Vel Contemplates Mod-Making.....

[Nadexander]

Originally posted by Spatzimaus
6> Pollution: I'd like to see a building that reduces this before Recycling and Mass Transit. For example, after Sanitation (which leads to Hospitals) add Waste Disposal, which lets you build a City Dump (reduces all pollution by half). Maybe have one of the new techs be Environmentalism, which just reduces pollution across the board by 25%.

Bringing back Sewer System and using it to reduce pollution would be cool!

8> Synthesized resources. Many of the existing resources can either be synthesized (Rubber), designed around (Saltpeter and Oil, or Uranium for the spaceship), or simply use an inferior material (Iron).

This could be done by having a certain technology make available an equivalent unit that makes the old unit obselete.

Specialists: I would like to see more of these with more powerful effects. There should be a significant advantage to having a size 30 city over a size 20 city. As it is one is hardly any better than the other. Actually its better to mine plains to get yourself down to 20 and take the added production. This is just lame. Yet again another step back from smac. I would like to see some kind of laborer that brings about increased production and steadily improving versions of the "taxman" (change that name!) or the scientist as you get better techs. I think economics and scientific method and computers should give their respective specialists a boost for example.

Food: This goes hand in hand with ideas for better food technology. As the game progresses you should have a smaller and smaller proportion of workers on your tiles. Definately need at least two different major improvements in food productivity, one at the agricultural revolution in the early industrial era and one at green revolution in the early modern era with possibly an additional bonus after genetics.

[Deornwulf]

Advanced Governments

I have an idea - advanced governments

I know I started a thread on this but all it got were alot of views and very few comments but I'll state it again.

Even if it has to be done through mods, there need to be advanced forms of government. The British Constitutional Monarchy has little resemblance to the the monarchy of King Richard. Some may feel that they come too late in the end game to be of any use but that is when I find myself in trouble with Democracies and Republics when the inevitable AI war breaks out.

[gachnar]

Originally posted by Slax
Oh, and of course, a spy satellite unit. Large sight range and speed, impervious to attack. Perhaps with short lifespan. Requires Rocketry + other techs?

Sadly, this is a good example of my earlier statement

Units and Improvements can only require a single technology. They can require multiple resources, but only one technology.

EDIT:

Actually some of this could be done... for a price. What you can do is require the Satellite tech, and Aluminum. Aluminum requires rocketry (I think) and thus you emulate requires 2 seperate techs.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Thresh1642
Badtz,

What bombard numbers did you give the Tanks and Infantry?

And, have you played with your Mod post patch to see how it works?

I haven't played with any modifications post-patch, except for my wife's simple 'upgrade cavalry to tanks' mod on her box.

I believe I gave infantry and tanks both 6.1.1 bombardment in my most recent modification, which is almost finished. BTW, this time I'm creating a text file as I make the changes so I can document everything I did so that I can feel right posting it here. I gave Riflemen a 6 offense in this latest version, and Infantry an 8 offense. I believe I gave Marines a 10, and I'm rebalancing the costs of all the units to make up for it - most things are more expensive now, but I've made other changes that can increase productivity (i.e. the Pyramids have 6 culture and raise production the same as a factory now, but don't create granaries). The higher average offense is compensated in part by my increasing the defensive value of towns and fortresses. I've found that documenting all my changes makes me a lot more thoughtful about the balance of what I'm doing - my first mod I was just playing around, I didn't do anything with the costs of any of the units, and I made UUs probably a bit too powerful - that's why I never posted it here, just linked to it once or twice when I mentioned it. I'm really happy with what I've done so far in this one, I'm combining everything I've done before with a number of new concepts and I'm going to post it here Sunday night, maybe sooner.

I've noticed that many mods don't do much with terrain - I like to fiddle with where resources can be found and defensive values a lot. I've made desert cost 2 to move across (won't slow down footmen which only move 1 anyway, but hinder fast units), and I made jungle a lot more useful by giving it 1 production and making game and fish show up in it. Oh yeah, I also made it give a 50% defensive bonus.

[Velociryx]

As always, a slew of excellent ideas here! I'm gonna try to start culling through them and putting a definitive list together over the weekend and see just what all we've got!

I too, have been thinking on the specialist problem....tentatively, I"m inclined to bump the outputs to 3 beakers for scientists and 3g for tax collectors, tho that might be too much after all the multiplicative factors are taken into account. Will ponder on it more as I sleep.

Advanced Governments: Love the concept! Constitutional Monarchy is a good choice (and may well lead to another middle ages tech as a pre-req), as is Facism from the mod bearing the same name.

Others? If you don't have any specific thoughts on how they oughtta be structured, that's okay, we'll worry with it later....just ideas for gov. types is cool for the time being....

-=Vel=-

[Badtz Maru]

I doubled the effect of Scientists and Tax Collectors, myself.

I also added two governments, Fascism and Theocracy. Fascism is basically an improved despotism (no tile penalty, more free units per city, more military police, higher draft limit) limited by it's rampant corruption - it becomes available with Nationalism. Theocracy (comes with Theology) has no unit support requirement, but to limit it's strength I made it so it's impossible to hurry units, and it has the same tile penalty that Despotism had, and military police don't work. I had Theocracy in my pre-patch mod and it seemed to work pretty well - most civs at around that time went to it for wartime, but the slow production kept them from becoming dominant. One other advantage I gave it was that it was very resistant to propaganda and cultural takeover, ESPECIALLY against other Theocracies (Heretics!!!).

As far as progress on mine, I think I'll finish it up in the morning when I get off work, as I'm mostly done - I have done all the changes to terrain, improvements, general rules, government, and almost all of the units (just the UUs are left). All I have left is my tweaking of the advances (I need to make Nationalism more expensive as it now allows you to build police stations and switch to fascism) and playtest it.

[Sevorak]

Vel,

Tax collectors and scientists are not affected by any multiplicative factors at all. They're added on at the very end as a straight +.

My mod makes them +4 each, but gives them higher tech requisites (Banking, Education). I don't think losing the ability to make tax collectors or scientists in the Ancient Age matters much - specialists really only show up in late-Industrial/Modern.

-Sev

[Venger]

I like that mod Sev - though preferred, I think it would be a conversion to +4 at those techs, with +1 before... may be asking for more than the editor can do (once again...).

Venger

[Velociryx]

The Mod So Far....

Tentative Changes proposed by Vel’s Mod:

First, big HUGE change
All the music files will be updated, but I’m NOT telling you with what….it’ll be a surprise….

Terrain
Cows begin the game invisible until the Ancient Era Tech “Animal Husbandry,” which has Pottery and Horses (The Wheel) as pre-requisites.

Wheat Stalks begin the game invisible until the Early Middle Ages tech “Crop Rotation.” (exact placement unknown, but it will be among the first techs)

Bananas are back! +2 food (Jungle Tiles only)(Plea for graphics: Can someone who has talent in this area make a banana tree graphic that would look cool as both part of the jungle terrain set and as a standalone (after the jungle is cleared)? I’m not exactly a rich guy, but would certainly be willing to talk money before work begins on the graphic. If anybody is interested, PM me!). Jungles get +1 shield/+1 commerce (consider them poor forests).

Salt Flats: Desert w/shield bonus (+2) another plea for graphics

Oasis: +1 Food/+3 Commerce Puhleeeeeze…..?

Reasoning: This goes far in balancing early game starts (Plains, Jungle, Tundra, and Flood Plain). Eventually, with attention to certain areas of the tech tree, plains become superior (as they should be!), but the game is not quite so hopeless if you start out in the jungle/tundra, and it’s actually arguably better if you start on a flood plain! It also brings more strategic choice to the early game’s tech tree. (right now, you race for iron or you’re hosed….this way, considering the power of the despotic pop-rush, you have a viable alternative. Massive numbers of pop-rushed archers could overwhelm an early game swordsmen force, making the “food path” a viable alternative). Note that Salt Flats and Oasis will be relatively rare, making the Flood Plain still the most viable of desert starts.

Specialists
Taxmen and Scientists now generate 3 gold/beakers respectively (pre-requisites of Banking and Education, per Sev’s recommendation) – MIGHT be swayed to increase this to four….convince me?

Reasoning: Since each pop point “costs” two food to maintain, this makes them profitable again, as opposed to being essentially leeches. It also sets up the possibility of viable specialist cities again, and prompts city growth beyond 20. Again, more strategic choice, which is the essence of the game.

Research Rate
Minimum Research Time (in turns) has been set to zero.

Reasoning: This takes the shackles off of players and allows, again, more strategic choice. Note though, that even with minrate = 0 the advantages are short-lived, as the techs you already know become correspondingly cheaper for the AI to research. Note that this MAY require late game techs to be ramped up in price.

Unit Hit Points
Gachnar’s HP scale has been adopted. Note that in addition to that basic change, the RoF of all artillery pieces has been doubled (making artillery slightly more effective than it was before, since unit HP’s have not quite doubled).

Military (land) Units
All missile troops have been given ZOC

Musket Men have been given +1 Defense, and ZOC (per above). (price may drop)

Explorers have been moved back to the tech “Map Making.”

Zero-Resource Units
Middle Ages:
Frontiersman (the equal to the Musket Man, price doubled)
Man-At-Arms (Foot soldier equal to the Knight - price tripled)
Light Cavalry (5/2/3) – Price tripled vs. “normal” cavalry

Industrial Ages:
Partisan (pseudo-rifleman) – price doubled
Guerilla (pseudo-infantry) – price tripled
Light Tank (same –1 attack, same d/m, no blitz) – price tripled

Modern units still being developed and considered. Another plea for graphics! In the short term, I’ll simply wing it with existing ones, but a distinctive graphic for the Man-At-Arms would rock!

Defenses:
To be announced, though they will be increased dramatically (especially fortification defenses!)

New Luxury Items:
Coffee
Sugar Cane
Tobacco
(at a minimum!) with graphics for all duly requested!

More Government Types:
Constitutional Monarchy
Fascist State
Theocracy
Others??

More to come (I’ll simply edit this post)! Just wanted to put up what I had threaded together so far.

[Velociryx]

That "Vision" Thing.....

Random Ideas, thoughts, and more on the overall vision of the mod....

1) I think that given the seminal nature of the ancient era techs, every single tech should do something.....every single one. May not be a big thing, but there should be no such thing as a "stepping stone" ancient era tech. These are the bedrock concepts upon which all else in our civilization was based. This is important stuff.

2) By making every tech DO something, and by including important dead-end branches (like the food thing), it opens the game up to more strategic possibilities. (Oh, forgot to mention it earlier, but I DO plan to increase the cost of "fast" units to reflect their power in human hands). Thus, there are four viable strats in the ancient era so far:

a) Iron-rush/swordsman sweep
b) Mongol Horde (horsies)
c) Food-rush (access to more food making pop-rushing en mass viable)
d) Great Library/Tech Hound

With potentially more on the way! This is MUCH better, IMO, than the system we had before where it was essentially Iron Rush/Beatdown and a (much weaker) Great Library Beeline. ::shrug:: or maybe it's just me.

3) Navy: LOTS of work will be done here. I wanna make the age of sail more interesting, and worth building ships in! This will mean that the sea-worthy sailing vessels should come significantly earlier than they do! (Someone mentioned making another sea-faring tech "advanced hull design" or somesuch. If I can hook up with some enterprising, graphically oriented individual, I think we'll be brining the age of sail to life quite nicely (perhaps even an improved privateer and some landward units to go along with that....don't know yet, but I'm working on it)

4) Modern Age: At least four new techs, tho I'm not sure exactly what or where and will be MOST eager to get ideas from the forum! Again, if I can hook up with an artistic type, I envision numerous additional units in the modern age....got some spooky ideas on that, actually...

Essentially, it's all about increasing the range, scope and depth of STRATEGIC CHOICE in the game. More decisions that truly impact the direction and well being of your civ = more player involvement. More player involvement = (for me at least) more fun....whatcha think?

-=Vel=-

[Zurai001]

Here's a couple unit suggestions for you.

1. Attack Helicopter: Instead of making it a ground unit that ignores terrain, why not make it an air unit that *isn't* Immobile? I've tested it and found no flaws at all with it, as far as gameplay bugs are concerned.

2. Spy Satellite: Best way I can think of to do this is to make it a Stealth air unit, immobile, with a huge operating range and its only available air mission would be Recon. *Note* I just checked, and the maximum operational range allowed by the editor is 8. Grr. Still, I'd imagine that can be hex-edited to a higher number; the question is if that will blow up the game.

[flbknight]

Velorix,

when can we expect a first version of the mod to try out?
i'm eager to play it

[Velociryx]

Hmm...well....the short answer is....I'm not sure! I can get by without using new graphics for some of the units I'm proposing, especially if there's a way to make the new ones show up as "barbarian" or something (no civ-specific color). That way, I can recycle existing graphics and you'd still be able to differentiate between them. (and, in the case of "weaker variants" of the same unit, I could always just use the same graphic, and make the weak one upgradable to the regular one, provided the proper resources were on hand).

For some of the stuff though (esp. the new resources and luxuries), new graphics will be pretty much a necessity before they can actually be added into the game.

I guess if push came to shove, I could wing something on my own, graphic wise, but my work would almost certainly do more to detract from the look of the map than enhance it (I fear I'm not much of a graphic artist!).

The other potential snag is adding new techs. I read a tutorial over in the creation section on how to do it, but after the first read-through, I came away totally mystified! I guess I really have no future in any sort of programming after all! ::sigh:: But, I'll re-read it with the benefits of some sleep and see if it makes sense to my brain....

As I understand it (from reading in another thread), we can only add eleven new techs, so deciding exactly what techs to use and where to put them is critical. There is a HUGE temptation to slap down tons of new ancient and middle ages advances, but one of the more common complaints I've been reading about is a ho-hum feel to the modern era (and admittedly, there aren't many techs there!).

This makes me think that no less than 4 of the tech slots needs to be reserved for the modern era, and possibly more than that.

Another common complaint is the lack of builds in the industrial age. I've got some ideas on that (specifically, a couple of new minor wonders that essentially act as additional Forbidden Palaces and corruption busters), and I found Aussie_Lurker's EXECELLENT post over in the creation thread detailing a number of fascinating new tech ideas and governments (along with unique units for government types). Good stuff, but the total number of new techs exceeds the number of available slots, so again....care must be taken with their selection and placement.

Overall, my goals are to increase research path options in the tech tree, creating multiple, viable research beelines that could stand up in competition to each other, and to increase the number of meaningful strategic choices presented to the player: (ie- Ancient Era - do I rush for iron so I can build swordsmen, or, do I focus on getting to Animal Husbandry first so I can bulk up my food production? Middle Ages - Do I want to beeline for Theocratic Control of the masses (I'm adding a new Minor Wonder (possibly for Theocracy only), "The Grand Inquisitor's Hall" or somesuch, which will allow early espionage, and possibly crush discontent), or do I scrap that and run for knights?) Stuff like that, I believe, will lend itself to dramatically differing styles of play.....

-=Vel=-
(and as to the new music...well....I'm experimenting)

PS: One of the other changes almost certain to make it into the mod will be changing the "default" barbarian unit from Warrior to Swordsman....ignore them at your peril....

[Arrian]

Changing the "default" barbarians to swordsmen?!?!?! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! You're kidding, right? I usually bump into barbs before I even have spearchuckers! How in the world would you stop swordsmen that early in the game??

The other parts sound cool... I like the concept behind the whole thing - multiple strategies, and having to chose between them.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Well....about that....

I was thinking a LOT about the barbs, and there are a couple of interesting things about them.

Soren indicated that they use a vastly simplified AI routine, and it shows. It's very easy to lure them away from your cities if you pop a goody hut that's a bit removed from your holdings....they'll chase your units indefinitely, and sometimes, you can lead them into enemy civs territory, and they'll go after their cities.

Also, in my mind, the picture that I get when I think of a barbarian is Atilla the Hun. Big, savage fellow, and an absolute terror in his day.

Barbarian cultures are all armed to the teeth and bada$$. A far higher percentage of the population in Barbarian culture is trained for battle at an early age (esp. compared to a more "civilized" tribe). Right now, with warriors as the prinicple unit, this is not reflected so well when you meet the barbs. Your warriors crush their warriors, as a rule, and unless there's a massive barbarian uprising, they're really more of a nuisance than a genuine threat.

This way though, the early game would be filled with even more of those strategic choices! Do I dare risk popping that goody hut? Ohhhh, the prospect of a new tech could set me light years ahead of the competition, but if it unleashes four swordsmen, then all my border towns are in for it!

OTOH, it's really not so bad even then, since the barbs can't capture towns. Worst case, they rape a few of your units and savage your fledgling treasury, but I think the sight of half a dozen screaming barbarian *swordsmen* bearing down on early game cities would do a lot to get the ol' pulse jumping.

Warriors just don't do it...

Still...if you guys think that's over the top, I'm sure I could be talked out of it....

-=Vel=-
PS: Your initial response...."RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!" To me....that sums it up....*That's* the reaction a barbarian invasion should evoke, IMO.....nobody ever breaks a sweat when the warriors come calling....

PPS: Damn...LOL....I just thought of something else....a nice side-benefit of changing the default to swordsmen would be that it would strenghen the "Expansionistic" civ-trait in a roundabout way....certainly it'd make it more attractive....