C's culture. Last, but not least, if E is on par with F, F is also on par with E.

('1:10' is the lowest value possible with the editor and stands for the fact that there is no level below 'disdainful'. I'm note sure what Firaxis was thinking when they defined a positive threshold for 'disdainful'. )

[korn469]

I was going to comment on the airport's current uselessness. Time saved.

well i have been thinking of exactly what airports could do and i have came up with the following options

*+50% Luxury Output, ie it increases the amount you spend on happiness output...this could represent vactions and tourism (notice this is not the same effect as market places)
*Reduces Corruption, this would represent all of the modern advances in transportation and communications
*+50% Tax Output, this could represent the economic benefit of business travelers and things like airfreight ect.


which one would work best? i put them in the order i prefer them, i especially like +50% to Luxury output since it isn't used by any other building but the downside of that would be it would only come into effect if you actually had to spend on luxuries, and i could even go for a combination of that and reduces corruption, but that could be too powerful

Umm ... no. The stock exchange adds another +50% to the marketplace's +50% and bank's +50%, therefore increasing the total tax multiplier for a city that has built them all from 2.0 to 2.5. This results in a gold output that is 1.25 times (2.5/2.0) higher. The relative upkeep rate rises by a factor of 1.83/1.25 = 1.46. With the reduced upkeep costs I suggested, relative upkeep would rise by 1.56/1.25 = 1.25

sorry i was still in a state of sleep deprevation today from setting up all night sunday play testing, and i think i was dividing by 1.5 instead of 1.25, but still i think that most cities are going to have less of the total number of buildings in the blitz mod than what is in 1.17f so i am really hesitant to lower upkeep costs, just because it seems so easy to generate cash

First, I really like the idea of an 'on par with' cultural level. Please adopt it.

it is as good as in, but i am going to put it in beta8, so as to maintain savegame compatablity in the beta7.x series

Second, I suggest threshold values of
3:1
2:1
5:4
*4:5
1:2
1:3
1:10

Civ A: 100
Civ B: 80

of with those statistics it means that the message Civ A would get in reference to Civ B would be they are impressed with our culture, but the message Civ B would get in reference to Civ A would be that they are on par with our culture, so wouldn't 1:1 be a better fit?

also here is a little bit more about those percentages

In awe of
culture ratio 3:1
Chance of Successful Propaganda 30%
Resistance Chance 40% Continued 30%

Admirers of
cultural ratio 2:1
chance of successful propaganda 25%
resistance chance 50% continued 40%

impressed with
cultural ratio 1:1
chance of successful propaganda 20%
resistance chance 60% continued 50%

unimpressed by
cultural ratio 3:4
chance of successful propaganda 10%
resistance chance 70% continued 60%

dismissive of
cultural ratio 1:2
chance of successful propaganda 5%
resistance chance 80% continued 70%

disdainful of
cultural ratio 1:3
chance of successful propaganda 3%
resistance chance 90% continued 80%

i agree when you say that we need to keep the levels symetric so wouldn't that mean the following

10:3
9:4
3:2
1:1
2:3
4:9
3:10

or

8:1
4:1
2:1
1:1
1:2
1:4
1:8

[korn469]

_____________________

beta7.3

Changes
*Incorporated Sevorak's Name Change Mod

Government Changes
*Changed Monarchy's corruption rate to Nuisance
*Changed Monarchy's support cost from 2 to 1
*Changed Republic's corruption rate to Problematic
*Changed Communism so that it no longer requires building upkeep
*Changed Communism so that it now has the standard tile penalty
*Changed Communism so that it's support rate is now 4/5/6 2
*Changed Fascism so that it's support rate is now 3/4/5 2

Unit Changes
*Moved Privateer to Navigation
*Changed War Chariot's stats to 1.1.3 10 horses
*Changed Legion's stats to 3.2.1 30 iron treat all terrain as roads
*Changed Cossack stats to 7.4.3 80 horses saltpeter
*Changed Tanks, Panzers, Mech Infantry, Modern Armor, and Radar Artillary to wheeled units
*Increased artillary's movement to 2

Building Changes
*Increased cost of Stock Exchange to 240
*Changed Airports so they Increase Luxury Output by 50%

Tech Changes
*Testing in the Ancient era only having the bare minimum tech as required techs
_____________________

this is only a small update, but it should really make the governments much more balanced

[lockstep]

Originally posted by korn 469
i agree when you say that we need to keep the levels symetric so wouldn't that mean the following

10:3
9:4
3:2
1:1
2:3
4:9
3:10

According to the editor help file, culture ratio 'determines the ratio of culture points required for a civilization to have the selected opinion of another civilization'. IOW, the ratios are lower threshold values. Therefore, if there are seven cultural assessment levels (with the addition of 'on par with'), one has to define six lower threshold values - one for every level but the lowest (disdainful of). The threshold value for 'disdainful of' has no meaning whatsoever IMO.

Accordingly, if one wants symmetric cultural assessments, the threshold value for the first level must be the reciprocal value of the last but one level, and so on. Therefore my suggestion of

3:1 minimum ratio for 'in awe of'
2:1 minimum ratio for 'admirers of'
5:4 minimum ratio for 'impressed with'
4:5 minimum ratio for 'on par with'
1:2 minimum ratio for 'unimpressed with'
1:3 minimum ratio for 'dismissive of'
1:10 (lowest possible editor value) for 'disdainful of'

E.g., civs with a cultural ratio between 4:5 and 5:4 would be 'on par with'.

Civ A: 100
Civ B: 80

of with those statistics it means that the message Civ A would get in reference to Civ B would be they are impressed with our culture, but the message Civ B would get in reference to Civ A would be that they are on par with our culture, so wouldn't 1:1 be a better fit?

This effect will only occur if the cultural ratio of two civs exactly equals a defined lower threshold value; this should happen only seldom because typical cultural values (from the late ancient age onwards) have four or five digits. Also note that this minor 'glitch' is necessarily part of any symmetric layout of cultural ratios.

BTW, congratulations for updating to 7.3.!

[kettyo]

Thank You Korn for the great mod.
Just a suggestion...

You could integrate your dive bomber mod also to the blitzmod.
Just redesign the unit to an "Air to Surface Missile".
It's likely that an armored column could be blown up with maverick-like missiles or warships sunk by harpoon-like missiles.
Though this comes with the need to increase the number of units an aircraft carrier could transport. I suppose there are a lot of harpoons on the board of a nimitz.

An armed helicopter would also fit into the game well. It colud be a fast bombarding land unit which treats all terrain as roads. It should not have attack points to be unable to capture cities. Though it requires balancing with artillery units.

Cruise missile carrying ships is a good idea thank You !

Happy further modding !
Make this game worthier

[korn469]

lockstep

here is what i don't get, and hopefully you can explain it to me

10:3
9:4
3:2
1:1
2:3
4:9
3:10

if we tke my ratios and say that civ A has 300 points, civ b has 450 points and civ c has 675 points then civ a will be in impressed with civ b and admirers of civ c, while civ b will be unimpressed with civ b and impressed with civ c and civ c will be dismissive of civ a and unimpressed with civ b

3:1 minimum ratio for 'in awe of'
2:1 minimum ratio for 'admirers of'
5:4 minimum ratio for 'impressed with'
4:5 minimum ratio for 'on par with'
1:2 minimum ratio for 'unimpressed with'
1:3 minimum ratio for 'dismissive of'
1:10 (lowest possible editor value) for 'disdainful of'

now if we take your ratios and say that civ A has 200 points, civ b has 400 and civ c has 600 points then civ a is admirers of civ b and in awe of civ c while civ b is unimpressed with civ a and impressed with civ c and civ c is dismissive of civ a and unimpressed with civ b

am i completely missining something here??

shouldn't a symetric system work like this

in awe of ---> disdainful of
admirers of ---> dismissive of
impressed with ---> unimpressed with
on par with ---> on par with

so, is there something i'm missing? i actually got some sleep last night so hehe i can actually half way concentrate so if i am making a mistake that's not the reason

BTW, congratulations for updating to 7.3.!

quote, thanks! i hope you enjoy

[korn469]

kettyo

i'm glad someone else (besides lockstep, techwins, and myself are enjoying it )

the only thing is that an air to surface missile would be redundent with the cruise missiles, both of them being able to sink ships and destroy ground units, or am i missing something?

An armed helicopter would also fit into the game well. It colud be a fast bombarding land unit which treats all terrain as roads. It should not have attack points to be unable to capture cities. Though it requires balancing with artillery units

hmmm i'll look into this, i know that i am going to add in a strategic bomber/jet bomber/supersonic bomber (i haven't decided on the name yet) but the preliminary stats are 0.8.3 14[8]8 180 aluminum, oil

coolest thing is i found a B-1B animation over at civ fanatics and it looks awsome! so i'll see if there is a niche for an attack helicopter

Happy further modding !
Make this game worthier

thanks
the whole reason i'm doing this mod is to make civ3 more enjoyable to play and i'm glad it looks like it is working

[kettyo]

Originally posted by korn469
the only thing is that an air to surface missile would be redundent with the cruise missiles, both of them being able to sink ships and destroy ground units, or am i missing something?

You're right it would be only nice for two reasons.
First this way carrier based airplanes would be able to do real harm to the army/navy of an overseas enemy.
Second the sink of ships/destruction of landunits by airforce could be possible before the invention of rocketry (it SHOULD be possible after "flight").

Another possible solution could be that carriers also carry cruise missiles and cruise missile is invented with flight.

Thanks

[korn469]

First this way carrier based airplanes would be able to do real harm to the army/navy of an overseas enemy.

actually with double hitpoints being down to 1hp is very dangerous and makes that unit a setting duck, i am hesitant to put in an earlier cheaper (though weaker something like a 14 bmbdstr 1 RoF unit is most likely what you want) because i witnessed the mass carnage that overpowered airunits unleashed on Alpha Centauri, i don't want to make land and naval units pointless...if i did that i would have to come up with a land, naval airdefense unit that the AI could handle

as it is now if you have massive air superiority, besides the possible air strike bug against cities, you should be able to drastically cut your causulties, which means that although air is important it is not the be all end all of civ3 units