MOD: korn's Blitz Mod

[lockstep]

Some observations from my first completed testgame with beta 7.5:

• Test result: Armies can be upgraded to Modern Armies both empty and loaded with units. However, the upgrade can only be performed in the city that built the Military Academy. (While I'm typing ... I guess barracks are a second requisite, though I didn't try without one.)
• Postponing of map/communication trading and especially of MPP's made for a quite different game. No 'world-war' situation in the Industrial Age this time. Tech whoring is also reduced because of the decreased tech devaluation. OTOH, not being able to trade maps to known civs makes the technology Map Making rather pointless. I'd say, keep these features in the mod for now and reassess them when the next patch is out.
• Due to my conversion from builder style to hybrid style (necessary to survive and prosper on monarch), I encountered the scenario I've been criticizing for quite some time: The Indians, who bordered my civ (the Chinese) to the west, had a stronger culture, which was largely due to the fact that they had managed to build the Pyramids. (Obelisk in every city ... you know the story.) I decided to wage a limited war to round off my territory. Having conquered two Indian cities, I wanted to switch back to builder mode, but the Indians wouldn't acknowledge my envoy. So I geared up my Rider production, conquered another two cities and suddenly found myself in control of the Pyramids. After that, my relative culture went through the roof in a little while due to my brand-new obelisks. Gaining culture because of waging war ... sorry, it just doesn't feel right.
• Another case of a completely passive and stagnating AI civ occured. This time, it was the Japanese who started on a large subcontinent, separated from three other civs by jungles and a mountain chain. The AI founded its first city (Kyoto), sent a warrior to the south (and found me, so I knew of its existence), and that's all. Next time I checked (already in the middle ages), the Japanese still had one measly city with no improvements at all. At first, I blamed this pathetic peformance to the changes you did to the building traits (sorry, korn), but then I noticed that the AI's only city (and therefore, capital) didn't have a palace. So I guess the Japanese became the easy prey of a massive barbarian uprising and the ransacking barbarians destroyed their palace in 3300 BC (Kyoto's culture production had stopped at 14 points when I investigated the city). Somehow, this incident must have paralyzed the AI for the rest of the game (after all, it didn't have the possibility to reload ). Conclusions for the mod-maker: a) drop the defense bonus of the palace, and b) consider to weaken the barbs so that the AI can handle them.

Regarding upcoming changes ... this is only the list for beta 7.6, isn't it? For beta8, I'm also hoping for

• Renamed 'culture-only'-buildings ((amphi)theater, opera, museum),
• Symmetric judgement of cultural levels,
• A different kind of Pyramids.

[lockstep]

If anyone wants to investigate Kyoto in the middle ages:

[korn469]

Korn,
My name is Barry Caudill and I am the QA Manager at Firaxis Games. I have enjoyed your Blitz mod and I am writing to ask for your permission to post it on Civ3.com as a kickoff to our new mods section. Please email me as soon as possible with your answer.

[Desert Dog]

Ego boost eh?

Originally posted by korn469

I was wondering if they would ever get around to doing this. It is honoring your hard work for sure. Glad to hear this news!

[korn469]

ok i am going to try to sort out the problems people have brought up and address them, this post will be strange because i am going to post it and then go back and edit it some because i'm going to be in and out

The British special unit (man-o-war) is useless.

this is a complaint from Tridotan1

The English UU is weak and needs to be changed.

this is TechWins backing him up

now what exactly is the problem, what causes it and how can we fix it?

ok the problem isn't with the english CSU, the problem is with naval units in general and the frigate in specific

the first thing is that naval units aren't as essential as land units, which there isn't much we can do about it

in civ3 there is 25 required techs max between galleys and frigates
there is 4 required techs max between frigates and ironclads
there is 5 required techs max between ironclads and destroyers
there is 3 required techs max between destroyers and battleships
there is 13 required techs max between battleships and Aegis Cruisers

ok, now what can we do without a complete overhaul of the tech tree?

well here is the bandaid solution i am proposing for now

we move the ironclad to steel
we move the destroyer to mass production
and finally we move the aircraft carrier to advanced flight

what that would do
25 required techs max between galleys and frigates
7 required techs max between frigates and ironclads
4 required techs max between ironclads and destroyers/battleships

this also solves the problem of being able to build the USS Ronald Reagan before the anyone has even heard of Kitty Hawk North Carolina
_________________________

ok the next complaint is from Tridotan1

and basically is states that the prop driven airpower era is too short, and i agree

right now the only bandaid solution i can see is to make advanced flight be a required tech, so a scientific civ at least gets a small oppertunity to build prop driven planes
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ok the next complaint is from techwins about 50 turn max tech rate

he had a number of arguments, but the one that really hit home was this one

isolated Civs are put at a huge disadvantage with the current technology system.

so what i am going to try is this...

to make the minimum tech rate be 1 and the max be 48 and see how that changes things
_________________________

ok the next complaint is from techwins

Oh yeah, what it is with you always putting off the terrain changes I suggest

that is my bad, they should have already been in but i somehow overlooked them, anyways i'll do as the man says
_________________________

ok the next complaint is from techwins

Gaining culture because of waging war

this refers to the pyramid and it's culture bonus

now we come to the why is gaining this culture bad from a gameplay point of view

basically the strongest arguement is that you don't get culture when you capture wonders, however if you captured J.S. Bach's Cathedral then you would get all of the happiness, and the pyramid's effect is it's culture

so the best bandaid approach i can think of right now would be to make the pyramids go obsolete...the following techs would be the most appropriate in my opinion
monotheism, gunpowder, democracy, nationalism, or communism

the other bandaid has some drawbacks, and that would be to give the pyramids a 1% defensive bonus, so that if your city with them was ever sacked or captured then the pyramids would disappear
_________________________

the next complaint is from lockstep

drop the defense bonus of the palace

i too have noticed alot of freaky things from the palace having a defensive rating

so consider it gone for now

anyways i didn't see any other real complaints, just suggestions and i will address those tommorrow and release beta7.6 tommorrow as well

i'm going to bed for now

[kettyo]

Originally posted by korn469
kettyo

could you please point me to that thread?

even if they do include it, i am rather skeptical of it

korn,

look at apolyton's or civfanatics civ3 news pages.
It should be the top news now (I read that earlier on a general thread)...

Do you plan to include this ability in the mod?
I think it changes a lot of things...

[korn469]

just a quick little comment

look at apolyton's or civfanatics civ3 news pages.
It should be the top news now (I read that earlier on a general thread)...

i read the first thread and wasn't too impressed with the ability, but after reading the new thread here is what i'm thinking

fighters, jet fighters, and F-15's can sink ships

partisans could possibly become a bombard unit that could destroy land units

then maybe at least battleships (possibly all naval bombard units) could sink other ships with their bombard...i'm unsure about the implications of this

[lockstep]

Korn, congratulations for creating the 'kickoff' to Firaxis' upcoming mods section.

And I'm looking forward to beta 7.6, beta 8 ... and a definitive 1.06 version of the blitz mod.

[Tridotan1]

Thankyou for assesing my "complaints".

ok the problem isn't with the english CSU, the problem is with naval units in general and the frigate in specific

Ah, but there is something we can do about it. At the moment land power plays a huge role in wars, air power a medium one and naval power a pathetically small one. Why? Because it takes about 10 turns to sail an AEGIS cruiser from one side of the world to the other on a medium sized map. On a "huge" sized map it takes about 20 turns to sail it to your nearest rival and a hec of a while to sail it to your furthest. Infact, you have usually either invented a better unit and made it obsolete, won the war, lost it or made peace by the time any ship gets to the "action zone". You would have to think through carefully about this, but you could consider increasing naval movement considerably.

And the problem is the English CSU as well as naval units being quite useless. What good is a unit with one more attack than the regular when their is no point in controlling the seas and no AI ships to whoop the ass of. i firmly reccomend (if possible) stretching out the prop-flight period and making British Spitfires or some kind of modern naval unit (since the British Navy kicks ass to put it simply)

[korn469]

ok i got to thinking, since this is going up on the firaxis site, and since beta8 was going to be out soon, why not just go ahead a work on it now

so in addition to all of the beta7.6 changes we've discussed

i want to know the bare minimum number of new units we need to add to the blitz mod in all of your opinion, i have a small unit list, and i want to know what all of you think

in addition to the new units, i am also going to be adding the new cultural level, and a new small wonder, the victory arch which will be a cultural small wonder made particularly for militaristic civs

also do any buildings need to be renamed? any units? chime in now

Tridotan1

sorry if complaints sounded harsh, but i was tired and most of the best feedback is in the form of good complaints, and i am going to try out the things i discussed in beta7.6 to make the MoW a better CSU, but if not i'll bump up the speeds, the only problem with really high speed naval units is that they can go from one port to the next, and it also kinda takes away some of the strategy you see with land units, right now battleships and carries move at 10 (compared to 5 and 4 in 1.17f) if i did increase them what levels were you thinking of?

[Tridotan1]

right now battleships and carries move at 10 (compared to 5 and 4 in 1.17f) if i did increase them what levels were you thinking of?

I don't know, i was kinda going to leave that up to you, but the fact is, naval units suck with a capital S. Anyways, the more new units the better and I think that you should change the British CSU to something like:

Spitfires (fighter)
HM Aegis Cruisers (better name if possible) (Aegis Cruisers)
Silent Hunters (submarine)
Imperial Infantry (Infantry)
Celtic Warrior (warriors)
Highlander (Rifleman)
Brithish Commandos, Green Berets (whatever name) (marines)
Red Devils (paratroopers)
Harrier Jump Jet (jet fighter - increased target area, better precision striking, more movement. NOT better combat or bombard)
SAS (modern infantry - if added)

As to the navy. You could add a whole new element of gameplay, make the game more fun and make naval untis better by introducing, wait for it...
TORPEDOES
these could be a) a far better version of bombard which can only be effective on ships (so good that it could sink a battleship with three hits)
b) as above but individual units which must be built then loaded on to ships. (be used as many times as user wants, with ships still able to attack and move.)
c) cruise missile copy with the ability to go on water. Probably the easiest but by far the lamest nontheless , it would still be good. Problems with this option are the fact that you might be able to leave torpedoes stranded between turns, the fact that you have to steer the thing them bombard it and watch it blow up as if from the sky makes it less realistic and cool.

You could then expand the idea by making anti-sub missiles, anti torpedo-missiles and the lot. I know this doesn't blance the gameplay but it makes it more fun and realistic. And as I said before, the more units the better.

P.S it wouldn't be beyond a graphics designer to design the torpedo or the British special unit if you asked them.

[TechWins]

i want to know the bare minimum number of new units we need to add to the blitz mod in all of your opinion, i have a small unit list, and i want to know what all of you think

I really like the idea of "light" and "heavy" armor, but after reading your disapproval I tried to figure out why you felt that way. Then I quickly realized that the AI wouldn't be able to handle it very well, so that's a no go.

i want to know the bare minimum number of new units we need to add to the blitz mod in all of your opinion, i have a small unit list, and i want to know what all of you think

I like that idea a lot more (the UU bonus would be a +1 movement to Infantry), than trying to improve the MoW. Civ3 failed to give importance to naval warfare just as Civ2 did. However, with some editor options (i.e. railroad rate cap option) that could all change. For now, though, I don't think much action can be take. Maybe giving a few of the naval units the blitz ability could help? A slight decrease in cost might help? Making ships/boats that can transport units less potent in defending? That might make it more of a need to protect with more attack ships/boats. Less required resources might help, as well? Those are just a few ideas that might slightly make naval units more useful.

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but when at least one Civ out of two has map trading capabilities maps may be traded. Meaning that even if you don't haven't researched Navigation you can still trade maps with another Civ that has researched Navigation. I wonder if this was the same principle before, yet, with Map Trading being the tech? I'm, also, not sure if communications with other Civs acts in the same way. Even though, this isn't that big of a deal it still isn't exactly how I pictured for it to be.

Does anybody want to comment on this?

[kettyo]

korn,

it looks like someone had made the air-to-surface missile i was talking about.
Look : http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=36768

hoping for next version...

[korn469]

a couple of real quick comments, i have read them all though

Tridotan1

i looked over your proposed changes and the thing that really caught my attention

Brithish Commandos, Green Berets (whatever name) (marines)

if the improved MoW still sucks i will either give them kickass modern marines, or give them an improved version of the grenadier that also has the marine ability, both of which would still emphasize seapower, but wouldn't totally suck

Does anybody want to comment on this?

techwins that is how it works for me, so the first one to discover the share communications tech or share maps can do it with all of the other civs

it looks like someone had made the air-to-surface missile i was talking about

if we change cruise missiles to air units a number of problems comes up

*we lose the foot soldier trick, so it would be impossible to seperate it so that nuclear subs carry them and tac nukes and Aegis cruisers just carry them
*air interception rates are 90% so they would all get shot down without air superiority, or 9% with stealth, compared to 0% right now

the actual effect of the units doesn't change though, they would still work in the exact same way as current cruise missiles do, meaning that they would have the ability to kill units like they do now as far as damage is concerned they wouldn't change at all, and the only reason i would see why you would want to make this change would be to make them land on aircraft carriers

aircraft carriers in real life don't carry cruise missiles though, their escorts do, and when the patch comes out all of the planes that land on aircraft carriers will be able to sink ships

i will tweak cruise missiles, i might or might not make them immobile, i will make sure they have airlift (i think they do already but i'm not positive) i will even see if i can give them air missions, specifically precision strike and bombard (but not rebase they will have airlift instead) while still making them a ground unit; i'd give them stealth as well

if i can give them precision strike as a ground unit then they will be perfect, if not i might consider making them air units if i can work around the Aegis Cruiser and nuclear sub problem, in order to give them precision strike, but if i can't work around the Aegis Cruiser and nuclear sub problem i will leave them as ground units

also i have an idea for a plane that carries cruise missiles like the ALCM and the SNARK iirc, but i'm not sure if it would work

anyways i have a date but i will be back later on tonight or tommorrow, please post which new units you think are must haves, because i am going to add the new units tommorrow

[TechWins]

techwins that is how it works for me, so the first one to discover the share communications tech or share maps can do it with all of the other civs

I was wondering if this worked the sameway when Communications was under Map Making? I guess I never really noticed it.

anyways i have a date

but i will be back later on tonight or tommorrow, please post which new units you think are must haves, because i am going to add the new units tommorrow

Light infantry for one. That special ops forces unit you were referring to but make sure the value of marines and paratroopes is still retained. The modern engineer sounds good too. I don't like the idea of adding another medeival boat because it's existance will be so short that it will be pointless. However, I guess it doesn't hurt to have a little variety.