MOD: korn's Blitz Mod

[kettyo]

Originally posted by korn469
hmmmm...that gives me an idea, i could change their support to x free units per civ and then lower their city by city support to simulate this

seems a nice idea

[korn469]

To even further support the idea of adding the fire galley. Right now the whole early naval units thing is messed up. Too much of the map is uncovered too early. One of the reasons is that the outrigger allows for quite a bit of uncovering of the map with the 2 mov rate. Back in 4000 bc no boat could move an equivalent of 2 tiles. The outrigger (at least this is what I assumed) is only there to help you compensate for the wheeled settler, so why is it important for the outrigger to move fast? The outrigger should primarily be to help you move a settler around a large jungle/mountain area. I think a 1 mov rate would be much more fitting for the outrigger. * Now once you discover you Map Making you receive the first and last attack capable ship until you get to Magnetism (or now Navigation with the move of the Privateer). So once you discover Astrononmy and can start building caravels you no longer can build an attacking boat. This is also very problematic if you get in a war like I did. I hadn't built many galleys because I didn't have much reason to look to expand on a different continet. Once I got in war, though, I needed some boats that could attack, but I was unfortunate enough to already had discovered Astronomy, so I was stuck without any boats being able to attack the AIs galleys that were transporting units over to my continent. Unless you decide to make a few more changes to the naval units it seems as if adding the firegalle is a must.

i agree, so it seems to fix the naval situation here is what needs to be done

*change outrigger to 0.1.1 10|2 basically for a little early naval exploration but mostly to help with wheeled settlers, though i'm still wary of this making the outrigger useless
*add in the firegalley, or wargalley, or *insertbada$$galleyhere* so there is a naval power unit in the early game, stats will be in the general area of 3.2.3 30, or 3.3.2 30 or possibly 3.3.3 40
*change the barbarian naval unit to this new naval power unit, because barbarian privateers are too powerful (this means for beta7.4 barbarians will go back to galleys)

that might not fix it, but it should go a long ways toward helping with it

The other reason is that map trading takes place at too early of an age for gameplay reasons. I suggest that you move map trading capabilities to navigation instead of map making.

awsome idea! i love this! consider it adopted

Also, communication trading shouldn't come till later in the game, as well. Possibly even as late as radio, however, that might be way too late, so maybe an earlier tech would be better

another great idea, but radio?
historically, china and rome traded goods, yet their governments were not in communication, same thing with europe and china until marco polo...so how about astronomy for communication trading? how does that work for everyone? i agree with all of the reasons you gave, and why i don't feel that this is a perfect solution, it should help somewhat

You know, I thought I noticed something strange occurring with my science/luxuries settins when I was in earlier govs.

yeap it's the ratecap thing, i think i will change it for now till firaxis fixes it in a patch

About building costs and terrain changes: As of right now Korn wants to have Anarchy require maintenance (to make revolutions a big decision) but because of strong criticism he decided against it (simply to destructive is Anarchy with it). Well, if building costs are lowerd it has no effect on Anarchy, but if the terrain is changed it will.

changing terrain will have no effect on anarchy because all shields and gold collected under anarchy are lost to corruption, you could take away the standard tile penalty and give anarchy +1 gold to all squares but it would still lose all of that to corruption

having anarchy require unit upkeep but not building upkeep seems to work, also i found out from soren that anarchy is random not set at 4 turns like i suspected

it works like this for nonreligious civs
the game pics a random number between 1-5
then depending on your civs size it adds a number between 1-3 (it could possibly be 0-3) so for nonreligious civs the amount of time they spend in anarchy can vary between 1 or possibly two turns up to a maximum of 8 turns

Take away the road commerce bonus from forest, mountains, tundra, and jungle.

besides the fact that dan mentioned firaxis was going to make setting roads equal to 0 would prevent a player from building a road on that terrain in a future patch, desert should also fall under your list of terrain


however lets take mountains with a mine on it for example...

i live in the Appalachian mountains in Virginia (they are more like hills compared to the rockies) but this area has coal mines in it. This area had hundreds of coal mines in the 70's and early 80's then they mined most of the good easy to reach coal and the energy market also changed as did the labor market. Now while they don't mine as much coal as they did before they are begining to mine more right now, however mines are using more automation and far fewer workers. One of the biggest mining companies in the region is Consol, which buys alot of mining equipment from companies like Ingersol-Rand, Siemens, Caterpillar, Volvo etc. So these areas aren't exactly void of commerce.

Then take for example an old folk song that went like this "Sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Tell Saint Peter that I can't go, because I owe my soul to the company store."
That too implies that there was some sort of commerce going on.

Besides historical reasons for this, which are not that in importan in civ. On the gameplay side, another effect of taking away the bonus from those squares is that iirc governments that add +1 to commerce only add that bonus commerce to squares that already produce commerce, so this would hurt all of those governments.

however the extra production for mines on mountains sounds like a good idea

this time I think I have a better argument.

i'm still not convinced, but i'm still open to further arguments

One more thing, it is nice to see other people comment on this mod, because the more input there is the better this mod can become. And the better this mod becomes the more fun I have playing Civ3

i completely agree with you on this!

seems a nice idea

kettyo

thanks, it's going in beta7.4

_____________________________

so has anyone experienced any strange things going on in beta7.3? any bugs or anything of that nature?

and would anyone be interested in playing a blitz mod succession game? we play ten turns then pass it on to the next person, and write a little summary, we could post this over in the story forums

i understand if you nobody is interested or has the time, but it could be fun!

[kettyo]

Korn
Have you received my email with the savegame?

[korn469]

kettyo

no not yet

you can post it in the thread as an attachment if you want

[lockstep]

Originally posted by korn469
it seems to fix the naval situation here is what needs to be done

*change outrigger to 0.1.1 10|2 basically for a little early naval exploration but mostly to help with wheeled settlers, though i'm still wary of this making the outrigger useless
*add in the firegalley, or wargalley, or *insertbada$$galleyhere* so there is a naval power unit in the early game, stats will be in the general area of 3.2.3 30, or 3.3.2 30 or possibly 3.3.3 40
*change the barbarian naval unit to this new naval power unit, because barbarian privateers are too powerful (this means for beta7.4 barbarians will go back to galleys)

How about simply dropping the unit with the original galley stats? Then there would be two units:

• A no-prereq unit with 1 or 2 movement points (not sure about this one), no attack capability and weak defense. It could be named either outrigger or galley.
• A unit with the prereq of mapmaking, 3 movement points, attack capability and stronger defense than unit no.1. It could be named either galley or war galley. This would also be the barbarian's sea unit.

how about astronomy for communication trading? how does that work for everyone? i agree with all of the reasons you gave, and why i don't feel that this is a perfect solution, it should help somewhat

TechWins' idea is interesting, and we should give it a try. However, we should also not hesitate to drop it again if unwanted side-effects are detected - after all, this is a large change to gameplay.

yeap it's the ratecap thing, i think i will change it for now till firaxis fixes it in a patch

With the AI's current tech whoring, I never felt any urge to increase my science rate, therefore ratecaps are of no effect. So I'm glad they are gone.

the extra production for mines on mountains sounds like a good idea

Yes, we should test it. But I'd rather set the initial shields of mountains to 2 than giving mines +3 shields. In the latter case, mining mountains would be too attractive compared to other tile improvements.

BTW, I definitely second TechWins' suggestion to change jungles to 1 food/1 shield. That way, they still entail the risk of desease and are worse than forests, but they aren't completely useless anymore. (IIRC, this is already a feature of the LWC mod.)

i'm still not convinced, but i'm still open to further arguments

All terrains yielding gold when roaded is a change compared to Civ2, and Analyst Redux has pointed out that this is a vast effiency increase to an AI that would have built roads everywhere anyway. So, don't change it unless there's a definite improvement in gameplay that can't be created in another way. Rebalancing gold supply is an issue of Civ3, but I'm sure there are many ways we haven't tried yet.

would anyone be interested in playing a blitz mod succession game? we play ten turns then pass it on to the next person, and write a little summary, we could post this over in the story forums

i understand if you nobody is interested or has the time, but it could be fun!

As a matter of principle, I'd be interested and yes, it could be fun. OTOH, I haven't got that much time now, and want to concentrate on improving this mod by rethinking its features (yes, I'm a theorizer ) and doing at least some playtesting by completing single-player games.

On second thought, if there are many participants for a succession game (so that everyone would have to play fewer turns), I'd probably join in.

Edit: My 500th post! Time for a custom avatar!

[kettyo]

Originally posted by korn469
you can post it in the thread as an attachment if you want

Korn
So here is it...

Could you tell me what "ranged attack animation" and "turn to attack" options mean? They are not covered in helpfile.

[korn469]

How about simply dropping the unit with the original galley stats? Then there would be two units:

*A no-prereq unit with 1 or 2 movement points (not sure about this one), no attack capability and weak defense. It could be named either outrigger or galley.
*A unit with the prereq of mapmaking, 3 movement points, attack capability and stronger defense than unit no.1. It could be named either galley or war galley. This would also be the barbarian's sea unit.

hmmm...i certainly hadn't thought of this before, but it sounds like a good idea

like if the no prereq transport unit was 0.1.2 20|2 sink in sea, sink in ocean, then on continent maps you would not be able to use it to colonize other continents except possibly with the great lighthouse, which is a good thing

then like a 2.2.3 30 sink in seas, sink in ocean, naval power unit that comes with map making would allow you to explore, especially with the great lighthouse, but you couldn't colonize, which would be more like history, coupled with tech wins suggestions this should work out pretty good

TechWins' idea is interesting, and we should give it a try. However, we should also not hesitate to drop it again if unwanted side-effects are detected - after all, this is a large change to gameplay.

we'll try it, tweak it, but if it doesn't work then we'll drop it

With the AI's current tech whoring, I never felt any urge to increase my science rate, therefore ratecaps are of no effect. So I'm glad they are gone

well if between our tweaks and another patch tech whoring becomes a thing of the past and firaxis fixes the bug with them then they'll come back

Yes, we should test it. But I'd rather set the initial shields of mountains to 2 than giving mines +3 shields. In the latter case, mining mountains would be too attractive compared to other tile improvements.

BTW, I definitely second TechWins' suggestion to change jungles to 1 food/1 shield. That way, they still entail the risk of desease and are worse than forests, but they aren't completely useless anymore. (IIRC, this is already a feature of the LWC mod.)

both of those ideas sound good

All terrains yielding gold when roaded is a change compared to Civ2, and Analyst Redux has pointed out that this is a vast effiency increase to an AI that would have built roads everywhere anyway. So, don't change it unless there's a definite improvement in gameplay that can't be created in another way. Rebalancing gold supply is an issue of Civ3, but I'm sure there are many ways we haven't tried yet

i thought we had rebalanced it to a fairly large extent...hehe weren't you just telling me that gold was too hard to come by?

On second thought, if there are many participants for a succession game (so that everyone would have to play fewer turns), I'd probably join in

i was hoping on getting between 5-8 people, in the first round everyone would play ten turns then pass it on, then in the next round everyone would play 6 turns then pass it on, then in all other rounds everyone would play three turns and pass it on, so it shouldn't be too much of a burden on anyone, and if i can get interested people we'll play a game

My 500th post! Time for a custom avatar!

i can't wait to see it

EDIT:

ranged attack animation means it shoot i think
turn to attack means it pivots i think

thanks for the save i'll check it out

[lockstep]

Originally posted by korn469
i can't wait to see it

At least it should straighten out that one of my interests is dancing - not exercising.

[solo]

lockstep,

The more testers and opinions the better. As of now, my tests are confined to only deity games, where the human’s goal is a peaceful game, using only a few cities, which hopefully results in a spaceship win.


TechWins,

I very much agree with your ideas for delaying trading of maps and civ contacts, until Navigation and Radio, respectively.

I really like what you HAVE been able to do with 80x80 pixels!


korn,

For “just a minute“, your responses to my first post were quite complete!

Having two computers makes it not a problem at all keeping your mod installed and to continue tests on it. I did continue my game, and after switching to Republic, did not have a problem keeping science at 10%. Since my first report, the game has progressed to the middle of the Industrial Age, where I was able to build Theory of Evolution. During this period there are only a few new observations, as the game has played about the same as my one and only previous 1.17f effort.

1) I finally noticed the increased unit support cost. I don’t like paying 2 gold instead of 1 to support units, but have to admit that having it this way does improve the game. Before it was just too easy to accumulate gold. One suggestion is that the cost be reduced to 1 gold for non-combat units, such as workers, and maybe increased for higher tech military units, to reflect relative maintenance costs.

2) Though I was not intending to build one, I found myself storing shields towards the purchase of other wonders in the Military Academy wonder. I thought a leader and army were a pre-requisite to building this, neither of which I have come by in my game? If this change is on purpose to make army production less a matter of chance, then I think it was a very good one.

3) I am definitely liking the extra city improvements that can be built. Having more ways to improve culture, science, etc. allow players to explore strategies based on maximizing these things.

4) You asked about expansion rates. Those of all the AI dwarfed my own at deity level. I’ll say again that the human player is handicapped by increased settler costs enough that I would want to try my chances with an Expansionist civ next, hoping for free settlers from huts, and also for quicker AI contact with scouts.


I do have responses to some of your earlier comments:

1) I think the 2 library requirement to build the Great one is a good idea, but suspect the reason why the AI did not build it is because that is the first thing they probably are programmed to check when discovering a new tech. Can I start another wonder now? Without 2 libraries (which can not have been built yet), the answer for each AI has to be “no”, and it is possible the same question is never asked again. I would keep the 2 library pre-req, but allow construction of libraries to begin after the discovery of Writing, and leave Lit as the pre-req for the GL.

2) I have followed and agree with proposed barb and sea unit changes, suggested above.

3) Tech rate progression, especially at higher levels is a major problem. A part of the solution might be to slow down the rate of tech accumulation by making it take longer to learn all techs, rather than increasing the 2 turn cap. For example, doubling all tech costs using the map size modifiers might slow down the early AI tech pace to a more reasonable level. This would slow down the human’s ability to research techs, too, so a compensation might be to double, or at least increase, the bonuses for scientific city improvements and wonders and/or add more of them as you have done already to some extent with Public Schools. Given the AI tendency to prioritize building units over city improvements, the human would again have an incentive to concentrate on science and research ability, and still have the chance of learning techs every 2 turns.

4) Another simple parameter in the editor can be adjusted to limit the overkill of early AI contact and tech trading. Just increase, and I mean at least double or even triple, the minimum starting separation distances between civs for each map size. Having every civ start in a more isolated position could make a big difference.

That’s it for now.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by solo
lockstep,

The more testers and opinions the better. As of now, my tests are confined to only deity games, where the human’s goal is a peaceful game, using only a few cities, which hopefully results in a spaceship win.

I have started the blitz mod on regent, recently moved up to monarch and am still nervous about the AI gaining bonuses.

TechWins,

I very much agree with your ideas for delaying trading of maps and civ contacts, until Navigation and Radio, respectively.

Navigation/Astronomy (or any other middle age tech) sounds better to me. With contact trading delayed till Radio, I'd rather sail to any civ I had no contact yet as soon as I knew their position (which I would from trading maps). So contact with all civs wouldn't be delayed further, but tied to micromanagement.

One suggestion is that the cost be reduced to 1 gold for non-combat units, such as workers, and maybe increased for higher tech military units, to reflect relative maintenance costs.

IIRC, this is not possible with the current editor.

I found myself storing shields towards the purchase of other wonders in the Military Academy wonder. I thought a leader and army were a pre-requisite to building this, neither of which I have come by in my game? If this change is on purpose to make army production less a matter of chance, then I think it was a very good one.

This change is on purpose, and it's my favourite feature of this mod.

[TechWins]

Lockstep's idea for early naval units seems very good.

and would anyone be interested in playing a blitz mod succession game? we play ten turns then pass it on to the next person, and write a little summary, we could post this over in the story forums

I like this idea, but I have very little time nowadays. Altough, since I'm now on spring break I should have more time.

I really like what you HAVE been able to do with 80x80 pixels!

Thanks! I have a new avatar, but I think this new one looks a lot better. It's supposed to depict a spaceship going through space, then the ride starts to get a little shaky with a incoming star appearing, next even more stars appear, and finally the spaceship blows up.

Well, I would said more, but I pretty much agree with everything else that has been said.

[korn469]

kettyo

i checked out your save game, and the reason you went from around 0 income to around 85 income was because i think you had about 50 more units that your unit allowance, so by lowering monarchy from 2 to 1 gold upkeep your support costs went way down...it should now be a less clear cut choice between republic and monarchy

1) I finally noticed the increased unit support cost. I don’t like paying 2 gold instead of 1 to support units, but have to admit that having it this way does improve the game. Before it was just too easy to accumulate gold. One suggestion is that the cost be reduced to 1 gold for non-combat units, such as workers, and maybe increased for higher tech military units, to reflect relative maintenance costs.

solo

as of now this isn't possible to do in the editor, and that is one of the reasons i gave republic and democracy some support, is so that they could have workers without having to pay for them...but as you mentioned the increased support costs are there to force the player to choose between guns and butter instead of having it all

if they ever add in an "all units of this type in free under x government" flag i will make republic and democracy have free workers

2) Though I was not intending to build one, I found myself storing shields towards the purchase of other wonders in the Military Academy wonder. I thought a leader and army were a pre-requisite to building this, neither of which I have come by in my game? If this change is on purpose to make army production less a matter of chance, then I think it was a very good one.

besides the military academy not requiring a victorious army, i have also made a number of changes to armies, they come in two type, the first type called just army costs 100 shields and can hold 2 units (3 with pentagon), and it has blitz and pillage...the second type called modern army, comes with radio cost 130 shields and can hold 4 units (5 with pentagon) and it too has blitz and pillage, also i have doubled the number of armies your civ can have by lower the cities need for an army from 4 to 2, and the AI builds some armies, just not enough

3) I am definitely liking the extra city improvements that can be built. Having more ways to improve culture, science, etc. allow players to explore strategies based on maximizing these things.

good, that was exactly what i was hoping for

4) You asked about expansion rates. Those of all the AI dwarfed my own at deity level. I’ll say again that the human player is handicapped by increased settler costs enough that I would want to try my chances with an Expansionist civ next, hoping for free settlers from huts, and also for quicker AI contact with scouts

besides only needing half the shields to build a settler, and only half the food to grow its pop, on diety the AI also gets a free settler to begin with in addition to more workers, so that really helps speed up its expansion rates

1) I think the 2 library requirement to build the Great one is a good idea, but suspect the reason why the AI did not build it is because that is the first thing they probably are programmed to check when discovering a new tech. Can I start another wonder now? Without 2 libraries (which can not have been built yet), the answer for each AI has to be “no”, and it is possible the same question is never asked again. I would keep the 2 library pre-req, but allow construction of libraries to begin after the discovery of Writing, and leave Lit as the pre-req for the GL.

sounds like a good idea

3) Tech rate progression, especially at higher levels is a major problem. A part of the solution might be to slow down the rate of tech accumulation by making it take longer to learn all techs, rather than increasing the 2 turn cap. For example, doubling all tech costs using the map size modifiers might slow down the early AI tech pace to a more reasonable level. This would slow down the human’s ability to research techs, too, so a compensation might be to double, or at least increase, the bonuses for scientific city improvements and wonders and/or add more of them as you have done already to some extent with Public Schools. Given the AI tendency to prioritize building units over city improvements, the human would again have an incentive to concentrate on science and research ability, and still have the chance of learning techs every 2 turns.

ok i went and got a bowl of instant oatmeal for breakfast and i was going to tell you why this wouldn't work, basically because it only takes the AI half as much tech as the player to research, but that's not the reason it won't work...i'm going to go test something right now, and i will be right back with the results, and if they are what i think they will be, then i will completely understand why the tech system is broken

brb

[korn469]

ok here are some tests results

*i set the tech cost on masonry, alphabet, and the wheel to 100, and i then set the world tech cost modifier to 10
*i set the minimum number of turns to discover a tech 1 and the maximum number 100
*i then gave masonry to the egyptians and the greeks
*i then gave alphabet to the egyptians
*i changed the tile bonus so i could allocate up to 20 gold per turn to science
*i changed the starting treasury to 10,000
*i then gave roman uberscouts
*on 3950 i made contact with both the egyptians and the greeks, and i hadn't accumulated any science yet
*i played this on diety

at 2 gold per turn to science
to research masonry would have taken me 33 turns (66 gold)
to research alphabet would have taken me 67 turns (134 gold)
to research the wheel would have taken me 100 turns (200 gold)

at 10 gold per turn to science
to research masonry would have taken me 7 turns (70 gold)
to research alphabet would have taken me 14 turns (140 gold)
to research the wheel would have taken me 20 turns (200 gold)

so this means that the techs actually cost 66, 134, 200 gold

to buy masonry at offered price would have taken me 22 gold
to buy alphabet at offered price would have taken me 80 gold

to buy masonry at lowest negociated price would have taken me 20 gold
to buy alphabet at lowest negociated price would have taken me 73 gold

conclusion:

the AI sells tech too cheap, and that the optimal strategy is to always buy devalued tech

__________________________

now in a OCC if you can get either CO or NU along with a library and a university then the dynamic will change, but in the large majority of situations buying tech will be a better use of gold, and changing the tech rate won't change this, only firaxis can fix this behavior, which appears to be one of the most serious flaws in civ3 right now, because this means pursing a science strategy is not as good as pursing a gold strategy

4) Another simple parameter in the editor can be adjusted to limit the overkill of early AI contact and tech trading. Just increase, and I mean at least double or even triple, the minimum starting separation distances between civs for each map size. Having every civ start in a more isolated position could make a big difference.

that along with techwin's awsome suggestion could have many positive side effects

lets say there are seven civs on a map, the humans are the aztecs and they don't have contact with any other civs,

then the indians have contact with the chinese, japanese, and persians, and the persians have contact with the greeks and romans but other than the indians and persians no other civ has contact with each other

before as soon as it was possible they would all trade contact and maps, now here is how that destroys the game

lets say that the chinese discover gunpowder, and the only civ rich enough to buy gunpowder at its high rate is rome, under the new system this wouldn't happen and since the only conduit from china to the other civs is india if they aren't rich enough to buy it then gunpowder doesn't spread, but before if rome buys it then it devalues and japan then might be able to buy it then it devalues again and before long all of the civs will be able to buy it

while the first example won't happen in every circumstance it does mean that tech trading is less efficient and that it will spread slower, so while it is not a fix to tech whoring, it is a partial solution, and the further between civs the longer it will take for them all to meet so the better this partial solution will work so i like it

Navigation/Astronomy (or any other middle age tech) sounds better to me. With contact trading delayed till Radio, I'd rather sail to any civ I had no contact yet as soon as I knew their position (which I would from trading maps). So contact with all civs wouldn't be delayed further, but tied to micromanagement

lockstep i agree with you, i am going to certainly put map trading at navigation, and then i am leaning towards putting communication trading at magnetism

anyways here is the current list of changes i'm going to make in beta7.4

*move map trading to navigation
*move communications trading to magnetism
*change the outrigger/galley stats to 0.1.2 20|2 {NONE}
*change the galley/war galley stats to 2.2.3 30 naval power {map making}
*move libraries to writing
*change fascism's support to 15 free 2/3/4 2 upkeep
*double starting distances on all map sizes
*drop rate caps
*change barbarian naval unit to galley/war galley
*tweak difficulty levels slightly (ie emperor=1.17f diety)

anything i left out?

[Tridotan1]

This is a great MOD. Thanx.

I would lke to post some advice/requests

Late on in the game the number of Nukes that you have become very important to the powergraph and how the AI react when you make them give you money etc.

In thought that since thay are so important, perhaps you could make some more and add them to your MOD. Do a bit of research, there are loads of different types of Nukes. For example, there is one which wipes out the whole population of a city but causes a tiny explosion, not destroying any buildings. You could incorporate that.

Fascism rocks, the more government types the better. I have an idea for a government type, Militaristic (you don't have to call it that) it could be when the people are ruled by the military, like in Pakistan. You could make it be like Martial Law, no corruption, loads of unhappiness, no war weariness, wartime mobilization, forced labour, no support from Towns or Cities.

Is there some way to increase the number of resources on a map? That would be usefull. THANX.

[solo]

korn,

I finished my game, and when looking over the replay, I noticed that each AI had about 5 cities laid down by the time I had my second, and by the time my third was ready, they had their continents filled up. I would call that a starting advantage! Increased settler costs really hurt the human player in deity, but perhaps the advantages to this in lower levels overweigh this concern. Deity is supposed to be impossible, anyways, and I don't want to become known as a whiner! In this first game, it took me a loooong time, though, to get all my cities really going, as I found myself building things in the Industrial Age that should have been completed in the middle of the previous one.

I like the proposed changes. Inceasing unit support in Republic and Democracy would allow even more workers. Moving contact from Radio to Magnetism is probably better, too. Radio seemed a little late for this. I'm afraid I may have been bitten by the mod bug, after seeing how much the game can be enhanced, even with the limits imposed by the editor. One question, in this regard, was about your new city improvements. None had icons, so I was wondering whether they were just omitted or if it was just to difficult to add them in. Are they are 80x80 pixels?

Your analysis about tech costs was right on, and confirms my early 1.17f impressions about how to most efficiently get to the new techs, i.e. save cash and just BUY them when they are cheap. There is a problem, though with doing this, and it surfaces later in the game when techs are more expensive and also when the AI start fighting each other. Sooner or later, one or more of the AI are subdued and fall behind techwise, making discounted tech costs a thing of the past. This is when having a capability to learn techs quickly may prove to be more efficient for moving through the tree even faster, which most players want to do.

For the moment, I will get back to regular OCC for I see that Toe Truck has beaten me again to the first OCC win with 1.17f! I suppose I'll just have to try for an earlier launch using his start.


TechWins,

I was kind of partial to the scenic tree, and was hoping to borrow it for my SimGolf games!