Government info

[Draegor]

Does anybody else find the information of the different governments somewhat lacking? In Civ II, there was a distinctly different "feeling" with each different government. I'm sad to say that in CTP, there is no feeling at all. It all feels very generic, and changing governments is an (almost) unsignificant change of your society.

I think that a simple remedy for this, would be to have more information on each government on the Great Library section. The readme's and charts from CD's mod already have the actual numbers, so it shouldn't be so hard to implement them. Unfortunatly, the one time I tried this, it didn't work at all. Sadly, I'm lacking in the skill of altering CTP's massive volume of files.

However, all of you (well, most of you )are adept mod-makers, and it would be an easy affair to make this change. It would really make government-changing a lot better, and definatly more interesting!

Also, apart from just the numbers, there are some unique effects that governments have. Some of these are mentioned in the GL (after all, it's not _totally_ useless ), but many are not. Things such as martial law modifiers, and probably many more. Come to think of it, this is just another number... it must have been Civ II that had these "other" effects. Not to worry, I'm not a Civ II die-hard fan, just like some of the interface-options better there. Overall, CTP is better, and in some compartments (stacked units, bombardment) vastly better.

Well, you have a challenge, it would be great to see someone pick the glove from the floor and give us all some nice new GL additions

Happy hunting

[Nordicus]

Draegor:
Hi.
I know what you're saying about the govs--that's why in an upcoming mod (untitled so far) I'm planning on adding new ones. A lot of things (like govs, AI types) are pretty generic and way too similar. Maybe it's just me, but I like options! Options, dammit!

Anyway, have you tried that AAips or the map yet?

T.

[TheBirdMan]

Draegor.

You'r completely right about the lack of diff. in governments.

That's why I have suggested 3 ages with 5 governmenttypes and 4 ages with 6 governmenttypes. Plus Anarchy of course. Thats gives a total of 40 governments.

Types should be taken litterary: One type for expansion (no high penalty for capital distance), one for religious rule, one for military rule, one for trade and so on.

At a start y can implement happiness factors for the various types, fx:
Trade govern: + one happiness for marketplace and banks.
?? govern: + one happiness for CityWalls (one might be happy being walled in?)
One-party, militant and police states has to depend on keeping units in each city.
Religious on temples and catheadrals.
Demoratic on theater.

And so on.

Then - maybe - we should reduce the effect of certain happinesswonders a little?

As you know, you can "bind" different values of happiness to different improvement for different governmenttypes. That gives a lot of patterns to use, making different governmenttype attractive to different personalities (both AI and human) (h..., what a lot of difference/different words in this rubbish(?))!.

Types going through all 7 ages so you can choose a line or switch to an other during the game if y like.

One more thing: It gives the opputunity to use ancient, medieval and renaissance units for a longer time since modern age is now no. 5.

See my suggenstion in: CtP-Creation, tread "Civ specific Units" by EKM, my reply of 10.nov 99. Latest entry Nordicus 18.nov 99.

I REALLY would like to do this mod myself - but I don't have the time (read skill).....


[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited December 07, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited December 07, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited December 07, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited December 07, 1999).]

[Draegor]

TheBirdMan;

Yes, I can see that we agree on this one, and different unique government-units is a great idea. Quite like the Noble from CD's mod. More of these would certainly "spice up" the government part. And different happiness modifiers for different governments is a fantastic idea; I love it already! If I was a skilled CTP-modifier, I would try to implement the options already, but as mentioned before, I'm not completely into yet. I'm still having problems making the scenario-functions work, so no need for me to go messing with the assorted files of CTP.

However, I think 40 gov's might be a bit too much on the rich side. "Too much of something as bad enough", and as much as I hate to quote those spicy girls, I think they might have a point. I'm not saying it's impossible, in fact you probably could be able to make an impressive piece of work, but some gov's will inevitably resemble another, only with lsightly different details., On the other hand, perhaps this is exactly what you want. Perhaps it would be great to have a "tailor-made" government for specific situations. If you can pull it off, my salutations to you.

Hmmm.... just read that post you made the 10th Nov, and it seems I misunderstood your idea of goverments slightly; my apologies. Kudos to you, I'd love to see that mod (if you've already made it, or are going to sometime in the future)


Nordicus;

Yup, tried the AAIP's, and the game has definatly improved. However, there is still a few problems, the main one being the following. I call it "The Lagging AI-Syndrome"; I play at deity all of the time, and have a hard time the first few years. This is because the AI is given more resources in the form of extra settlers, gold, (and perhaps tech?). However, as the years go by, the AI plays suboptimal and gradually loses its leading position to the underdog; me! By the time I surpass the AI, my powerbar is browing so fast that the AI doesn't have a chance to follow. Consequence; early victory for the human player (or I quit because it's no fun when you're the top man). Oh, and I play with lots of AI civs, not just one. I just gave the general term "AI" to all AI civs.

It's just real bad that Activision didn't make the AI better. WesW and you have made it a _lot_ better than it used to be, but I hope there's still room for some tweaking. For example, I hate how the AI places it's cities. Often, I feel like bombarding them to dust, saving their citizens from the dreary life they must live in the abysmal locations their AI leaders choose for them. If this wasn't bad enough, they place their cities so close that it's not unusual to see one or more cities _within_ another city radius! Quite bad this, but I don't know if it's even possible to change it using the different files you can change. Well, rant over Apart from that, I love how the AI now actually uses PW sensibly (making mines and farms even before they build their city, that just makes me want to break into tears and forgive them for their previous mistakes). Also, the diplomacy part is better, although it's hard to fix something so broken (well, maybe the rant wasn't completely finished )

PS: tried the super world map, but it made my game crash. Quite strange this... Do I play it as a normal savegame (using the core rules), or can I make it part of the Apolyton scenario part? Such a shame, because I can't wait to try the Hyper-Realistic-Nordicus-Made Super World Map

Oh, and happy hunting

[Nordicus]

Draegor:
Sorry to hear that. Are you playing with the latest bunch of AAips' files?
I know the problem you're speaking of, and many have found this AI-lagging thing...well, not a distant memory, but maybe a bad dream from which one's just emerged
I myself have not had time to play for a while, so Wes or others might be better equipped to find out what's wrong, because your experiences haven't been the norm esp. lately.
All the files I sent you with the Map Mod you have not been using, right? They're set up only for the Nordicus map.

Speaking of which, the map is not a scenario right now (yet, hopefully), so you must place it in your ctp_program/ctp/...yadda yadda in with your other saved game folders. Then start CTP as you would to begin a new game, but pick load game instead, and load er up!
But the files I sent with the map must be used with it if you want a sane game.
Any trouble, just holler.

T.

[skorpion59]

T,

Send me your latest Super Map files. I had to re-install CTP to make sure I didn't have any misc files. If you create a scenario with specific files, (Apolyton, etc) and somebody tries to load it, without those files, it can crash. Also, scenarios are picky. If you don't have everything set exactly right, they can crash. Lastly, if it is memory intensive (big), like your super map, and somebody tries to run it without suffeciant computer power, it will crash.

Don

[wheathin]

One of the things I found annoying was that you could stay in the oldest forms of government and never have an incentive to leave. For me, even after CD's mod, the only reason to change out of Republic is the city size limits.

For each "age" - and it can be your 40-gov idea, or even CD's 12, I like to make some fundamental enhancements. Such as:

1. Later govs get more trade routes: I liked 8 per city instead of 4 for Democracy and all advanced govs (i.e. Ecot, VD, CR, Techn) - but not Fasc, Comm, or Fund.

2. Changes to the Infrastructure and Capitalization modifiers for advanced govs, so that even if you have no need to change, there are still advantages to changing to a more advanced gov. This helps off-set the raises in wages and rations, etc. through higher productivity.

3. There are already the city limit advantages for later govs.

Thoughts?

Also, Draegor, if you want to mod the govs, just copy the original gov file, and rename it something like "backup govern.txt" and play with the new one all you want. The Scenario stuff can be a pain in the ass - if you want to mod only a few files, just do it. I would also suggest EasyMod for this...

Wheathin

[WesW]

I was looking through the govern.text, and noticed that the govs had an option for an obsoleting advance. How about just setting this to whatever advance gives the next evolution of that government type? I mean, I can't imagine any of today's Democracies willingly going back to Monarchy. Does this sound good?
I am not sure about including it in the Med mod without playtesting, but maybe I could put it in for the Modern mod.

[WesW]

Oh, and I decided to implement Draegor's idea about the government info. Here is what you will see for the right-side gl file for Tyranny.

Production Coef: 1.0
Gold Coef: 1.0
Knowledge Coef: 1.0
Max Science Rate: .5

Workday (Hrs.): 10
Wages (Gold): 3
Rations (Food): 7.5

Crime Coef: 10
Too Many Cities: 8
Martial Law Units: 3
Martial Law Effect: 1

It doesn't all fit in the screen, but that should be a minor inconvienence. And I don't know how to do this for the chart you see when comparing govs. in the change screen, but maybe now we can put away the printouts from CD's analysis.

[Draegor]

This is great stuff!

I'm very happy now, can't wait for these new goverment info-files. Please mail them to me when you've made them, WesW.

About my experiences on the AAIP's, I think I may have been too rash on my judgement. I still play with the option UseNiceStart, so I get the best starting locations. Also, I tend to annihilate the first civ I encounter, thus giving me more living-space to develop my empire. In spite of this, the AI gives me a hard time on the wonders, especially the first few. Only barely beat the leading AI civ to the London Exchange, even though I was disbanding two-thirds of my army in the building city. Talk about high cost! (Yet i desperatly neede this wonder; even on the lowest level on the wages slide I was losing money)

All in all, the AI is alot better, and I haven't really been playing enough games lately to give a real judgement on the AAIP's. So let me get back to you on that later on. I'm sure you'll get a positive answer

The idea on government-obsoleting advances is a good one. You wont change to an earlier gov, simply because you can't. In most cases, it would be historically correct as well, though there are a few exceptions (not enough to abolish the concept, though). I also like the idea of additional trade routes to a city with more advanced governments. however, there could be a balancing problem here, because the effects of a monopoly are cumulative. If you were to have 8 trading routes into a city that already had two goods 8of the same type), the amount you'd gain is astronomical. Let's see if I can do the math:
Assuming the goods are worth 5 each, you'd get the following: 5+10+15+20+25+30+35+40+45+50 = 275. Now that's for one city only, and using CD's values for tradegoods. If you're using the original system, the number will almost be doubled! All this depends if I got the formula right, it could be that I've made a mistake somewhere, don't sue me Therefore, my suggestion to additional trade routes is a maximum of 6. Going higher than this will severly upset the financial balance of the game, and probably mean more of an advantage to the human player.

Thanks for the info on the game, great help I'll try the super world mpa again sometime soon (just have to finish those last quests in M&MVII first)

[wheathin]

Draegor: true about the routes. Except it is not quite as bad as that.

8 routes into one city, and 2 there already:
5+10+15 ... = 275

... and one more in another city, unable to be sent because of the 8-per-city limit. Total: 275 + 5 = 280

But you have to compare to those 11 goods under a lower gov:
City 1 (1 + 4 imports): 5+10+15+20+25 = 75
City 2 (2 + 4 imports): 5+10 ... +30 = 105

Total: 105+75 = 180.

The difference is 100 gold, but it requires you to have 9 or more goods of a single type, a difficult proposition in the early game unless you play on very large worlds with the most abundant goods settings. Additionally, the advantages come late enough that it doesn't make sense to position cities in the early game just to take advantage of trade goods, as CD addresses.

Wheathin

[Draegor]

You're absolutely right; the difference would only be 100, a number that is quite sufficient, yet not obsessive. In light of this new information, I'd agree with you 100%

Keep on moding and gaming.