AOM3 Is Out

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by angrybowen
All I can say is I am not frightened to have 40 cities or more.

Not frightened, but bored...

Originally posted by angrybowen
In addition I found them far easier to manage than Civ 4. As you have pointed out hex, you can have more, many more cities in civ 4 anyway.

You can, but your civ4 strategy does not depend on that with most of the victory options, with the possible exception of domination.

Originally posted by angrybowen
Going for a science victory created an entirely new game feel for me, it was certainly tense as I had to make sacrifices to achieve it which could have led me to disaster. It had a certain "racing" feel about it.

Glad you enjoyed it - it is the reason anyone should play any game. Enjoyment is why I prefer civ4...

Originally posted by angrybowen
For the life of me I cannot understand your obsession with small empire victories. Maybe if you could give me a historical example or 2 it would help.

Because historically, large empires may make some noise, but they do not win...

There have been many historical large empires (...land control and population driving and determining economic, scientific, and military strength as compared to everyone else in the world...classic Bigger Is Better...TM) and they have ALL collasped to small size. (Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greek, Rome, HRE, Mongols, Spain, British...) Many still have some impact in an indirect way, but their glory days are past. Ironically, most of their lifespan can be measured in decades and in rare cases, three or four hundred years at a huge empire size. Then they invaribly implode.

The same will happen to the US eventually.

The only empire that may be considered consistently large (population and territorial control) throughout history could be China...but it was so insular (they shut the door on outsiders, focused inwardly and did not really invade anyone on a continental stage) for so long that it is just now crawling out of third world status.

Now pay attention...here is my point.

Germany, 1930's...
Gutted by it's failure in WWI. Not large (landwise and population-wise compared to Allied Europe...)

It wasn't population size or land control that gave it early success in WWII, but it was efficient planning and useage of the resources it had, as well as a national mindset of war.

Without some costly military blunders, it was on the brink of controlling ALL of Europe and Russia too during WWII. This despite the fact that most of the countries it controlled hated them.

If it had held onto the land it took, most likely it would have imploded too... Tht's why the USSR collasped in the '80s.

Or take Germany today...

It doesnt have anywhere near the population and land area of Indonesia or Brazil, yet technologically, militarily, and standard of living-wise, it is vastly more powerful than either of them.

Or take the Netherlands in the 14-15th century. Very small, but because of it's trading networking, it was a major player during that time...comperable to England, Spain...

Point being that historically, large empires almost always fail...and size is rarely the determining factor for greatness.

[Generaldoktor]

Yeah, or nascent USA vs. Britain or, really

Napoleonic France vs. everybody

I still think one of the benefits of AOM was increased AI activity and even aggressiveness. I don't think this "forces" giant empires of conquest, just improves play over a certain other standard of comparison.

I also think though, nobody is ever going to convince anybody in this Great Debate. Everyone's opinion is pretty set by now.

I just hope it hasn't scared new players away from AOM. I haven't seen any new threads or questions since this discussion started.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor
I still think one of the benefits of AOM was increased AI activity and even aggressiveness. I don't think this "forces" giant empires of conquest, just improves play over a certain other standard of comparison.

I'm not going to deny the aggressiveness of the AI...

...but when one game (AOM) is lauded (based on playing it on the highest level) and the other game (civ4) is NOT also played on the highest level and highest aggression level by those same people (who claim to crave military expansion and aggessive AIs), then I remain skeptical of the motives and bias of the AOM loyalists...

...and I look at the scoring system that is heavily slanted in scoring towards city ownership/city size, both of which become easier through conquest. Most of the economic points in the game are capped too...

I may like EU2, but I have no desire to play it on a world conquest level (own every province). It becomes more of the ol' same-old, same-old.

I look at AOM the same way. It is weighted towards combat. I compared that dynamic to RTW, in that it is fun after a while and them becomes merely repetitive. I have not reached that point in civ4 yet, because the game offers more paths, and the ability to change those paths at any stage of the game, so I play it as my game of choice. When it becomes boring, I will move on.

Simple as that...

Originally posted by Generaldoktor
I also think though, nobody is ever going to convince anybody in this Great Debate. Everyone's opinion is pretty set by now.

Debates never do if you are the debater.

I want to provide info for those who may have an open mind...

...and at least provide reasons why one game is preferable to another...that is why I continue to post here.

[Ekmek]

Hex, dale, civ4ers

Its not really clear but how does Civ4 allow for successful small civs?

i know that there is a city maintenance cost. How does that work?

and how does have science buildings in a few cities better than having something like 40 cities with libraries or whatever?

Just curious how it works because it seems all civ games have the bigger and better model because each city tends to collect more than it needs and contribute the rest (gold, science, whatever) to the whole country so bigger always better because these little cities can contribute something.

How does Civ4 allow for a "germany vs brazil" situation and let there be strong productive small countries that are top players?

if you know of a link please post it, if it can save you from typing.

[Dale]

I can tell you E. Basically, the reward for not constantly expanding is the ability to grow "upwards". By specialising your cities and concentrating on upward growth instead of outward growth you can fully keep up with the larger civ. Because a larger civ has concentrated on outward growth its cities/specialisation is smaller on a single city comparison.

Basically you can make one super city equal 4-5 normal cities.

Dale

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by Dale
I can tell you E. Basically, the reward for not constantly expanding is the ability to grow "upwards". By specialising your cities and concentrating on upward growth instead of outward growth you can fully keep up with the larger civ. Because a larger civ has concentrated on outward growth its cities/specialisation is smaller on a single city comparison.

Basically you can make one super city equal 4-5 normal cities.

Dale

I'm assuming outward growth is building those "settler factories" versus upward which is building improvements. But how come having a settler factory in one city (as I heard they don't take away from pop) prevent you from doing upward growth in other cities?

Do more cities subtract from food, production, and gold in other cities?

And with one city equal 4 or 5 cities how does that affect unit production? One city is just one place where as with 4 or 5 you can multiple units being worked on at the same time.

i do see more improvements but not sure how that links with upward growth.

Sorry for asking questions but I think I'm not the only one that doesn't understand how a small civ can win in Civ4

[hexagonian]

Or another way (heading out the door from work, so I cannot go into depth at the moment)...

Among other things, Civ4's scoring system is based partially on the amount of territory you own. 'Territory owned' can be boosted via city ownership OR culture. Culture can be a primary choice of the player as his focus, and can be pumped up via buildings, and sliders, as well as disbanded great artists in key locations. It is not solely dependent on the number of cities you own, though a player may choose to own a lot of them and build them all into cultural centers.

A small civ can be a cultural powerhouse.

In AOM, the only way to expand your territory is either through city ownership or forts/trading posts. The problem is that the scoring system caps both forts and cartels at 100 pts per (less than 10% of total score), which means that ownership/numer of of cities is the primary source of points.

Same with health....a civ in civ4 that has very healthly population will have the longest life expectancy of all the civs and will get the most points out of that. (correct me if I misunderstand this...)

[Dale]

Okay, here's what we were aiming at when we made Civ4:

- Improving land around a city is the first stage to making a city great.
- The second stage is increasing culture by building culture buildings (expands borders, increases happiness, increases defense bonus, etc etc).
- By this stage you'll probably receive a Great Person from the city. These GP's (aside from giving a science bonus, or culture bomb, or possible golden age) can be added to a city as a "super specialist". I'm not sure the ratio, but I think one GP = 3 normal specialists.
- By further specialising the city (EG: concentrating on science buildings) you city gains a bias towards that specialisation. So the more specialised the city, the better it becomes at it. EG: two cities the same, one a science specialist city. A library will give more benefit (read beakers) to the science city, with all other factors equal.

That's how a small civ can equal a large civ. By specialising the cities they can compensate for the lack of cities.

As for the settler question, your city will not grow while building settlers or workers.

Dale

[Ekmek]

Thanks, dale and hex!

Originally posted by Dale

- Improving land around a city is the first stage to making a city great.

with workers this has to hurt it a bit, if civ4 had PW and something like prerequisite tileimps to improve a city it might work better...

- The second stage is increasing culture by building culture buildings (expands borders, increases happiness, increases defense bonus, etc etc).

this goes with hex's stuff. Civ4 doesn't has forts to expand territory. So its very city centric. Isthere a maintenance associated to that territory ownership?

- By this stage you'll probably receive a Great Person from the city. These GP's (aside from giving a science bonus, or culture bomb, or possible golden age) can be added to a city as a "super specialist". I'm not sure the ratio, but I think one GP = 3 normal specialists.
- By further specialising the city (EG: concentrating on science buildings) you city gains a bias towards that specialisation. So the more specialised the city, the better it becomes at it. EG: two cities the same, one a science specialist city. A library will give more benefit (read beakers) to the science city, with all other factors equal.

If I get this right then Civ4 is heavily weighted towards culture. If you are not developing culture than your city is limited to what it can attain.

Does this mean you have to have a certain number of culture points before a city can build a building?

Or do they have population limits like you cant build a university unless you have city size 10?


***

Sounds like cool stuff. for the record I played a little of my civ4 but it dragged on my machine so I spend more time with ctp2. But I keep getting the same feeling I had with civ3 vs ctp2. There are elements of both I liked but I cant get them ino one game.

I love the stacked combat of ctp2 (I saw your mod dale good work)
and I loved the trade routes with running around and pirating them
Plus the unique units with franchises and advertising etc allowed for non-war options. too bad civ4 doesn't have them. it would be cool to have units that could steel science to etc.

[Dale]

E,

The Great Person is dictated by how much "GP points" a city creates. These points can be in any area.

EG:
Your city has 3 mines operating (as in being used in the city screen). Your city generates a large number of GP points. When a certain level is attained a Great Engineer appears, who coincedently is added to production specialists when joined to the city as a super specialist.

EG2:
Your city has 4 religions, two shrines, a temple and a cathedral, and generates huge amounts of GP points. This city will generate a Great Prophet who either builds the religious great wonders in that religion's Holy City, or can be added to the city as a super priest.

EG3:
Your city has a gold mine, and some luxury resources being worked and generates a large amount of gold. This city will produce Great Merchant who can either be added to the city as a super merchant or create a super trade route to another city.

And so on. You don't need a lot of culture to create a GP (though a lot of culture producing in the city creates Great Artists who build Great Works [read culture bomb] or added to a city as a super entertainer).

So basically, if your city is starting to lean towards a specialisation due to tiles being worked, those GP's generated relate to it. These GP's can be used to enhance further the specialisation or for other things in other areas of the civ.

Dale

[Generaldoktor]

Super-Priest, Super-Priest! He's a Super-Priest!

(Sorry, I was a crazy Disco-Dude once in my youth. )

I should probably leave E's questions to the provacateurs I know now are C4 design team, but I've played a lot, so briefly:

1. The PW vs. Workers controversy goes back to the early days of CTP and Civ3. Most Civ players prefer the tangibility of managing workers, despite complaints of micromanagement. There may have been copyright issues with copying too overtly CTP concepts, also.

2. City maintenance cost, a bigger factor in Civ4 than in the past, is based on other factors than city territory. Evidently, as (city) territory increases; and culture-based gains of any substance don't happen instantly, costs are assumed part of the process. It appears actual maintenance cost is based instead on number of cities and their distance from a capital/sub-capital, rather than their individual size. Empire management sets the parameter, not individual city management.

3. Any city can build any building any time (given tech availability.) Small cities tend to get outrageous build times on the "bigger" (i.e. more sophisticated) buildings, but this is only due to limited tiles worked, (i.e. a size "1" city only works one tile, which may itself emphasize food over production "hammers.") Culture does not influence what you can build or how fast, except with very new cities who haven't expanded sufficiently to work their entire "fat cross." This is somewhat similar to CTP, though in Civ you can micromanage the tiles worked and overtly remove your choice of tile worked to add specialists.

On the few mighty city vs big empire of average cities micro-debate; I will concede having formed "castle" in Civ4 and achieved some fairly spectacular results, on Noble difficulty or below, with cultural achievement and under a dozen cities. However, as you only produce one unit at a time in Civ, as with CTP/AOM, you are in fairly deep doo-doo if you are aggressively attacked by a much larger empire in Civ and this becomes increasingly likely (attack) in Civ 4 at the higher difficulty levels the dissenters are begging us to try; as with AOM. So I find it a poor debating point. A culturally rich, small civ in Civ is still going to get trounced at the high difficulty levels due to AI aggression and the superior military of large AI doing the aggressing. (Small AI occasionally attack; and yield great military promotions when they do; yes, Montezuma, we talkin' about ya'; but this is relatively rare.) The exception to this trouncing would be a hugely favorable map where your culturally rich little "castle" empire was protected by geographic "choke points" belittling the effectiveness of heavy military aggression. You could have this in AOM also; indeed, I already have.

I must continue to maintain that all this discussion of Civ4 on this thread is off-topic, but clearly I am barking into the wind.

[Protra3211]

I was wondering is there any way to install AOM3 into the scenario folder?
This was done to the Civ3 mod by E.Another great CtP2 mod.Has the packicon tga and everthing.works fine.Have the AOM disc already but was thinking of others who might not understand how to load the files. Scenario folder setting keeps most files in one place.

[Ekmek]

Protra,

I have set up AoM3 as a scenario but had to replace some files. The other issue is that the controlpanel.ldl with the extra buttons doesn't work with the scenario folder. But if you're looking totets it I'll post it!

[Protra3211]

Might be a big help to draw new fans to AOM3 as this kind of setup makes it a snap to load the mod.
If it works should be part pf the download files.
Only one thing I think you can only play this mod with the 1.11 version of CtP2. Wouldnt the lastest playtest with builds mess up the game?
Would be glad to give it try.Own 2 coumputors so could
keep other playtest games on one machine.
But if it does not work we could always ask Stan to look into it as well. As you carrying the bulk of the code work for the playtest I dont want to draw you away from it.

[Ekmek]

Protra,
I was usingit with the playtest and it started fine. but i didn't start a full game. AI cities started revolting I think because the AI actually handles revolts better than the playtest. the one concern is how slic is handled and if properly, so if ou wiling to test it out. I'll post it later tonight. in the meantime you can follow what we did in this thread:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143176