19-11-2001 00:53									#1
	Some ideas to improve mods Enter the AD-FREE zone

Hi,
I've played Civ3 a whopping one time, but already there are some things I'd like to see changed. Since I'm too lazy to make a mod myself, I'm hoping someone else will like these ideas, and want to incorporate them.

1. I see the need for two new strategic resources. First is Tin. Why Tin, you ask? In the same way that Saltpeter is the limiting feature in the making of gunpowder, tin was the limiting factor in the making of bronze. In history people traded far and wide to get tin - for instance mediterranean powers going thousands of miles into uncivilized lands to trade with tribal people in southern England for tin. Tin would be very common since one doesn't want to trip up civs too much early. It would be needed for some bronze age units.

2. Second needed strategic resource: Timber. In ancient times, not all civs could build navies - only civs with access to very long and broad timber could build ships. Compare for instance Phoenicia which became a huge naval power because of their forests, and Egypt, which had to hire out mercanaries for virtually all their naval needs cos they had no forests at all. All ships up to Ironclad would need this.

3. Luxury resources should occasionally come later with certain technologies, and should disappear over time even more than strategic resources do. Think about it. People's tastes in luxuries changed greatly over time. Silks were the end all be all luxury for a while in ancient times, but now are no big deal. Spices used to be incredibly important to keep food from rotting on long voyages, but died out in importance with refrigeration and so forth. There should be some modern luxuries in the game as the old ones die out - tobacco, opium, coffee, exotic fruits, and so forth.

What would be the impact on gameplay? You'd have to be on your toes more to keep your civ happy. The trade situation would be more fluid.

4. Naval units need to move faster!

5. After playing my first game with numerous elite units involved in battles and not a single leader created, I seriously think the odds of leader creation need to be reduced (even without any wonder help) from about 1/16 to 1/12.

6. A cool thing would be to have more wonders and small wonders, but use the government type limitation much, much more often. Just about every wonder could only be built by one or another type of government. Then you could have identical or very similar wonders for different government types. For instance, a modern happiness wonder for a communist government would be different than the one built by democracies or fascists.

One nice thing about this is there would be less competition for the same wonder. In the game I played, there was far too much of this. All civs were close in the tech race, so when a tech with a new wonder was discovered, it would be just about the only one available, and every civ would go for it. To compensate this lack of competition, make wonders more expensive so you really need to want it to get it, or more expiration limits.

This would make the choosing of a government type much more of an important type. It also would promote more on the fly decision making. Rather than always follow the same government path, it would be more effective to take the path less chosen. All the other civs are Republics but no one is Communist? Go Communist and get all the wonders for yourself.

7. The improvements making naval and air units veterans should be decoupled from the Harbor and Airport improvements. These are useful enough without creating veteran status. These should be separate improvements - perhaps Naval Academy or Flight School off the top of my head.

8. More bonus resources - six types is so weak.

More ideas later.

	19-11-2001 23:55									#2
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I just came up with an idea I’m very psyched about – I hope someone will use it. Playing my first game or two, one thing I immediately noticed that bothered me: the map eventually turns into an endless grid of roads and then later railroads. I don’t like that at all.

Here’s a solution I came up with. Divide the Worker unit into two types: Worker and Miner. A Worker could do most jobs but mining, and miners vice versa. Then make the Worker unit a “Wheeled” unit, so it can’t go on Mountains or Jungle. This way, roads and railroads on Mountains and Jungle are completely impossible, but one can still Mine mountains.

Now jungles and mountains become serious barriers. This is a very good thing, I believe.

Hopefully when the editing features are refined, one will be able to specify which terrain types one wants to be impassable. If this is the case, I’d make Forest also impassable to Worker units. So now there is a much stronger incentive than before to deforest. This also resolves the annoying graphical feature of roads and railroads on top on forests, instead of actually going through them.

	20-11-2001 00:35									#3
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There is one problem with that idea Harlan, and I've run into a similar problem with some other unit ideas. It's very annoying, but it has to do with he AI strategy Terraform for units.

To select terraform you must have ALL the abilitys a worker has on the unit. And I mean ALL of them. You can't even remove join city or automate, or clean pollution.

So if you make any such adjustment to workers then I believe the AI will not use them properly. I'm not entirely sure what the AI does when no strategy is selected by a unit, so that is a possibility, but I doubt it.

	20-11-2001 01:09									#4
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Good point about the timber, remember that Solomon's temple was made with cedar from lebannon.

I don't know about tin, it seems kinda like nickel and dime stuff to me.

(there's a joke there somewhere)

but I think in my mod I'll try something like adding timber, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea.



Ezekiel 31:3 "Behold, the Assyrian [was] a cedar in Lebanon with
fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs."

	20-11-2001 01:14									#5
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There are a number of nice new mods for the game. But none of them seem to be tackling problems with the tech tree (that I've seen yet, anyways). Here are some suggestions for the messed up tech tree, the philosophy being lets do the absolute minimum to get rid of the worst problems:

Ancient Age:

Code of Laws or at least Writing should be a prereq for Monarchy.

Literacy should be a prereq for Republic.

Polytheism should be a prereq for Philosophy.

Middle Ages:

Invention should be a prereq for Education, not Theology.

Education should be a prereq for Printing Press.

Navigation should be a prereq for Magnetism.

Economics should be necessary to move to next age.

Economics should be a prereq for Democracy, not Banking.

Industrial Age:

Industrialization should be the prereq for Electricity, not Steam Power.

Steel should be the prereq for Replacable Parts, not Electricity.

Scientific Method should be a prereq for The Corporation.

Replacable Parts should be a prereq for Electronics.

Industrialization should be a prereq for Communism.

Adv. Flight should be necessary before moving to next age.

Replacable Parts should be a prereq for Combustion (Replacable Parts - Mass Production link no longer needed).

Flight prereqs should be Radio and Mass Production. This makes the Adv. Flight prereqs Flight and Motorized Transportation.


Modern Age I'm going to have to think about some more. Its so competely messed up and threadbare that it needs another tech or two to be made workable at all.

	20-11-2001 01:22									#6
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Plutarck,
I just looked in the editor, and I see what you mean. But if I go to the Worker unit, and unselect Mining as an option, the Terraform option becomes greyed out, yet still remains checked. So could that mean that the Terraform option is still working, even though its greyed out?

Add yet another thing to demand for the patch!

	20-11-2001 05:34									#7
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Harlan:

As for Terraform, I don't think it does. If you select it, change it so it grays out, save, close the editor, then re-open it, you'll find that apparently it doesn't save the box when it's grayed out.

However I wonder what would happen if it was hex-edited into using the terraform strategy? Not sure it would work, but I don't know what happens when you do that to any building like giving a small wonder a great wonder ability. The game might just ignore it or crash, or there is the extremely off chance that it would work.


I really like your review of the tech tree though, and encourage you to continue working on it and expanding it. After a patch or two revamping the tech tree would be the obvious next step in the advancing of civ3 mods.

	21-11-2001 22:25									#8
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Plutarck,
People are already looking into hex editing, and at this point its clear one can't change a great wonder to a small one and so on, even at that level. But that could be because of the structure of the BIC file, and that in future patches that structure will change. Lets hope so.

"I really like your review of the tech tree though, and encourage you to continue working on it and expanding it. After a patch or two revamping the tech tree would be the obvious next step in the advancing of civ3 mods."

Glad you like the ideas. They're looking for a home - maybe you'd want to incorporate some into your mod? The idea is to do the bare minimum number of changes on the tech tree, at least for starters. I know some people will completely revise the whole thing, but I'd at least for starters like to play somewhat close to Firaxis' original intention of how the game should work.

	22-11-2001 12:10									#9
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Tin and Timber - well, could be worth a try. You should, however, not be completely helpless without these resources.

Luxuries tech-dependent - makes sense if it is doable.

Faster naval units - anyone who does NOT agree? Until railroads, ships should be about as fast as mounted units on roads.

It is a good idea to split the civilian and military effects of harbours and airports.

I am working on a changed tech tree. Thanks for the ideas.

	22-11-2001 22:50									#10
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timber sounds like a great idea! and tin is well...sounds good






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	22-11-2001 23:15									#11
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Great idea Harlan!
Are you lazy??? Wasn't it you who made like 200 WW2,WW1 units for us to use in CTP? ;-)

I also think it looks really messy with roads over mountains and jungle. If you just could build roads on flat ground it would become much better!
You should tell Firaxis about that.

	23-11-2001 01:51									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Harlan There are a number of nice new mods for the game. But none of them seem to be tackling problems with the tech tree (that I've seen yet, anyways).

Actually Harlan, I am currently reworking the tech tree so that it is more like it was in CIV2. I also use some of the Unique units to make some of the 'useless' tech more profitable. (currently made it to late medieval, but now it starts to get screwy since I am missing units )

	23-11-2001 19:24									#13
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Does anyone know how to take a screenshot? I would quite like to post my 'reformed' tech tree here.

	23-11-2001 19:44									#14
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quote: Ancient Age: Code of Laws or at least Writing should be a prereq for Monarchy. Literacy should be a prereq for Republic. Polytheism should be a prereq for Philosophy.

1. Writing, definitely not, I'd say... there were crude forms of monarchies (as separate from a despotism) wherein literacy was next to nil. Code of Laws? Maybe, maybe...

2. Yes, that I can wholeheartedly agree with. But the only concern I see is that by adding more prereqs to the gov techs you further limit the speed in which one can access them, and that can make all the difference early on.

3. I disagree with you here- there's no reason why someone cannot begin to logically persue a humanistic form of thought without first believing in gods.

quote: Middle Ages: Invention should be a prereq for Education, not Theology. Education should be a prereq for Printing Press. Navigation should be a prereq for Magnetism. Economics should be necessary to move to next age. Economics should be a prereq for Democracy, not Banking.

1. Definitely not- religious schools played a vital role in many civilizations whenever they reached a 'dark age' of their development. The temple-scribes of ancient Greece, the monastic schools of Christendom, and the retreats of China all played a part in handing downt the knowledge of yesteryear to their descendants.

2. Yes, that would make a good about of sense.

3. The Chinese developed magnetic loadstones without ever building a comparable ship to those featured in Navigation- they never were able to get anywhere with it though, due to an edict by the Emperor.

4. Any reason why? It seems to me federally backed and fully integrated economic systems didn't appear until after democracies mobilized their resources to assist in their development.

quote: Industrial Age: Industrialization should be the prereq for Electricity, not Steam Power. Steel should be the prereq for Replacable Parts, not Electricity. Scientific Method should be a prereq for The Corporation. Replacable Parts should be a prereq for Electronics. Industrialization should be a prereq for Communism. Adv. Flight should be necessary before moving to next age. Replacable Parts should be a prereq for Combustion (Replacable Parts - Mass Production link no longer needed). Flight prereqs should be Radio and Mass Production. This makes the Adv. Flight prereqs Flight and Motorized Transportation.

1. Except that Steam Power should be a prereq for Industrialization...

2. Yes, I agree here.

3. Sounds good...

4. I don't see why this should be as it you say- replaceable parts mainly concerns itself with the assembly line, in my opinion, and in that electricity assisted it.

5. Yes.

6. No- I see no reason that people must know how to fly to advance to other things...

7. & 8. Both look good to me...

quote: Does anyone know how to take a screenshot? I would quite like to post my 'reformed' tech tree here.

The little Print Screen button over top of the Insert? Press that and then open paint proggie, 'paste' and voilá!

	23-11-2001 20:20									#15
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Ok, here is my tech tree for the ancient times. I pinched printing press and chemistry from the middle ages and created the two new advances Seafaring (Currency+Mapmaking) and Military Organization (Basically all the military advances combined). This allows you to craete units like Legions and War Chariots for all Civs.

Ideally I want a wonder for Polytheism (Pantheon) because it no longer does anything.

Attachment: tech1.jpg
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	23-11-2001 21:25									#16
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What units would need Military Organization?

	23-11-2001 21:57									#17
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Well in order to have enough units to make everything work I copied the Legion (needs Iron), War Chariot(needs Horses) and Bowman (doesn't need anything) which are one step up from the Swordsman, Chariot and Archer. It's basically a tech you pick if you want good units without moving all the way to the middle ages first (kind of like Military Tradition at the end of Middle Ages)

	23-11-2001 23:16									#18
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Nice to see this thread is helping inspire some good debate. Too bad I don't have much time during this Thanksgiving vacation except to periodically check in on forums. I'll get around to finishing off the last age of the tech tree ideas later .

Some quick thoughts for Cian:

2. Yes, that I can wholeheartedly agree with. But the only concern I see is that by adding more prereqs to the gov techs you further limit the speed in which one can access them, and that can make all the difference early on.

That's the main reason for this change - to make Republic harder to get.

3. I disagree with you here- there's no reason why someone cannot begin to logically persue a humanistic form of thought without first believing in gods.

Look at the history of philosophy in ancient Greece, China, India. It arose in specific response to religion. Technically it needent be that way, but there's a clear pattern of how it actually happened in all the major civs.

3. The Chinese developed magnetic loadstones without ever building a comparable ship to those featured in Navigation- they never were able to get anywhere with it though, due to an edict by the Emperor.

I don't see what the point of this is - the tech is not called "Compass".

4. Any reason why? It seems to me federally backed and fully integrated economic systems didn't appear until after democracies mobilized their resources to assist in their development.

Not sure of your point here, and which idea it was connected to (of the two economics ones).

1. Except that Steam Power should be a prereq for Industrialization...

It already is - I was just adding a second.

4. I don't see why this should be as it you say- replaceable parts mainly concerns itself with the assembly line, in my opinion, and in that electricity assisted it.

The main idea here is to connect Electronics with the rest of the tech tree - one can go absurdly far without it.

6. No- I see no reason that people must know how to fly to advance to other things...

Take a look at the Modern Age techs. A very high number of them have to do with flying, and space. You obviously shouldn't be able to do something like a Stealth Flighter without having Adv. Flight.

	24-11-2001 00:11									#19
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quote: 2. Yes, that I can wholeheartedly agree with. But the only concern I see is that by adding more prereqs to the gov techs you further limit the speed in which one can access them, and that can make all the difference early on. That's the main reason for this change - to make Republic harder to get.

I see then... but why should it be harder to obtain? The way the game is set up you have crippling corruption/waste if you try to expand too much or you cannot field the number of units (not to mention garnering the techpoints for all the necessary researches) with Despotism. The only way not to fall behind early on is get the essential techs (Bronze Working/Ceremonial Burial) and then make a beeline for whichever government you're aiming for. By restricting the access of one you would tend to make people more favorable towards the other goverment, and as it's Monarchy, possibly through the early game into a fragfest

quote: 3. I disagree with you here- there's no reason why someone cannot begin to logically persue a humanistic form of thought without first believing in gods. Look at the history of philosophy in ancient Greece, China, India. It arose in specific response to religion. Technically it needent be that way, but there's a clear pattern of how it actually happened in all the major civs.

True, true- I can concede to that...

quote: 3. The Chinese developed magnetic loadstones without ever building a comparable ship to those featured in Navigation- they never were able to get anywhere with it though, due to an edict by the Emperor. I don't see what the point of this is - the tech is not called "Compass".

Yeah, but Magnetization symbolizes the ability to find lodestone or make new magnetized compasses to help aid in rudmentary navigation- and the Chinese show that one was possible without the other.

[QUTOE]4. Any reason why? It seems to me federally backed and fully integrated economic systems didn't appear until after democracies mobilized their resources to assist in their development.

Not sure of your point here, and which idea it was connected to (of the two economics ones).[/QUOTE]

Um... Basically my point was that flourishing economic systems (Economics) didn't develop until there were adequate democratic institutions to help support them. Basically that in this case of Chicken & Egg, the Democracy seems to have come first (not necessarily directly, but enough that Economics shouldn't be a prereq).

quote: 1. Except that Steam Power should be a prereq for Industrialization... It already is - I was just adding a second.

Ahh... okay.

quote: 4. I don't see why this should be as it you say- replaceable parts mainly concerns itself with the assembly line, in my opinion, and in that electricity assisted it. The main idea here is to connect Electronics with the rest of the tech tree - one can go absurdly far without it.

Now that I can understand- but is it not possible to do so without rearraging earlier advances?

quote: 6. No- I see no reason that people must know how to fly to advance to other things... Take a look at the Modern Age techs. A very high number of them have to do with flying, and space. You obviously shouldn't be able to do something like a Stealth Flighter without having Adv. Flight.

I see, but why can't Adv. Flight be pushed into Modern Era anyways? I was sorta surprised to see it in Industrial anyways

	24-11-2001 00:12									#20
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And here is my tech tree for the middle ages. As I mentioned above, chemistry and printing press are missing as I needed two extra techs in the ancient era.

There are a lot of techs that are not needed for advancing, but considering that there are not that many units, the middle ages should probably be quite short anyway. And looking back at Earth's history, precious little was invented during the middle ages (Hence the Dark Ages )

Attachment: tech2.jpg
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	24-11-2001 00:15									#21
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Oops, a few things are wrong. Navigation should be required for advancement and will also yield an advanced version of the Caravel. And Military Tradition has somehow been pushed off the screen.

	24-11-2001 03:42									#22
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Since Civ 1, Magnetism has allowed the most advanced sailing craft. I don't like that, because if compasses played a great role in naval history, it was well before ships started carrying guns.

The physical nature of magnetism was not understood until mid-19th century (Faraday, Ørsted and Maxwell).

Long before that, at least before Columbus, compasses had been commonly used in navigation.

The discoveries that made large ships able to cross the oceans safely were tools such as chronometers and telescopes. Maybe Physics should make Galleons available?

By he way, Theory of Gravity should be merged into Physics.

	24-11-2001 23:12									#23
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Arkatreides,
Unfortunately I'll have to wait a day or two before I can take a close look at your tech tree. I'll be especially interested though to see what you come up with for the Modern Age.

	25-11-2001 22:46									#24
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Some cool ideas here

	26-11-2001 06:08									#25
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From everything I've read on these forums. I have a few ideas I'd like to put forward for the tech tree (and related improvements etc!)
Now I realise that some of my ideas have already been slated elsewhere, and that some are just plain IMPOSSIBLE with the current editor, but I put them all here for completeness!!

1) Woodworking (Carpentry): Allows timber as strategic resource, leads on from bronze working (to make the tools neccessary!) Allows earliest sea-going vessels (the naval equivelent of a scout?!)

2) Move military academy back to Fuedalism or even monarchy!

3) Have military tradition enable the Small Wonder-"National War Memorial", which also requires the civ to have lost at least 3 units in battle! Effect: reduces War Weariness.

4) Have democracy enable the Small Wonder Federal Court or Supreme Court (Other requirement-at least 5 courthouses!) Effect: Reduces ALL Corruption nationwide (on same land mass)?

5) Move U.N back to Radio (as it was going to be originally!), and have radio enable the improvement "Media Outlet" (an amalgam of the local TV/Radio/Telephone network) Effect: Increases happiness, increases resistance to propaganda and REDUCES distance corrruption.

6) Somehow make TMP a minor wonder (as it was supposed to be!)

7) Have The Statue of Wonder: A great wonder available only to Democracy and Republic governments. Effect: Reduces war weariness.

8) Have a new minor wonder "War Rallies" available only to fascist and communist governments (Requirement-5 media outlets) Effect: Reduces war weariness, reduces susceptiblity to propaganda nation wide.

9) Have the Fascist tech enable Fascist governemnt; the Stormtrooper unit (resource required: Saltpetre??) and the "Improvement" forced labour camp (Limited to despotism, fascism and communism.) Effect: Increases forced labour rate and improves assimiliation rate of foreign nationals.

10) Reduce Universal Sufferage to a minor wonder available only to Democracies and Republics (Also requires at least 5 libraries??). Same effect.

11) Have music theory enable "Bach's Well Tempered Clavier"

12) Have Theology enable Government: Theocracy and Unit: Religious Crusader (like knight, but with higher attack strength and movement!)
Possible Strategic resource (religious zeal??)

13) Move Tac nukes back to Roketry and ICBM's to Space Flight.

Anyway, just a few ideas: I'd be interested to know what you think.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

	26-11-2001 09:58									#26
	A few more ideas Increase the size of your Attachments

Sorry guys, but I had a few more ideas for mods (once the editing tools have been improved):

1) Have engineering enable the "Sewer Channel" improvement. Effect: Allows city size 3, creates population pollution.

2) Move hospital back to medicine. Effect: Allows city size 4, reduced chance of disease.

3) Have sanitation allow improvement "Sewerage Retreatment Plant". Effect: Increased happiness, reduced population pollution, reduced chance of disease.

4) Have a more advanced disease model: Allowing for the following factors

a) Terrain: Rivers, Jungles, swamps, flood plains=high; Mountains, coastal, deserts=low; Forest, hills, plains=average

b) Population: Higher pop=higher chance of infection

c) Pollution: Higher pollution=higher infection chance

d) Connection to infected cities via trade routes: the more trade routes, the higher the chance of infection.

e) improvements: recylce centre, hospital, sewerage retreatment plant all reduce infection chance.

Anyway, thats it (for now). Like I said, I know a lot of these are not do-able (yet?!) but this is just what I'd like to see!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker

	26-11-2001 12:54									#27
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Sorry to be a pain, but it's me again.

Just a couple more things more my grand "Wish List"

1) Editing roads so that they don't grant enemies their full movement benefits, but at least allow the enemy to treat all terrain as Plains!! (ie. 1 MP/square moved!)

2) MORE POWERFUL NUKES!!!! Capable of literally destroying cities!!!

Anyway, thats all for now.

	26-11-2001 23:58									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Harlan I just came up with an idea I’m very psyched about – I hope someone will use it. Playing my first game or two, one thing I immediately noticed that bothered me: the map eventually turns into an endless grid of roads and then later railroads. I don’t like that at all.

Have you ever seen an aerial photograph of a densly populated area? (landscape, not city) Roads and roads EVERYWHERE. So for having tonnes of roads all around your cities is just realistic. Though roads should cost something in maintainence. say, 1 gold per three or four units or something.

quote: Here’s a solution I came up with. Divide the Worker unit into two types: Worker and Miner. A Worker could do most jobs but mining, and miners vice versa. Then make the Worker unit a “Wheeled” unit, so it can’t go on Mountains or Jungle. This way, roads and railroads on Mountains and Jungle are completely impossible, but one can still Mine mountains. Now jungles and mountains become serious barriers. This is a very good thing, I believe.

It is a stupid thing. We have built roads through dense forests and over steep mountains for ages. Look at the alps. Lots of roads there, and I would definatly class that as mountainious areas

quote: Hopefully when the editing features are refined, one will be able to specify which terrain types one wants to be impassable. If this is the case, I’d make Forest also impassable to Worker units. So now there is a much stronger incentive than before to deforest. This also resolves the annoying graphical feature of roads and railroads on top on forests, instead of actually going through them.

I agree that roads and railroads should go through a clearing or something in forests, but still I must say that Civ3 has the best looking road-net of all Civ-games so far. Not all those straight lines making you belive that all your ppl are BORG or something

	23-07-2002 04:47									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Wyrmo Have you ever seen an aerial photograph of a densly populated area? (landscape, not city) Roads and roads EVERYWHERE. So for having tonnes of roads all around your cities is just realistic.

Same thing with railroads. The thing is that the graphics should be more discrete.