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Elucidus
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Hey guys,
I am still here, although I may not have time to read Yaga's post and below it, as I have a seminar I have to leave for in four minutes. I will be happy to continue the work until Monkspider can return, with his permission of course (could you send me your latest and greatest Monkspider?). I have had some ideas, that I would like your opinions on.
Here is most of them:
(It is a word document, sorry but no internet at home still)
Last edited by Elucidus on 21-04-2002 at 05:45
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Yaga
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Played through twice now, once straight 1.51, and another time with some modifications of my own.
A couple of things I found which have been unbalanced:
- With coal being present with metalurgy, and therefore seen before Industrialization, I was able to build the Ironworks about 5 advances too soon. Checked the civ3mod.bic, and there's no Advance requirement for Ironworks. Simply adding "Industrialization" would be sufficent to fix this.
- Horses still require a civ advance, The Wheel, to discover them. I'd recommend having no requirement to see the horsies. Afterall, it's kinda hard to miss a herd of animals. I could go into a "Guns, Germs and Steel" diatribe on why Horses are required for the discovery of The Wheel, but I won't.
- Scientific Civs get a free advance at the beginning of each era. These advances are Monotheism, Nationalism, and Ecology. Now, i don't know if it's supposed to be random, but it seems to be only these three that are received. The problem I forsee is that now that Statue of Liberty is under Nationalism, and Sgt. Pepper's under Ecology, this gives Scientific Civs a 5-12 turn advantage over other Civs in their building. While I've no recommendation for Statue of Liberty, I did have an epiphany for Sgt. Peppers: Put it under Radio. Considering the culture-spreaders that radio and later television were, this seems obvious to me.
- "All as road" for the Scout also seems unbalancing: Playing those kooky Iroquois, I was able to discover the *whole* of the world before all the other civs had managed to found their second or third city. Also, since I shared my bulk of it with non-Expansionist civs, I managed to bag a bunch of free Civ advances from goodie huts - all the way up to Literature.
- I *really* like being able to see resources prior to the advances that previously revealed them. It's also more realistic, imho, as without knowing where coal or saltpeter were, how would a Civ try to exploit the resource? Also very good to aid in making decisions on tech research: I discovered that I didn't have any Saltpeter within my borders, so I opted against Gunpowder and went for Theology.
- 2gp / turn unit support on Republic was, as I expected, crippling. With only 24 units, including all those workers, I managed to go from a nice 6.3.1 with +54 gold per turn and 11 turn advances to 7.2.1 at -7 with 11 turn advances. Under Democracy is was much more manageable. I also noted that not all civs jumped on the Democracy Bandwagon as soon as it came out, notably the militaristic and aggressive civs.
- I must have corrupted my civ3mod.bic somehow, as the Statue of Liberty cost 0 shields. Could someone be so kind as to let me know what the real cost is?
- On the whole, I throughly enjoyed the game, and thought it was a decent improvement over 1.4x
--
Now for my own list of suggestions: I made these changes in my Civ3mod.bic, and played them through the Industrial Age, and found them to be a little better, imho. Anyone who doesn't want to go through the bother of making the changes themselves, feel free to let me know if you want to dl the bic:
Governments:
- Monarchy no longer immune to Plant Spy
- Republic unit cost reduced to "1" per unit per turn
- Repulblic and Democracy Diplomats made "regular"
- Democracy Spies made "regular"
Units:
- Catapault, Cannon, Arty and R.Arty all airliftable
- Cruise Missles can now be Loaded
- Galley Movement lowered to original 3, to try and keep civs a little more contained in the early years
- Frigate movement increased to 6
- Ironclad to 6, and marked "Sinks in Ocean"
- Transport, Carrier, Battleship, and Nuke Sub movements increased to 8
- Sub to 6
- Destroyer and Aegis to 10
- ZOC added to all mounted Unique units (eg Rider, Cossack, Elephant) and to Knight.
- Removed "Oil" requirement for Modern Armor, as "synthetic materials" should include synthetic oil
- War Elephant now available with Monarchy (as opposed to Chivalry)
- Swordsman and Longbowman had "upgrade to" flag checked, which allows them to properly upgrade to Riflemen
- Legionairre now upgrades to Rifelman, too
- Scouts now have two movement, and are not "all as road"
Wonders and Improvements:
- Carnagie Steel Trust expires with Electronics
- Engineering now allows irrigation from non-fresh water. This is partly because I play a lot of Archepeligo maps, which rarely have rivers around. Also, the AI "cheats" and can irrigate from costal tiles (known bug) - since they usually start doing this around the time Engineering is available, and since Engineering allows for artesian wells and other such goodies, I figured this was a good place for this change.
- Hills can now be irrigated. I don't know why this was changed from Civ II. South America, Japan, and China all have complex step-irrigation of hillsides. It is not very efficent, but shold be an option. Provides 1 food.
- Horses have no requirement for visibility. Considering they are a valued resource for many, many units, including a number of Unique units, I figured this would be a good addition to the changes made by Monk and Eluc.
- Coal appearance rate increased from 120 to 130
- Game now provides 1 shield. Given that Tundra is a *****, and that Cattle provide 2 food and 1 shield, I figured this was needed.
- Factories have "industial" flag checked.
- Iron Works requires Industrialization
- Magellans Voyage provides a Harbor in *all* cities, not just Continental cities.
- Wall Street has Commercial trait
- Reichstag now requires Military Acadamy. This severly limits this Wonder's building, and I feel for the better. Having no requirements of the Military Acadamy, and putting one in each city, was a little too much. Am also hoping this fixes the bug that doesn't actually cause the Reichstag to function properly.
- Statue of Liberty requires Nationalism. Needs a better place still, and I'm think of "Industrialization."
- Sgt Peppers now requires Radio
- Removed "Resistant to Propaganda" flag from City Assembly - since these effects continue after gov't change, I thought it might be too much
- Added "reduced war weariness" to City Assembly to balance
- Removed cultural penalty from Stock Exchange
- Re-Education Camps reduce war weariness
MISC:
- Reduced tax collectors and scientists to 2 from 3, each
--
So, those are my thoughts. Comments?
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WesW
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Florence, Al., USA
Jan 1970
time: 23:16
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Just a few comments, since I have not played with the 1.5 version yet...
I agree that Republic needs to go back to 1 gold per unit. When you go from Monarchy to Rep, you lose your free units, and that is enough of an increase in cost. I really agree with all of Yaga's observations. I don't agree with all his suggestions, but most make sense. All the gov ones I second, as well as all the improvements and wonders changes.
I would not make Ironclad's coastal ships. I know that the unit looks like the Monitor class from the Civil War, but all the European nations built armor-plated steam ships as their deep water fleets for the last half of the 19th century.
I would also vote against increasing ship movement any more.
I just read thru Elucidus' ideas doc. Going from the bottom up:
Instead of expanding the tech tree, I would increase the cost of techs so that they match the proper timeline. You must trade techs to keep up with the other civs anyway, so why not increase the cost to factor this into account?
The Citizens ideas all sound good. I hope you can implement them one day.
Hills should be irrigatible (sp?), and add +1. I would also support irrigation without fresh water with Engineering. This handicap is a real annoyance, esp. if the AIs cheat.
A Fund gov could fit in, with superior food prod and/or city growth ala the Longevity effect, Communism-like corruption, free units and commerce. I have not studied the govs like you guys have, so these are just tentative recommendations.
I support all the General Settings suggestions, except the shield-to-gold ratio change and the Default Difficulty level change. I really don't see the benefit in the level change, other than to make us feel better about ourselves.
One new recommendation, if possible: increase the amount of stored food necessary to grow. I do not normally bother to build Granaries until I have Hospitals, and sometimes not even then. The old way of an extra row per city size always seemed to work right to me.
Also, I would recommend increasing the cost of Settlers and Colonists by 10 shields.
The increase in city growth and the reduced cost of Settlers has more than negated the extra pop lost when a Settler is created. ICS seems worse to me now than ever before.
Also, I read something in the Biltz mod news item about upgrading Armies. If this is possible, please implement it.
Last edited by WesW on 05-12-2001 at 10:39
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mavmcleod
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Frankfurt/Main - Germany
Nov 2001
time: 06:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Yaga
- Removed "Oil" requirement for Modern Armor, as "synthetic materials" should include synthetic oil
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IMHO, Oil should be required for nearly all modern age units (Tanks, Arty, Planes, Ships,...) 'cause there're really important things you can make out of oil. For example GAS and KEROSENE !!!
Of cause you wouldn't need oil for the nuclear powered units, so why not have a nuclear career, but than we would also need nuclear powered planes....
OTOS, I implemented all the other changes you suggested and I like it very much, Yaga. 
Could it be you took the best out of The Balancer & the Blitz mods and mixed them?
I can't wait for the patch.
Hope it doesn't mess up the changes of the mods.
Thanks for reading....
Maverick
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Yaga
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Maverick : I agree with the Oil requirement: Forgot about gas  I guess it all belies my wish that there were some greater way to determine a Civ's usage of resources beyond "one is enough," esp since the disappearance is a matter of chance. Oh well, it's beyond modding capabilities. Also, I was unaware of the status of other mods; I downloaded the Longwinded Changes, since it was the first out, but have played Balancer since v1.0. I like it so much, I havn't really bothered to look at any others
Mkinser: I used winzip and simply unloaded everything into the root Civilization III directory and had no problems. Keep in mind you'll need the 1.51 civ3mod.bic that was posted later in the forums.
Wes: Good point about the Ironclads. I did have The Monitor in mind when I thought of this, and I'd agree that that flag should be unchecked. When you said "disagee with increasing ship movmeent anymore," I'm wondering if you meant beyond my changes, or if the increases I used are too great? I've been playing around with figures, trying to keep them, well, balanced and am curious about your thoughts. My main concern is that the ships be able to keep up with armies when advancing along the coast, and to be able to move across a significant amount of ocean in one turn. Since I like playing with a lot of ocean and many small islands, I'm sure my gaming experience differs. Your thoughts?
I also agree with you re: graneries. Increasing the cost of settlers may help the ICS-esque landgrab. This is, actually, one of the reasons why I play with lost of landmasses - I've had a few games with a "New World" and have enjoyed the settling & taming of that place. It's really interesting if you set Barbarians at Raging Hordes.
Am also going to try a couple of different things to that already posted and play around a bit trying to create new units and new techs. Someone mentioned adding to the tech tree; I'd like to see more insular approaches that require a significant investiture, like a sub-tree off Ecology that allows for significan polution reduction, one off of Education that provides increased research, etc. Anyways, back to my real world of work n' s***.
Take care all,
Yaga
Oh - anyone have the cost of Statue of Liberty? Mine's still at 0...
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Elucidus
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Hey guys,
Sorry for being out of touch. My Cable company has been giving me the run around.
I am still working on the Mod and I am sure Monkspider will rejoin soon enough.
I like a lot of what Yaga has suggested and I have been looking at getting the armies to have the unload command. I have been working on other things as well, but without internet access and most of my house-hold goods still in boxes it has been a slow time, for that I apologize.
I'll see what I can do and will have more time tomorrow.
BTW, Statue of liberty price should be (this is from memory now) 80, I believe.
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Yaga
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Hey Mkinser,
Don't worry about the Balancer sub directory. There're some things in it, but its contents don't need to be moved.
Yaga
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WesW
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Florence, Al., USA
Jan 1970
time: 23:16
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Regarding ship movement- I think that the increases made in the 1.5 version are sufficient. Of course, naval warfare is a small sideshow in my games. Since there are no ocean TIs to pillage and defend nor trade routes to pirate as in Ctp, I do not see naval power as ever being a big factor in the game, unless you want to bulk up for a Normandy-like invasion. If you play on a water world, however, then things will be different.
I read in the patch fixes an item about advances being displayed correctly. I forget exactly what it said, but I hoped that it meant you could add new icons. Since you guys are adding new stuff to the game, I have some files you might want to look at.
One is the tech tree for the Medpack II. Harlan, I and another guy spent about 6 hours a day for a month developing it, and it is simply the best tree ever designed for a civ game. I am finally getting access restored to my Apolyton site after months, so I can post individual files like the GL if you want the descriptions and graphics that accompany the advances. I am also about to post city improvement graphics for all the ones in Ctp2 for the Crusade release, if you want to use those for your new improvements.
I can also post a list of the new Wonders I added to the Medpack I and II. The last version of the Medpack I was called "Age of Wonders", where I added dozens primarily to help the AIs, who could not shift out of wonder production if someone beat them to it, and thus lost the use of their best cities for anything else. These could give you a host of new ideas for your mod.
I don't know if I will eventually put together a Medpack III or not, but until then just ask me for stuff, and I will do whatever I can to help you guys out.
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ChaingKaiShek
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AZ, Federal Republic Of America
Oct 2000
time: 05:16
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Now While I do not have any ideas at the moment about what could be done to balance The republic and still make democracy 'desirable' (Mainly because I dont have the civedit screen to look at and see variables I can adjust.) perhaps you can lower the unitcost to one as suggested OR add some free supported units to that government type. Therefore leaving democracy still desirable as it would have lower support costs.
Perhaps as a republic, support costs could be lowered, adjusting the amount of free units (not many mind you.) and then perhaps raise war wariness as well, therefore also making a desire to change to democracy.
Just a few ideas on the matter, I do however have some other ideas about perhaps a new government type and also some wonders which could go along with it. Or maybe just the wonders, as it really would be hard to balance in another government without making it super-powerful.
First idea for a new wonder would be the Works Progress Administration (WPA) which in the united states did strive to bring about a forward movement in the Arts as well as boosting to employment for out of work performers during the great depression. Fitting enough a boost to culture per turn would be great for this wonder, as well as a boost in production maybe. Actually, can you even change production levels through wonders? So maybe I should have looked at the abilities of the editor before running my mouth, but it's too late now! This wonder could also be named "The Federal Theater Project" if Works Progress Administration isn't fitting enough.
And since the theme of American 'wonders' continues, I'll move on to the T.V.A. (Tennessee Valley Authority) granted this one wont fit in as well, as You cannot limit wonders to certain cultures (American mainly) but it can't hurt to add ideas to the mix. The TVA mainly employed workers to build several dams throughout the Tennessee river valley, thus a boost in production perhaps at the cost of culture per turn would be nice for this wonder. As we know now what negative effects such projects can have on the ecosystem of our planet. Then again the Hoover Dam *is* in the game, maybe this one is not needed.
Moving right along I suppose that is all for now, I'm sure I'll come up with more ideas to bore everyone with later. For now I should at least act like I'm trying to work. 
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Elucidus
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I had planned on asking you, Wesw, if I could use a lot of your stuff from CTP1/2, after I got my Internet access back, that is. Of course my desk collapsed last night, damn the movers for not knowing how to put it back together, so I cannot do anything on my computer until I get a new one.
One thing I have noticed. The biggest pain of trying to Mod Civ III with more people than just yourself there is only one file. This means that anytime someone makes a change, you cannot just incorporate it into the original. With text files you could just agree to work on different areas. Or even just send the changes and they could copy and past.
Also, keep the ideas comming, the more the merrier.
I still have to say, please bare with me until I can get my internet access, back. I can't make any corrections or updates until then. See ya later.
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gamecommander
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North Carolina
Nov 2001
time: 00:16
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It looks like now that the patch is out for the game, some of your modding might be overkill in some aspects of the game, especially corruption. Since the patch reduces it, so many ways to cut corruption might not be neccesary, but then again, I haven't played the game patched yet. I plan to finish my current game using v1.51 of the Balancer, then update w/ the patch, reinstalling if needed.
Good luck guys!
Last edited by gamecommander on 09-12-2001 at 23:08
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Elucidus
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Being that the size of the patch is slightly (sarcasm) more than will fit on a floppy disk and that I don't have internet at home, I may not be able to work on this for a while. I am going to try to span the file with winzip. Wish me luck.
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gamecommander
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North Carolina
Nov 2001
time: 00:16
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This post is basically to ask how the next version is coming, and to get the thread back to the top. Perhaps, with the thread back in the spotlight, we can get some more ideas for the mod.
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TheGraduate
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CA, Taiwan, IL, Currently NY
Nov 2001
time: 21:16
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Hello guys, I believe it's my first appearance in this thread even though I have been sticking with this thread since the very beginning. Just want to post this message to say Thanks to all of those who inspired so much into the mod.
After the version changes, however (I uninstalled everything and then patched it, so... everything I had before was gone), I decided not to install any mod for the moment, instead, hoping someone would create a mod using the patched version. Why all these hassel? Well, after hundreds and hundreds of hours into this game, I realized that if there are no new stuffs, wonders, units, unit improvements, it gets tedious... more specialized units with different civilizations might be really nice.
One more thing, the wonders in the later stages of the game are a lot less in quantities and effectiveness, thus the importance. Therefore, without modding, this game is no longer as attractive as before, to me...
Having so much said, I would like to conclude: PLZ guys.. MAKE MORE MODS,.... MORE IMPROVED mods!! Get all the genius out of your brain!!! We all have a Beautiful Mind!!!!....... and I love you all!!
Happiest New Year!!
-TheGraduate
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WesW
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Florence, Al., USA
Jan 1970
time: 23:16
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Have you guys been having a lot of crashes in your games? I have been trying to make the Medpack III, and I keep getting them. I just checked into Ancient's thread, and they are reporting the same thing.
From what I can tell reading posts in the Help forum, the patch made the game much less stable. Apparently, the game file will become corrupted but might not crash until much later. We had this same problem with the Ctp games.
I have been wondering why the files forum seems less active than it was a few weeks ago, and these crashes may be the reason.
As for me, I have started the mod over using the patch bic file, and I have re-installed the game and the patch.
Btw, last night I added 2 new govt's to the game. Their stats are below. I feel good about them, and if you want to use them here that would be fine.
#GOVT_City_State
^
^
^Under a City State, you as the Speaker for the State Assembly command by the power of that aristocratic assembly, which is drawn from the ruling classes of the individual cities of your culture. City State governments are very commerce-focused, favoring the marketplace and restricting governmental intervention into private affairs. This allows for greater $LINK than other governments of its era. Due to extensive secret police networks in each city, enemy $LINK missions to investigate cities never succeed. On the downside, the every-man-for-himself tendancies and policies of a assembly cause a lot of $LINK, a low tolerance for military police, some war weariness and little support for a draft.
The City State is designed for a small, highly-developed commerce state with little miitary aggressiveness.
^
^Worker efficiency...............100%
^Hurry Method.....................Paid Labor
^Corruption / Waste...........Rampant
^War Weariness.................Low
^Draft Rate..........................1
^Military Police Limit ...............1
^Unit Support
^ per town........................2
^ per city...........................4
^ per metropolis...............6
#GOVT_Theocracy
^
^
^Under a Theocracy, as the Annointed One of a theocratic state, you command supreme rule over the people and the nation.
Theocratic governments are focused on expanding the faith, by military means if necessary. This allows for higher unit support per city, no war weariness and large support for a draft. Also, corruption is spread evenly across all the cities of your religion. Due to the conviction of the citizens of a theocratic regime, and the vigilance of the Inquisition, enemy $LINK missions to plant spies never succeed, while theocratic spies are excellent at their craft. On the downside, the priests are quick to pull out the whip to hurry production, which is bad for the performance of the infidels and sinners forced to work developing the cities and countryside.
The Theocracy is designed for large, poorly-developed states bent upon the forcible domination of their neighbors.
^
^Worker efficiency.............50%
^Hurry Method...................Forced Labor
^Corruption / Waste..........Communal
^War Weariness................None
^Draft Rate........................3
^Military Police Limit ...........3
^Unit Support
^ per town......................3
^ per city.........................5
^ per metropolis..............8
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Yaga
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All,
Dunno about you, but I still play The Balancer whenever I play Civ. Having gone through the game half a dozen times since the patch came out and Monk and Elucid wandered off to the real world, I was thinking of releasing some of the mods I'd made to their mods to this list.
If anyone is still playing and/or interested, and there are mods you'd like to see and or think need some tweaking, feel free to post them here; I'll probably include them.
Some of the things in the works for Yaga's Balancer Mod Mod are:
- Two new government types: Constitutional Monarchy (Industrial) and City State. (Revision of Republic for Ancient times - Republic to be moved to late med.)
- Each Civ will have *TWO* UU's - one every other era. (meaning that the Americans, with a Modern UU, will get a Medieval one, and the Eqyptians, with an Ancient, will get an industrial)
- Additional city improvements in all eras
- Additonal small wonders in all eras
- Totally revamped Naval units - power, movement, etc. Also a new unit, the coracle, a 1 movement naval unit available very early on.
- Modification of some of the changes previously made by Monkspiter and Elucidus
- I am also attempting to revamp the tech tree a little so as to add derivitive techs
As always, fair gameplay and ultimately *balancing* will be the goal.
Ah, also, I suck at making new graphics. Anyone who'd want to help would be greatly encouraged.
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Elucidus
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Hey guys,
I'm back. Sorry for the lapse. I want to re-work on the mod, but don't know where things stand. I'll see if I can contact Monkspider. I should have my DSL in a couple of weeks, until then I at least have dial-up.
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Moonspiker your web page is not working. It said unavailable.
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04-12-2001 14:19
) I changed my gov to democracy at that time, this causing my annual cashflow plunge from +7/turn to -80/turn. I had to adjust my tax rate to 70%! Since I was playing on a huge map science would now only come every 12-19 turns while the Americans whose military forces more than outnumbered me still got their advances every 7-9 turns, even though being a democracy as well. Of course I was hoplessly backwards after a short period of time.
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