10-05-2002 06:00									#61
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I also feel that an AWACS (Airborne Warning And Control System) unit would be good. I'm looking over graphics that could prove useful for that...I don't suppose you have any idea how to increase radar range?

As for suggestions, I'd say this would be my naval suggestions

Industrial -> Modern

Dreadnought -> None
Battleship -> None
Cruiser - > AEGIS Cruiser
Destroyer -> AEGIS Destroyer
Carrier -> Nuclear Carrier
Sub -> Attack sub
None -> Boomer (Missile Sub)
None -> Missile Frigate

Modern and Industrial each have six ships in this system. I'm hoping very, very much that a way can be found to give a Frigate a helicopter that can see subs and do recon. That would make the modern frigate a ASW asset, as it should be, while the destroyer bombards ships and shore positions. Here's hoping.

As for air units...

Industrial -> Modern

Fighter -> Jet fighter/Stealth Fighter
Bomber -> Jet bomber/ Stealth Bomber*
Recon Aircraft/Artillery Spotter (Biplane) -> AWACS
Paratrooper -> Transport Helicopter

Maybe we could also have a Rocket -> Cruise Missile chain?

* I think that jet bombers should be the dominant late game bomber, which are complimented by smaller numbers of stealth bombers, due to the relative costs of both. I mean, the USAF once had hundreds and hundreds of B-52s, and even more B-47s, but has under two two dozen B-2s, IIRC.

If I really wanted to be picky, I could also suggest two different upgrades from the recon plane. A cheaper, shorter ranged one would be an E-2 Hawkeye, a propeller driven plane used for scouting and airborne control off of aircraft carrier decks, and the larger E-3 Sentry, which is a four-engined jet (Modifed 707, I think) with a roto-dome attached, that has greater capabilities, but is land based.

I'm still looking over ground units.

Comments are EAGERLY awaited.

Matt

	10-05-2002 08:36									#62
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Oh sure, sneak up on me while I'm eating....

I'll only reply to those that we arent in argreement about.

quote: Originally posted by Harlan Numerous other mods have government specific wonders, and I don't know of any problems. If you change governments, apparently the effects of the wonder still last. The AI Settler thing doesn't sound good. Howabout trying increasing the shield cost of Settlers, and see if the AI is smarter about that? That could have the same slow down effect.

I thought about increasing cost (cant remember if I slightly increased it or not). It usually only affected the first settler built by a city. it appears to me that a settler is hardcoded for each AI city.

quote: Refrigeration (renamed longevity) Sounds more like an advance, but I did the rename and move here as well I thought of calling it an advance then coming up with a ganary type building and have ganaries obsolete with industrialization. Given the limited flags available, I don't like the idea. Because just when food production should be surging, all your granaries disappear and your growth actually goes down. Rebuild them, and you're only back where you started. CTP had an improvement flag that allowed you to boost food growth by 10 or 20%, so there was a modern Silo building. But lacking that flag, no need for this (also the Granary graphic changes to a Silo looking thing over time).

OK, you convinced me. Seems like refrigeration was so important that I wish there was some way to incorporate it but I cant think of anything.

quote: I partially disagree on this one. GPS allows exact positioning which decreases course corrections whch allows you to get there faster (thus traveling farther). If I had satellites up, there's nothing to say i MUST allow others to use it. I'm greedy...mine mine mine Its one of those things where you can't stop others from using it, just like anyone with a radio can pick up radio stations. No matter how greedy you are! So I still disagree that the makers of a GPS system have their ships go faster.

I was under the misconception that GPS was a encypted signal. You win.

quote: radio network (free radio stations) I picked radio because we already have that advance, and it had such a unifying effect its its early days, plus its range is greater than tv. Notice that in most coups, radio stations are targeted very quickly. Also, i'd double their effect, not free stations, since it takes x number of them before you get a network. I still prefer Hollywood. Come on - the stars, the action, the glamour! Radio can't compete. True, radio had its moment, but Hollywood was huge then, and is still huge now. Also, a very specific thing, as opposed to "radio network", which seems to me nothing more than a bunch of radio stations.

Altho I understand everyone's infatuation with Hollywood, I'm not of the mindset that hollywood has crossed the line between being entertaining and being a drain on society. Just witness any of the "historical" movies the last 20 years. Maybe Hollywood could have a negative science impact

quote: treasury bonds (5% interest) Its a late industrial age wonder. I couldnt think of a good name. i had toyed with Commodities Exchange (there's those chicago roots again) I still don't see the point - you already have another wonder doing this, isn't that enough?

Yep, but i hate that 50 gold limit...grrrrrrrrrrrr

quote: Great Wall (change function to Walls in every city?) X Walls, city must have Walls Despotism only I'd leave its benfits as are. I wouldnt attach a gov-type to a physical wonder. The wall once built is there regardless of gov type. The problem is, is Walls aren't being built, then what's the point of doubling them? If we can solve the problem of getting more Walls built, then keep current function, if not, then change it. As I mentioned before, the effects of a wonder stay even when you change gvmts. Clearly only a Despotic type gvmt could mobilize the workforce to build the Great Wall. Apparently hundreds of thousands died during the construction.

Someone always beats me to GW so I know they are building walls. Dont foget the benefit against the barbarians. I see your point about the gov.

quote: Hoover Dam coastal, X Hydro Plants ? I'd leave exactly as it currently is. Unless you want to change it to the TVA (tennessee valley authority). The dam MUST be a river wonder not coastal. In the case of Hoover, its a lone dam supplying power for a large region. Whoa - I just realized something through this typo. The river flag is an improvement flag, which means improvement flags work for all great and small wonders! I didn't really realize that. That could lead to some cool stuff. Perhaps X Factories is a better requirement than X Hydro Plants (plus river). I don't want this very powerful wonder to be easy to make.

quote: Manhattan Project Uranium, city must have Factory i would say barracks and universty being that the University of Chicago did alot of the initial work as i understand it. Okay. I was trying to get at the fact that one needs a large industrial base to even try to make the Manhattan Project, so maybe keep Factory prereq as well, or X Factories in civ.

But this was more a research project than a production project so I'd still vote for X Universities.

quote: Shakespeare’s Theater (boost usefulness) Monarchy only, X Colliseums, city must have Colliseum i'd favor adding a theatre building and using that instead of colosseums. Affects 8 citizins is pretty good benefit already. Only requirement would be city has a theatre. I can see the appeal of a Theater Building, but what would it do? I'm against culture only things, as mentioned before.

Theatres are happiness buildings and some culture.

quote: Smith’s Trading Company X Banks, city must have Bank Monarchy only Disagree on this being gov dependent. I'd love to make it civ attribute dependent (commercial only). Unfortunately we can't make these attribute dependent, which really sucks. Some of these government assignments are kind of arbitrary just to have a number of unique ones for each gvmt type. I drop this requirement if you like. Part of the thinking was to prevent Empire or Theocracy gvmts from being able to build this. We can't have more than one gvmt requirement, or I would make it Republic or Monarchy. Maybe make a Republic equivalent?

Yes, lets add a republic version, too.

quote: United Nations Democracy only what about civs that supposedly shun democracy? They wouldn't build this. This definitely needs a civ limit - would you trust a United Nations built in a Fascist country?

Personally i wouldnt, but what if have the civs are communist or fascist? I've seen games were they were all communist.

quote: Moon Landing (renamed Apollo Program) Aluminum, 4 Research Labs, city must have Research Lab awww, give the USA credit. We are still the only ones to walk on the moon. If you think there's nothing strange in have 5 or more Apollo Programs, then fine. I guess the God Apollo is just really popular!

Good point. But moon landing is too specific. Lets call it Space Colonization. After all, the international space station is advancing space science but as far as I know, there's no thought of any more moon landings.

	10-05-2002 08:50									#63
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I think we need to agree on what the Manhatten Project was. First of all, it was getting all of the brains together at the University of Chicago, I think, to figure out if an atomic weapon was even feasible. Once they'd decided that it could be done, and discovered how to do it, they all moved out to the Nevada desert to actually get the thing done.

I can see the argument behind needing a university and needing a factory, but I say university is more important.

Matt

	10-05-2002 09:07									#64
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quote: Originally posted by Harlan [QUOTE]Royal Foundry requires: Monarchy, Copper and Iron in city radius effect: +50 production in city good idea, but way way too powerful. when its available, most cities are lucky to have 10 shields. adding 50 shields to a ancient city would create a monster production center that would unbalance the game.

OHHHHHHHH, 50%!!!! I was thinking 50 shields.

quote: A couple of notes. First, I haven't included tech prereqs for any of these, since the tech tree is in flux. Maybe you want to go through all the wonders and suggest which techs they'd belong to. This could have a tech making it come later. Second, I also haven't included when wonders expire, for similar reasons. But this is one I definitely would want to expire, or else it would get really huge once Factories and such came along. So a productive city yes, but only for a limited time. The Iron Works is 100% boost and isn't destabilizing, and Mills would give a 25% boost, so I don't think a 50% boost is that big. Esp. since you have no control over what city has both Copper and Iron, if any - it could be a marginal city.

Yeah, once we nail down the wonders and units and buildings we can backtrack to see what advances are needed.

quote: National Mint requires: Copper, city must have Marketplace effect: +3 happiness, good culture amount i'd think bank would be a better requirement than market. I'm thinking this would be a much earlier thing, maybe even Currency as prereq. After all, governments had Mints making coins as far back as there were coins.

quote: Angkor Wat requires: Theocracy, Spices effect: +50 production in city, +1 happiness in continent i'd lose the production boost, i dont see the connection. Connection: see the comments about Hydraulic Despotism, and how these huge monuments actually helped the economy. Which reminds me - this should be another river only.

quote: Cluny Abbey requires: Theocracy, Cathedral in city effect: free Monastery in every city, Monastery gives +25% production (Monastery cannot be built otherwise) neutral on this one Do you know much about the Cluny Abbey? Its a bit obscure since it was destroyed and thus isn't a tourist attraction and all that. But in the Middle Ages the Cluny Abbey was the largest church in the world, bigger than the Vatican. It was the headquarters of the Benedictine Monks, who established a network of Monasteries that became very effective economically. So much so, they grew so wealthy and powerful that there was eventually a big backlash. I looked through history for an example like this, cos I'm thinking the Theocracy gvmt is going to be great for happiness, but very lousy for science, not great for production either. So this could modify those negatives a bit. Similar thinking of Das Kapital and Five Year Plan and Communism (kind of sucky gvmt gets good if you get the wonders that goes with it). Note that this would expire before Industrialization, or else it would be too powerful (esp. if this and the Communist wonders were operating simultaneously).

I admit i'd never heard of it and hadnt had time to research it. Sounds reasonable to me.

quote: Code of Hammurabi requires: Empire, Courthouse in city effect: free Courthouse in every city on continent This code was the basis of most civs, so I'd not make it gov specific. Yeah, but you need an absolute ruler to force everyone into obeying something like this, initially.

Regardless of gov type, they all have that certain figure who ultimately has this kind of power.

quote: Wild Goose Pagoda requires: Empire, Silk, 6 Marketplaces effect:+2 free advances never heard of it This is a pretty obscure thing. Its a building in Xian, China. Xian was the Chinese end of the Silk Road, and I went for this over having a Silk Road wonder, since its just a road. I believe it was the 600s AD, a Chinese Buddhist priest went down the Silk Road to gather knowledge about Buddhism. He ended up staying several decades in India, and came back to China with literally tons of books, which boosted knowledge not only of Buddhism, but also science and the outside world generally. The Emperor was so happy about this he built the Wild Goose Pagoda to house all the stuff the priest brought back, and it became a very important Buddhist shine (and still is). So part of the thinking is to have something Silk/ Silk Road related (I love those resource requirements), and also trying to have more than just Europe/ US stuff.

quote: Grand Canal requires: Empire, coastal effect: free Granaries in every city on continent not sure of the correlation between a canal and free granaries The Grand Canal was built (also around 600 AD I think, but it was rebuilt several times) to secure China's food supply. Basically, the south of China had all the food, and the capital (Peking) and other big towns up north suffered from periodic famines. So the canal supported a steady stream of ships carrying food for those towns. About as good a free granaries wonder example in real life as one could hope for, I think.

OHHHHHH. I was thinking it was associated with Venice. My bad.

quote: Internet requires: Democracy, 6 Public Schools effect: free advances known by 2 other civs dont tell china that they cant have the internet (they are #2 in the number of real life users) My thinking here wasn't that only Democracies could have the Internet, but that only a Democracy could start such a thing. Once its out there, such a thing is impossible to stop (a number of gvmts, including China initially, tried), but a repressive gvmt wouldn't ever approve of the research to invent it. But, thinking about this some more, I realized you can't have the Internet as a Great Wonder that only one civ benefits from. It really needs to be a Small Wonder, don't you think? Maybe Internet as small wonder (I can't think of a function as I'm not at home, but something science related) , and then Silicon Valley as a Great Wonder giving trade requiring the Internet as a prereq. WHat do you think?

Great idea for this to be a small wonder but In the past, I've had trouble getting improvement flags to work on small wonders (back in 1.17 days). Definitely like the Silicon Valley idea.

quote: Supreme Court requires: Democracy, 6 Police Stations effect: Police Station in every city How about this being MI6, or CIA, KGB, or FBI? There already are so many wonders like that, from Intelligence Agency to Secret Service to Pentagon. It just gets confusing. Also, this is also a duplicate of the Secret Service wonder for Fascism, so I thought naming it Supreme Court could symbolically show the difference between those two types.

I understand your thinking, but it needs a different name. i see police and courts as seperate functions. Maybe i watch too many cop shows that show courts against the cops. LOL

quote: Das Kapital requires: Communism, Mill in city effect: Mill in every city correlation? I was thinking this would be a good wonder for a civ that has fallen back on production (rapid industrialization being a key Communist goal). So I initially thought a Factory in every city, but decided that was too powerful. Mill is only half that, and this would be a cool thing in that it could put Mills in towns that otherwise wouldn't have them (no river), so in theory the Communist gov. could leap ahead in production.

A goal yes, but I dont think they ever succeeded in it. Maybe this would be a better 5-year plan.

quote: Krupp Works requires: Fascism, Coal, Iron, Oil, Factory in city effect: Barracks in every city As i understood it, krupp was an industrial complex. Yes, and we can have it boost production in the city is it built in some, too. But it was essentialy a military industrial complex (the Krupps got started centuries earlier as artillery manufacturers), and the industrial heart of Hitler's war machine. The superior weaponry they made gave Germany's new soldiers a leg up. The best fit I could think of for a Barracks - Fascist connection.

Whether it was military or not, it was stil industrial in nature. Sounds like a factory for every continental city benefit would be more realistic.

quote: Nuremberg Rallies requires: Fascism effect: +2 happiness in every city on continent : rallies dont have lasting effects for millenias If you assume this wonder couldn't be made till 1900s and the game ends in 2000, then you don't worry about millenias. In fact, we may want to boost some of the 1900s wonders for that reason (short duration).

OOOPS, i meant centuries. This one still bothers me. I understand the significance of the rallies for a short time but like any large outing the power behind it fades quickly as people get interested in other things. If we keep it, make it cheap, and obsolete after only a few advances later.

quote: Thanks for all the specific comments. However, I would also like to hear some "big picture" comments. For instance, are this many new wonders too many? How many is too many? What do you think generally of the "more wonders but tough requirements to build them" concept? Do you want the City State gvmt in the game or not?

I'm less worried about quantity than I am about logical selections and play balancing. It's hard more me to see whether this will be balanced or not until we've played a few games. That said, we have to make sure that there are no key wonders that would give such a boost that that civ would have an unfair advantage for future wonders. I've liked that in 1.21, wonders are much more distributed among all the civs.

quote: What about the religious type civ switching without anarchy problem? I think having more wonders expire could help (so benefits don't multiply, for instance seeking out every production wonder and becoming a production monster), but it still would be a powerful feature.

from what I've seen so far, I doubt anyone will get far enough ahead that switching will allow them to stockpile the wonders.

quote: I say we quickly resolve which wonders to include, and also which improvements and units, and have a rough idea what they do. We can hone and playtest later. But have that stuff first, and then when you make the tech tree you can factor all this in, in determining which techs to include and their relationships. Next post, I'll work on getting the quote thing down .

	10-05-2002 09:10									#65
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Matt,
Even as I write this, I have a book in my lap called The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, which seems to be the perfect book in figuring out which units to include. Its mostly confirming what I already thought, but now I'm into eras I don't know so much about. I'm up to about 1850, so I'll hold off on commenting to your modern stuff until I finish the book.

But I do have one comment regarding the use of surveillence planes. Are these really useful if planes can only move 8, and radar vision is maxed out at 2? And does the AI know how to use them?

By the way, one wierd thing I just read you guys might find interesting. Turns out the Ironclad should have come earlier, about 1840 instead of 1860. It was made possible by the invention of the screw propeller in 1837, allowing steam ships to not have huge paddlewheels. The US immediately set out to built one, and did. But there was a row between the scientists, and the smarter guy got fired. Then, when it was unveiled with big ceremony, the gun blew up, killing the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Navy, and several congressmen! President Tyler happened to be off getting a snack or would have died too. So the development program was cancelled until the Civil War.

That's the fickleness of history for ya!

	10-05-2002 09:15									#66
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quote: Originally posted by Canadian_Patriot I think we need to agree on what the Manhatten Project was. First of all, it was getting all of the brains together at the University of Chicago, I think, to figure out if an atomic weapon was even feasible. Once they'd decided that it could be done, and discovered how to do it, they all moved out to the Nevada desert to actually get the thing done. I can see the argument behind needing a university and needing a factory, but I say university is more important. Matt

That was my understanding also. i just did a quick lookup of the project and found its cost in 1996 dollars as $20 billion. maybe we can use this to balnce real life costs with game costs (means it cost the same as 10-15 AEGIS Cruisers)

BTW CP, did i miss it, but whats your opinion of these wonders?
What might be nice is that at some point the 3 of us grab a chatroom somewhere and have an interactive brainstorm.

	10-05-2002 09:20									#67
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I'm waiting for you two guys to come to agreement before I step into this. If we're all posting ideas, corrections, and critiques, that's just going to be complicated. Once you two gents have come to a middle ground, I'll give it a look-see.

Matt

	10-05-2002 09:23									#68
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quote: Originally posted by Harlan But I do have one comment regarding the use of surveillence planes. Are these really useful if planes can only move 8, and radar vision is maxed out at 2? And does the AI know how to use them?[QUOTE] Unfortunately, until air ranges are increased, modern surveillance planes/satellites are not practical. The only one that is practical is the bi-plane whose range would fit into the 8 max. [QUOTE] By the way, one wierd thing I just read you guys might find interesting. Turns out the Ironclad should have come earlier, about 1840 instead of 1860. It was made possible by the invention of the screw propeller in 1837, allowing steam ships to not have huge paddlewheels. The US immediately set out to built one, and did. But there was a row between the scientists, and the smarter guy got fired. Then, when it was unveiled with big ceremony, the gun blew up, killing the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Navy, and several congressmen! President Tyler happened to be off getting a snack or would have died too. So the development program was cancelled until the Civil War. That's the fickleness of history for ya!

Excellant. I never heard that part of it before. I had always heard the history of them starting in the civil war.

On a side note, there's evidence that the greeks used steam technology to achieve religious illusions. And also i once saw some pictures of ancients steam "turbines" but they couldnt think of any practical applications. Imagine Romans on trains...scarey.

	10-05-2002 09:33									#69
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I just ran a quick game up to 100ad to see how the new terrain numbers + settler=3 plays out. (i did remove the shield from coast as it didnt make sense to me) I had this fabulous start with grasslands and rivers on the coast. Altho i had about 1/3 grassland tiles with a shields, i only had one forest and no hills. my city grew large and rich very fast but its production was pathetic without the ability to mine grasslands. i quickly was in last place because I couldnt match the settler spawl of the AIs. It did appear to me that AI expansion was slightly slower than normal.

i posted my beta 0.2 up on my ftp site so you guys can see what i did.

	10-05-2002 09:36									#70
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Here's a couple paragraphs I grabbed off the internet about the Cluny Abbey:

A single spire, at once elegant and robust, rises in the Burgundian sky – all that remains of what was once the largest, mightiest and most influential abbey of the Middle Ages.

Founded in 910, Cluny Abbey owed its extraordinary reputation to its strict observance of the Benedictine Rule which made it answerable only to Rome. At the height of its power, the abbey commanded over ten thousand monks living in more than a thousand religious centres stretching from England to Italy and from the Iberian Peninsula to the depths of Germany.
The abbey was also well served by the strength of character and the longevity of its first six abbots, the last of whom, Hugh, a native of Semur-en-Brionnais, was instrumental in rebuilding the abbey church which was to remain the largest church in Christendom until the 16C. With its five naves and a great narthex, a double transept and a choir basking in the glory of radiating chapels, a central nave thirty metres in height and even higher cupolas under the bell towers, the abbey church made a fitting setting for lavish and sumptuous liturgies. Here, the infinite beauty of the Gregorian plainsong was matched by the exquisite sculpted and painted décor.

Popes, kings and emperors were frequent visitors to a place which was synonymous with spirituality but also a force in the realm of the arts, thought and politics. Scarcely a tenth – but what a tenth! – of the church and the numerous buildings survives to remind us of the prestige of this "Light of the Middle Ages" whose flame was to die out with the advent of the Cistercians and the new mendicant orders - so much so that it fell an easy victim to demolition in the wake of the French Revolution, at a time when the notion of "historical monument" was still in its infancy. In spite of the destruction, there is still much to admire and learn from an exhaustive visit of Cluny and the exploration of the many buildings representing the Cluny style.

Here's the scoop on the Wild Goose Pagoda (there actually are two side by side amd three different wandering monks involved, so I guess I should call it the Wild Goose Pagodas):

The Big Wild Goose Pagoda

The Silk Road brought all sorts of strange and wonderful ideas to China in addition to the material trade. In 652 A.D., Xuan Zang returned from India, where he had spent 18 years studying Buddhism. The entire city celebrated his return. The crown prince Li Zhi had built the Temple of Great Mercy and Goodness in 648 A.D. in honor of his mother. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda was added to preserve the manuscripts of Buddhist texts that Xuan Zang had brought with him to translate into Chinese. Of note is the calligraphy set into the walls on both sides of the south door of the pagoda. It is still possible to climb to the top of this structure.

Little Wild Goose Pagoda

The Little Wild Goose Pagoda stands in Da Jianfu Temple, to the south of the walled city. The temple, was originally established in 684 A.D. in honor of Li Zhi - Emperor Gaozong of Tang dynasty. It was particularly associated with Buddhist Monk Yijing, who translated Buddhist scriptures he had brought back from India.

Da Jianfu Temple and Monk Yijing

The Temple was the place where the great translator Monk Yijing translated Buddhist scriptures. Yijing set out by sea for India in search of Buddhist principle in 671. On his way back to China with some 400 volumes of holy Sanskirt scriptures after traveling over 30 countries for more than 20 years, he once stayed on Island of Sumatra in Indonesia for investigation. Yijing translated altogether 56 volumes of scriptures in Da Jianfu Temple and wrote the book Biography of Eminent Monks in the Tang dynasty in Search of Buddhist Truth in India, which was regarded as a companion to Pilgrimage to India by Xuanzang, and of great help to the study of Chinese and Indonesian history and the cultural exchange.

	10-05-2002 09:43									#71
	Put an end to popups!

We all seem to be online and posting. Is there some way to do a chat room?

By the way, AW, I'd still like to hear if you think City State should be added. I kinda like it, but I'm also afraid of feature creep (adding more and more stuff).

	10-05-2002 09:46									#72
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quote: Originally posted by Harlan We all seem to be online and posting. Is there some way to do a chat room? By the way, AW, I'd still like to hear if you think City State should be added. I kinda like it, but I'm also afraid of feature creep (adding more and more stuff).

Harlan, we all just realized that too. can you get a quickie Aol Instant Messanger account (freebie)

	10-05-2002 10:01									#73
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quote: Originally posted by Harlan We all seem to be online and posting. Is there some way to do a chat room? By the way, AW, I'd still like to hear if you think City State should be added. I kinda like it, but I'm also afraid of feature creep (adding more and more stuff).

I'd vote for it...it was a legitimate early republic.

	10-05-2002 10:25									#74
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I'd rather not - I'd rather not be able to have instant messaging, cos then I'd be using it for other things, and being on the computer even more than I am. I'm against being too contactable, for instance don't have a cell phone and don't want one. But if you knew of a chat room to use, that would be easy.

	10-05-2002 10:28									#75
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does apolyton have chatrooms? AIM does. i just got a business cell phone last week for the first time in 6 years. i refuse to wear a pager again tho.

	10-05-2002 10:31									#76
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By the way, AW,
I'm a bit puzzled by your recent trial game. In a despotism, population is a good as shields cos of pop rushes, right? If your population is booming you should have been able to rush Settlers and the 3 pop loss wouldn't phase you much. And the AI would be facing the same problems you did. So what's the hang?

You should also experiment with having Settlers just cos more shields instead of more pop, and see how the AI does with that.

	10-05-2002 10:34									#77
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Aha - it does have chat rooms. Go to the top of this thread page - under the Apolyton logo there's the word "chat" to click on. I'd prefer the Java room (since I don't have the software for the other).

Is Matt still around?

	10-05-2002 10:34									#78
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quote: Originally posted by Harlan By the way, AW, I'm a bit puzzled by your recent trial game. In a despotism, population is a good as shields cos of pop rushes, right? If your population is booming you should have been able to rush Settlers and the 3 pop loss wouldn't phase you much. And the AI would be facing the same problems you did. So what's the hang? You should also experiment with having Settlers just cos more shields instead of more pop, and see how the AI does with that.

pop rushing.....doohhhhhhh, i never even thought of that since i never pop rush. i even changed communism to paid OT

	10-05-2002 10:38									#79
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By the way,
Here's another interesting thing from the book I'm reading:

"Either the Merrimack or Monitor could have singlehandedly destoyed the compbined French and British fleets from the Napoleonic Wars earlier in the century."

That says to me that Ironclads need to be much better than they are now, and post Ironclads even better than that. As it is, I don't really bother to build them, cos I know better stuff will be coming soon.

	10-05-2002 10:46									#80
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i tried to get an apolyton chat room, but it crashed me.

The ironclads had the same guns as those ships, but there were no naval cannons that could penetrate their armor.

gotta run for the night

	10-05-2002 10:51									#81
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Same here. Bed time for Matty.

Harlan, we'll try again tomorrow, maybe.

Matt

	10-05-2002 10:57									#82
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Okay,
We'll do the chat another time.

Ironclad guns were actually greatly different. Check out this quote: "By the mid 1850's the greatly improved cast iron guns, combiined with improvements in shell projectiles, had greatly increased the power of naval ordance. This was dramatically demonstrated in 1853, when a Russian squadron armed with the new shell-firing guns destroyed a Turkish fleet at Sinope. This demonstrated the devastating potential of improved naval ordnance, and revealed the total vulnerability of wooden ships to these weapons."

It other quotes, it sounds like the new ships cut through the old ones like paper.

	11-05-2002 08:00									#83
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Well, I at finally completed my units spreadsheet. You can find it at members.aol.com/civ3alphamod/index.html. i few quirks to mention. You'll see that some units can build forts and roads. I know the Roman armies did that alot and the crusaders, but the american cavalry. i used the all roads as terrain alot for naval units so they cant attack over and over, altho it would have been cool to watch a battleship sink a fleet of ironclads. i had mentioned earlier that units represent 500 people. Ships are mostly singular, and planes are squadrons. The killer is that settler is 10000 and leader is 1. DOHHHHHHH

My vote is against redoing the entire terrain values except for a tweak here and there. There's a graphics problem if you use the "display food and shields" option and the game crashes. Apparently, the game cant handle more than 2 food on the base grassland tile. Plus as I looked at the city sizes and AI spawl, even with my settlers=3, there wasnt a noticeable difference. It does seem right to me to have huge cities that can only produce things by pop/rush building. Any primailry grassland city will be extremely hampered if they cant mine grasslands. If you look at my unit costs as the game progresses, you'll see that big production will be necessary. Altho fun, I just cant imagine the upkeep on huge fleets of carriers or 1000 unit militaries that people talk about. BTW, all modern govs should have their unit support costs bumped to 2 to reflect higher costs for ammo, food, communications, etc.

I was reading the mod glitches thread, and Korn says there are problems with gov dependent buildings/wonders. I'm not thrilled that the building will be gone but the effect remains.

In regards to cultural expansion, I changed lvl multiplier to 800 from 1000, and border factor to 8 from 10. According to the editor help, these changes will expand the borders faster even tho it'll still take 25k+ for a city to fully expand. I also bumped up the cultural value of a few buildings, especially the palace since everyone has one. It allows the capitol to expand in 2 turns so it utilizes its full radius faster.

	11-05-2002 09:44									#84
	Tired of ads?

Hi AW,
Good work. The current table I find hard to read though. Could you reorganize it in the following way:

divide into categories of infantry, cavalry, bombard, sea, air, and other (other being all the wierd things like Settler, Army, Scout, Worker).

within each category, go by order of appearance as much as you can, so one can see the progress from one type to another. Unique units put underneath the unit its based on, and mark those off in a special color to see separate them better.

With that organization, I could better comment and analyze, and we'll all be better off in the long run.

A few questions/ comments right off the bat though, just looking at the names, not the numbers:

1. What is Immigrant, Legion, Regiment and Divison, exactly?

2. The two yellow units - don't include 'em if the flags for them don't exist. When/if we get new flags, we can add new stuff.

3. You don't have a movement column, you don't have a hitpoint column. Vital to understand the worth of units.

4. I would give 0 bombard to all archer units. The Real Deal mod, which I've tried out, uses this, and its really neat. It gives archer units a free shot if anything in their stack is attacked, and thus helps promote the concept of having a well balanced army. Check out the Real Deal thread/ readme for more on that.

5. What's this about Longbowman being the English UU? If you want that, then what about the Man O' War? I wouldn't be against that change, and Man O' War graphic could be used as a good general Ship of the Line unit.

(I also wouldn't be averse to getting rid of the historically inaccurate (and very lamely named!) Chinese Rider unit, and, lacking a better graphic, giving them the Crossbow unit earlier than any other civ, which certainly would be worth a lot (or make theirs stronger, as the Age of Kings game does). The Chinese were using Crossbowmen as big parts of their armies back in 300 BC! Then the Rider graphic could be used for the Cataphract unit. We also have a Junk unit graphic we could use as UU, though Crossbow was really their "thing")

6. I'll have to look closer later esp when you add the two columns, but at first glance you're leaving out some must have units:

Horse Archer (available with Stirrup, faster than any other unit in the time, but weak on defense, also having 0 bombard).

Cataphract (intermediate step between Horseman and Knight, the numbers of which are the very different 4A 1D and 8A 6D in your scheme of things. In fact, Horseman is weaker than Chariot - that's not right. Also comes with Stirrup)

Field Artillery and Culverin - basically another level between Cannon and Howitzer/Artillery, Culverin being the slower and stronger one. Too much change in this category to have so few units.

Jet Bomber (why only Jet Fighter - Jet technology worked for both)

7. Please explain Grenadier. I don't agree with what you have at the moment (coexistent with Rifleman, when they were replaced by Rifleman). If you want a Musketman Rifleman intermediate, then Fusilier is a better name. The way I understand it, Grenadiers were essentially elite Fusiliers, not really different in weaponry or anything else, just the elite instead of veteran or regular, in Civ3 terms.

If you do have Fusilier, then all the disparate types should upgrade into that, not Rifleman, cos its with Fusilier that the variety of Musketman, Pikeman, Crossbow, Longbow, etc ended. Pikemen/Halberdiers were still being used up until that point (1700s) as a more defensive thing, while Musketmen were more offensive. Maybe that's what you were thinking with Rifleman and Grenadier, but there really wasn't the offensive / defensive infantry split at that time like there was pre-Fusilier.

8. I don't like the name Battle Tank. All tanks are battle tanks, no? Armor or Heavy Tank could be options.

9. As names, I prefer Rocket Artillery, don't like Centurion, like Attack Carrier for greater clarity. What about Carrier and Nuclear Carrier though?

10. What's with Ranger? If its a special unit, why do so many units upgrade to it?

11. I like your idea of increasing cost so there aren't huge swarms of units at the end of the game. Are you especially increasing artillery costs to make 2 old artillery into 1 new one, thus reducing the huge artillery stack tedium problem?

12. As I said before, I'm reading the book "The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare" right now. I think the one most important thing I found out was the following:

"The introduction of the rifle musket and its conoidal bullet in the decade between 1850 and 1860 was the have the greatest immediate and measurable revolutionary impact on war of any new weapon or technological development of war before or since. When and if tactical nuclear weapons appear on the battlefield, presumably they will have an even greater effect. But certainly not even the high explosive shells, airplanes or tanks of the 20th century were to have effects of contemporary scale and significance comparable to the rifled musket in the early days."

I hope you take that into consideration, cos being historically accurate is a good thing to strive for. As I said before, I think it would be cool to have 3 hitpoint levels: pregunpowder units, gunpowder units, and a third level that would obviously start with Rifleman. The hitpoint scheme you mentioned I found confusing.

Changing terrain values: I'd like to playtest that myself to see how that works. I'm not too worried about the graphical glitch since I never play with that setting!

I'm trying to take the suggestions on wonders and improvements and update my file so I can get that to you to help in your making of a tech tree (when you work on the tech tree next, you may want to do a big rethink, this time without the limitation that you can't add extra ones, cos having to keep the number the same or not completely changes things, needless to say).

Last edited by Harlan on 11-05-2002 at 09:56

	11-05-2002 10:41									#85
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by Harlan Hi AW, Good work. The current table I find hard to read though. Could you reorganize it in the following way: divide into categories of infantry, cavalry, bombard, sea, air, and other (other being all the wierd things like Settler, Army, Scout, Worker). within each category, go by order of appearance as much as you can, so one can see the progress from one type to another. Unique units put underneath the unit its based on, and mark those off in a special color to see separate them better. With that organization, I could better comment and analyze, and we'll all be better off in the long run.

ok, it took awhile to get all the numbers in and I just wanted to get it online for you guys before I load it into an access database so i can run various reports on it. Probably some time this weekend. I was hoping having the era flag would be close for now

quote: 1. What is Immigrant, Legion, Regiment and Divison, exactly?

immigrant is my attempt to split worker into a worker and a city joiner. Immigrants are what captured settlers turn into, or when you want to xfer population between cities.

Legion/regiment/division/army are my army units. Legions are era one armies and only hold 2 units. Add one unit per era.

quote: 2. The two yellow units - don't include 'em if the flags for them don't exist. When/if we get new flags, we can add new stuff.

I know, just wanted to show my wish list

quote: 3. You don't have a movement column, you don't have a hitpoint column. Vital to understand the worth of units.

I forgot to unhide those columns, should be ok now, if not, D/l the spreadsheet and manually unhide them.

quote: 4. I would give 0 bombard to all archer units. The Real Deal mod, which I've tried out, uses this, and its really neat. It gives archer units a free shot if anything in their stack is attacked, and thus helps promote the concept of having a well balanced army. Check out the Real Deal thread/ readme for more on that.

I caught that once. Thats a cool idea. I'll have to do that

quote: 5. What's this about Longbowman being the English UU? If you want that, then what about the Man O' War? I wouldn't be against that change, and Man O' War graphic could be used as a good general Ship of the Line unit.

I'd prefer man-o-war as a generic unit. Sea and air UUs are not useful enough. Might make the americans a minuteman UU (cheap musketman)

quote: (I also wouldn't be averse to getting rid of the historically inaccurate (and very lamely named!) Chinese Rider unit, and, lacking a better graphic, giving them the Crossbow unit earlier than any other civ, which certainly would be worth a lot (or make theirs stronger, as the Age of Kings game does). The Chinese were using Crossbowmen as big parts of their armies back in 300 BC! Then the Rider graphic could be used for the Cataphract unit. We also have a Junk unit graphic we could use as UU, though Crossbow was really their "thing")

I'll have to take your word on that one

quote: 6. I'll have to look closer later esp when you add the two columns, but at first glance you're leaving out some must have units: Horse Archer (available with Stirrup, faster than any other unit in the time, but weak on defense, also having 0 bombard). Cataphract (intermediate step between Horseman and Knight, the numbers of which are the very different 4A 1D and 8A 6D in your scheme of things. In fact, Horseman is weaker than Chariot - that's not right. Also comes with Stirrup) Field Artillery and Culverin - basically another level between Cannon and Howitzer/Artillery, Culverin being the slower and stronger one. Too much change in this category to have so few units. Jet Bomber (why only Jet Fighter - Jet technology worked for both)

i like these ideas. I cant believe i left off jet bomber. i musta deleted by accident cuz it was there at one point.

quote: 7. Please explain Grenadier. I don't agree with what you have at the moment (coexistent with Rifleman, when they were replaced by Rifleman). If you want a Musketman Rifleman intermediate, then Fusilier is a better name. The way I understand it, Grenadiers were essentially elite Fusiliers, not really different in weaponry or anything else, just the elite instead of veteran or regular, in Civ3 terms. If you do have Fusilier, then all the disparate types should upgrade into that, not Rifleman, cos its with Fusilier that the variety of Musketman, Pikeman, Crossbow, Longbow, etc ended. Pikemen/Halberdiers were still being used up until that point (1700s) as a more defensive thing, while Musketmen were more offensive. Maybe that's what you were thinking with Rifleman and Grenadier, but there really wasn't the offensive / defensive infantry split at that time like there was pre-Fusilier.

This one i'm quilty of adding without researching. Somewhere i remember someone claimed they were an offensive rifleman and that stuck in my head. Ok, help me with the numbers for that then

quote: 8. I don't like the name Battle Tank. All tanks are battle tanks, no? Armor or Heavy Tank could be options.

At one time or another each of those names I used. Just that battle tanks was the last one....LOL I think heavy tank is best.

quote: 9. As names, I prefer Rocket Artillery, don't like Centurion, like Attack Carrier for greater clarity. What about Carrier and Nuclear Carrier though?

Actually i think they are called Nuclear Attack Carriers
I thought Centurians were the elite of the legions???

quote: 10. What's with Ranger? If its a special unit, why do so many units upgrade to it?

Ranger is the modern foot soldier. In my world (its a wacky place to be) all future troops are highly trained in everything. Since mech inf is wheeled and cant get some places, I wanted a modern foot version.

quote: 11. I like your idea of increasing cost so there aren't huge swarms of units at the end of the game. Are you especially increasing artillery costs to make 2 old artillery into 1 new one, thus reducing the huge artillery stack tedium problem?

I didnt look at it that way, altho i should have. I was attempting to compare like era units.

quote: 12. As I said before, I'm reading the book "The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare" right now. I think the one most important thing I found out was the following: "The introduction of the rifle musket and its conoidal bullet in the decade between 1850 and 1860 was the have the greatest immediate and measurable revolutionary impact on war of any new weapon or technological development of war before or since. When and if tactical nuclear weapons appear on the battlefield, presumably they will have an even greater effect. But certainly not even the high explosive shells, airplanes or tanks of the 20th century were to have effects of contemporary scale and significance comparable to the rifled musket in the early days." I hope you take that into consideration, cos being historically accurate is a good thing to strive for. As I said before, I think it would be cool to have 3 hitpoint levels: pregunpowder units, gunpowder units, and a third level that would obviously start with Rifleman. The hitpoint scheme you mentioned I found confusing.

Basically, its the same idea as yours for HP but I added another HP level for UU, plus a level for heavy armor.

quote: Changing terrain values: I'd like to playtest that myself to see how that works. I'm not too worried about the graphical glitch since I never play with that setting!

Thats cool. Like i said, i didnt notice much of a difference but that was just one quick game. I'll probably actually run the numbers thru sometime on some old games. It may be a matter of playing styles too. I hate pop rushing, its just not my style, altho i do rush alot later.

quote: I'm trying to take the suggestions on wonders and improvements and update my file so I can get that to you to help in your making of a tech tree (when you work on the tech tree next, you may want to do a big rethink, this time without the limitation that you can't add extra ones, cos having to keep the number the same or not completely changes things, needless to say).

yep, being able to add techs would greatly simplify things. Since I was trying to leave the same number of techs per era, i was doing alot of tradeoffs. Now I can just have them all. BTW, a great way to slow down the tech rush is to raise the minimum number of turns to 64. This may deter the "buy it form the AI" strategy. Why 64? you'll see lots of powers of 2s...2,4,8,16,32, etc, in my randomly picked values.

	11-05-2002 13:35									#86
	Inflate your Upload Space

Good stuff, all. We seem to be in a lot of agreement. I've kinda left some criticisms to Matt, like adding the Cruiser .

Immigrant: I doubt this is something the AI is gonna use correctly. If so, I don't like the idea of giving units that are basically for the human player only. Otherwise, good idea.

Legion, regiment, etc: I could be wrong, but I think the Army having 3 increasible to 4 is pretty much a hardwired thing. You might be able to have something lower, but I doubt something higher. Something to playtest if you haven't already.

quote: I forgot to unhide those columns, should be ok now, if not, D/l the spreadsheet and manually unhide them

Ah. Much nicer now. Now that I can see the movement, I'm in favor of having things go even faster in the modern era. I haven't played Civ3 all that much, but I noticed the AI builds huge numbers of Riflemen in that era, and sends a big horde of them off. But since they're so slow, the human can react to whereever they're going in time, so the AI never wins. I would boost that and Fusiliers to 2 move, and then adjust other numbers around that time accordingly (Artillery now 2, Howitzer 3, Cavalry, Tank 3). That would be more historically accurate too (modern inventions like canned food, changes in signalling and depot systems allowing troops more mobility even if they don't have railroads and roads to use. Napoleon was really the first to take advantage of this increased mobility even for infantry).

quote: I'd prefer man-o-war as a generic unit. Sea and air UUs are not useful enough. Might make the americans a minuteman UU (cheap musketman)

What if these have higher stats than other UUs, proportionately? If you do change the English UU, make sure to call the generic Man-O-War the Ship of the Line (a Frigate replacement) and not Man-O-War. I'd be in favor of the change not so much because I don't find non-ground UUs useful in theory, but because the Longbowman was really an English only thing historically, and is a bit of an odd man out in the game, esp. without having anything really appropriate to upgrade too.

I'm sure you can find a growing number of American tank graphics and other modern graphics if you want to change them. I'd prefer that over the Minuteman cos that time isn't the US's golden age.

quote: This one i'm quilty of adding without researching. Somewhere i remember someone claimed they were an offensive rifleman and that stuck in my head. Ok, help me with the numbers for that then

Probably equal offensive and defensive numbers, or slight defensive advantage. Big jump from them to Rifleman. The big change here from Musketman is Fusiliers have ring bayonets, which allow them to be offensive and defensive, whereas Musketmen needed to be mixed with Pikemen to have them defendable.

quote: I thought Centurians were the elite of the legions???

Well yeah, that's the point. We don't want the names of the elites, we want the names of the rank and file, since only the Romans can build Legions.

quote: Thats cool. Like i said, i didnt notice much of a difference but that was just one quick game. I'll probably actually run the numbers thru sometime on some old games. It may be a matter of playing styles too. I hate pop rushing, its just not my style, altho i do rush alot later

I do think the new numbering system will work better, though it may need tweaking. My main complaint is that at the beginning one should be irrigating like a madman, instead of mining like a madman. I played one game where I didn't have any rivers, so I ended up doing nothing but mining the whole game. Still, all my cities grew to extremely large sizes, comparable with the AI ones. That's just messed up. People are used to mining everything and spoiled in having all cities having good shield production, whereas in Civ2 you actually had to irrigate just as much or more and some big cities had very few shields in that game.

We should compensate shield poor terrain with shield giving bonus resources, and food poor terrain with food rich bonus resources to help out a bit.

If you're not into pop rushing, seek out city spots with good shield potential. But some pop rushing in a Despotism is only smart, new terrain values or old.

quote: yep, being able to add techs would greatly simplify things. Since I was trying to leave the same number of techs per era, i was doing alot of tradeoffs. Now I can just have them all. BTW, a great way to slow down the tech rush is to raise the minimum number of turns to 64. This may deter the "buy it form the AI" strategy. Why 64? you'll see lots of powers of 2s...2,4,8,16,32, etc, in my randomly picked values.

"Now I can just have them all" indeed, but also use some discretion! You should still be thinking is this really necessary for any new ones.

I can give some feedback if you can present your tech ideas in some way, esp the new techs.

Also, you may want to start over with Mizaq's root mod as your base. That gives blank spots for lots of new units, wonders, resources, etc... and will make it easier to add all that stuff further down the line. It hasn't been updated in a while, but is still compatible with the latest patch.

Also, speaking of slowing the AI down, I'm guessing the AI is setting its research rate really high, at times 90% and the like. I often see them with virtually no money. I'd like to see those limits lower generally, forcing them to have more money and less science. It seems that after a while, new techs are coming along as fast as they can (1 advance every 3 or 4 turns or whatever its set to) even though the AI's economy shouldn't be supporting that. I play on Emperor, by the way.

	11-05-2002 20:11									#87
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by Harlan Immigrant: I doubt this is something the AI is gonna use correctly. If so, I don't like the idea of giving units that are basically for the human player only. Otherwise, good idea.

According to Firaxis last night, my editor bug in regards to the terraforming only worker isnt a bug to them. So I removed Immigrant last night

quote: Legion, regiment, etc: I could be wrong, but I think the Army having 3 increasible to 4 is pretty much a hardwired thing. You might be able to have something lower, but I doubt something higher. Something to playtest if you haven't already.

I havent gotten to that point in the game yet, but the army size is manipulatable with only one so I'm hoping the this 4 era army will work too.

quote: Ah. Much nicer now. Now that I can see the movement, I'm in favor of having things go even faster in the modern era. I haven't played Civ3 all that much, but I noticed the AI builds huge numbers of Riflemen in that era, and sends a big horde of them off. But since they're so slow, the human can react to whereever they're going in time, so the AI never wins. I would boost that and Fusiliers to 2 move, and then adjust other numbers around that time accordingly (Artillery now 2, Howitzer 3, Cavalry, Tank 3). That would be more historically accurate too (modern inventions like canned food, changes in signalling and depot systems allowing troops more mobility even if they don't have railroads and roads to use. Napoleon was really the first to take advantage of this increased mobility even for infantry).

I'd like to do that too, but I've never seen a 3m retreat from a 2m so I'm afraid raising foot speeds will totally neutralize the retreat abilities. Needs to be played more to see.

quote: What if these have higher stats than other UUs, proportionately? If you do change the English UU, make sure to call the generic Man-O-War the Ship of the Line (a Frigate replacement) and not Man-O-War. I'd be in favor of the change not so much because I don't find non-ground UUs useful in theory, but because the Longbowman was really an English only thing historically, and is a bit of an odd man out in the game, esp. without having anything really appropriate to upgrade too. I'm sure you can find a growing number of American tank graphics and other modern graphics if you want to change them. I'd prefer that over the Minuteman cos that time isn't the US's golden age.

I'm totally in favor of the England change and made that last night. As far as the Americans go, I'm not sure our tanks were ever the top of the line until the Abrams came out. Minutemen may not have been our golden age (1950s), but without them, there's no USA.

quote: Probably equal offensive and defensive numbers, or slight defensive advantage. Big jump from them to Rifleman. The big change here from Musketman is Fusiliers have ring bayonets, which allow them to be offensive and defensive, whereas Musketmen needed to be mixed with Pikemen to have them defendable.

Can you list the right progression and values?

quote: Well yeah, that's the point. We don't want the names of the elites, we want the names of the rank and file, since only the Romans can build Legions.

Thats partial my point. Anyone could have copied the concept of the legion and since I've added an army of legion, I wanted to seperate the Roman UU from the Legion army unit. When i think of legions, I think of centurians. Same reason the f-15 was used instead of the f-4 or f-16, the F-15 is the elite of the elite.

quote: I do think the new numbering system will work better, though it may need tweaking. My main complaint is that at the beginning one should be irrigating like a madman, instead of mining like a madman. I played one game where I didn't have any rivers, so I ended up doing nothing but mining the whole game. Still, all my cities grew to extremely large sizes, comparable with the AI ones. That's just messed up. People are used to mining everything and spoiled in having all cities having good shield production, whereas in Civ2 you actually had to irrigate just as much or more and some big cities had very few shields in that game.

My number one issue is the graphics crash. Lots of people play with that option on and it took me awhile to figure it out. What if we have a mining tech so that mines cant be built right away? And grasslands with shields should be mined. I pass some quarries every day on my way to work in the middle of the burbs. My perfect solution would be to have city shields as 2, and allow minng only on those grasslands with a shield. Those not being changeable by us, I vote for mines dont being available until construction. Did you ever hear about the mountain that the romans leveled by filling it with water? Somehow, they collapsed a mountain to gets its gold out.

quote: We should compensate shield poor terrain with shield giving bonus resources, and food poor terrain with food rich bonus resources to help out a bit.

Definitely would like to see marble and clay as grassland resources.

quote: If you're not into pop rushing, seek out city spots with good shield potential. But some pop rushing in a Despotism is only smart, new terrain values or old.

I prefer the gold production out of the lage cities. pop rushing a settler will take a pop 7 down to 2 or 3. Thats alot of gold to give up. And since I try to match my research to the AIs, i like the extra gold.

quote: "Now I can just have them all" indeed, but also use some discretion! You should still be thinking is this really necessary for any new ones.

In general, I dont like techs that dont give some immediate unit/building/wonder. I dont know if you noticed but I removed all gov techs and put the govs under the tech that best spawned it IMO.

quote: I can give some feedback if you can present your tech ideas in some way, esp the new techs.

Unfortunately, since the tech lines appear to be hard coded, I cant just make the changes in the game. I first have to change all the locations of the techs, copy each era into paintshop and then remove/add lines. I'm not graphically oriented so I'm using paintbrush and its very slow going.

quote: Also, you may want to start over with Mizaq's root mod as your base. That gives blank spots for lots of new units, wonders, resources, etc... and will make it easier to add all that stuff further down the line. It hasn't been updated in a while, but is still compatible with the latest patch.

I prefer to add 1 or 2 units at a time via the copy tool. I'm a control freak....LOL Actually I tried Mizaq's once and had all kinds of game abends so I was doing something wrong.

quote: Also, speaking of slowing the AI down, I'm guessing the AI is setting its research rate really high, at times 90% and the like. I often see them with virtually no money. I'd like to see those limits lower generally, forcing them to have more money and less science. It seems that after a while, new techs are coming along as fast as they can (1 advance every 3 or 4 turns or whatever its set to) even though the AI's economy shouldn't be supporting that. I play on Emperor, by the way.

The AIs usually have treasuries equavalent to me and I run at 80-100%. I dont usually get far ahead until i start selling maps and techs. The increased turns to 64 has done wonders tho for slowing it down. I'm only in the ancient era but a few times every choice remaining was 20+ turns. I dont remember if i tweaked any tech values or not in that era. i wouldnt object to a max of 80% for all govs. In reality, its impossible to spend 100% on research anyways.

You know, the read-me for this mod will be huge.....LOL

	11-05-2002 20:36									#88
	Got spare money?

BTW, after spending over an hour on it, I still cant get the spreadsheet to load into Access so I'll have to wait til monday to get help at work. Once in access, it'll be much easier to sort and categorize the units. Doing it manually will take alot of time and I want to get some testing issues out of the way.

	12-05-2002 00:58									#89
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: According to Firaxis last night, my editor bug in regards to the terraforming only worker isnt a bug to them.

What, you got an answer out of them? How? Ask them how the AI determines which buildings or units to build!

quote: I havent gotten to that point in the game yet, but the army size is manipulatable with only one so I'm hoping the this 4 era army will work too.

I definitely remember seeing something about this not working above 4 (including the +1 from the wonder). Think about it - the graphic on the flag even has 4 dots on it - no way to have 5 dots.

quote: I'd like to do that too, but I've never seen a 3m retreat from a 2m so I'm afraid raising foot speeds will totally neutralize the retreat abilities. Needs to be played more to see.

The rule is the faster unit should always retreat. In theory, a 6 move unit should retreat from a 5 move unit.

quote: I'm totally in favor of the England change and made that last night. As far as the Americans go, I'm not sure our tanks were ever the top of the line until the Abrams came out. Minutemen may not have been our golden age (1950s), but without them, there's no USA.

You're more likely to find an Abrams graphic someone made than a Minuteman graphic. There's a nice new thread at Civfanatics showing all the units, which you can find here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showt...89&pagenumber=3

quote: Can you list the right progression and values?

Yeah, but only if I know the values of the units around it in your system.

quote: Thats partial my point. Anyone could have copied the concept of the legion and since I've added an army of legion, I wanted to seperate the Roman UU from the Legion army unit. When i think of legions, I think of centurians. Same reason the f-15 was used instead of the f-4 or f-16, the F-15 is the elite of the elite.

I'm thinking the Legion may not stay, if the game is hardwired to not allow so many army types. If you remove one, that would be the one, cos of the name confusion.

quote: My number one issue is the graphics crash. Lots of people play with that option on and it took me awhile to figure it out. What if we have a mining tech so that mines cant be built right away? And grasslands with shields should be mined.

Since you seem to have Firaxis's ear , please make sure they know about this bug. If we're in it for the long term, I think its safe to say the mod won't be done until the next patch, and that's something Firaxis really ought to fix in the next patch.

I'm not averse to allow mining on grasslands, but someone who's a heavy miner should suffer by not having their cities grow as much. I don't like the solution of keeping the old system but no mines till later, cos what would happen then is irrigation would still be useless in a Despotism and mining impossible, so the smart player would be a road making maniac. We want the player to need to do all three from the very beginning, and make a balanced mix to prosper.

quote: In general, I dont like techs that dont give some immediate unit/building/wonder. I dont know if you noticed but I removed all gov techs and put the govs under the tech that best spawned it IMO.

Good and good.

quote: Unfortunately, since the tech lines appear to be hard coded, I cant just make the changes in the game. I first have to change all the locations of the techs, copy each era into paintshop and then remove/add lines. I'm not graphically oriented so I'm using paintbrush and its very slow going.

I wasn't assuming it would be in graphical form, though that would be ideal. Just some text on these are the new or renamed techs and here's what they do would allow me to give some feedback until you have something better. Of course, an improved bic would also do this, but you might want to get the feedback before you do the work.

quote: I prefer to add 1 or 2 units at a time via the copy tool. I'm a control freak....LOL Actually I tried Mizaq's once and had all kinds of game abends so I was doing something wrong.

I've tried it out and had no problems at all.

quote: I wouldnt object to a max of 80% for all govs. In reality, its impossible to spend 100% on research anyways.

I think Civ2 is a good guide for this one. If you recall in that one, the first governments have caps of 50 or 60% or so and only the end gvmts get up to 90%. Whereas in Civ3 even Despotism allows 90%!

quote: BTW, after spending over an hour on it, I still cant get the spreadsheet to load into Access so I'll have to wait til monday to get help at work. Once in access, it'll be much easier to sort and categorize the units. Doing it manually will take alot of time and I want to get some testing issues out of the way.

Why don't you just send me the non-Access file (I have Access too). Are you working in Excel, or what program? Export it as a text file if nothing else works, and send me that. Weekends are good times to work on things. (I should have been doing more work at work this week, and less of this stuff!!!!

By the way, I hope you remove the +1 hitpoint for bombard units, and reflect that in other values if you think necessary. I noticed Archer has +1, Bowman +2, etc. I think that's very confusing.

	12-05-2002 02:38									#90
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by Harlan What, you got an answer out of them? How? Ask them how the AI determines which buildings or units to build!

unfortunately my only way to communicate with them is thru the forums. but i hope by asking questions politely, they may be more inclined to answer. BTW, i saw that post at some time where I think they answered that. It might have even been a chat log, i cant remember

quote: I definitely remember seeing something about this not working above 4 (including the +1 from the wonder). Think about it - the graphic on the flag even has 4 dots on it - no way to have 5 dots.

I've used the 5 unit army in past games. i'm just not sure armies are upgradeable. i hope to test that out this weekend.

quote: The rule is the faster unit should always retreat. In theory, a 6 move unit should retreat from a 5 move unit.

i know thats the rule, but i've never seen it actually work that way.

quote: You're more likely to find an Abrams graphic someone made than a Minuteman graphic. There's a nice new thread at Civfanatics showing all the units, which you can find here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showt...89&pagenumber=3

good, we need a one stop shop for graphics

quote: Yeah, but only if I know the values of the units around it in your system.

i sent you my database of current values. I think i'm satisfied with the ancient values. I havent seen any middle age units that seem outta whack but i havent gotten far enough to see how they fare against industrial units.

quote: I'm thinking the Legion may not stay, if the game is hardwired to not allow so many army types. If you remove one, that would be the one, cos of the name confusion.

lets see if multi-era armies works first if not, then can return to the old names

quote: Since you seem to have Firaxis's ear , please make sure they know about this bug. If we're in it for the long term, I think its safe to say the mod won't be done until the next patch, and that's something Firaxis really ought to fix in the next patch.

accckkkk, i hope we are done before that.

quote: I'm not averse to allow mining on grasslands, but someone who's a heavy miner should suffer by not having their cities grow as much. I don't like the solution of keeping the old system but no mines till later, cos what would happen then is irrigation would still be useless in a Despotism and mining impossible, so the smart player would be a road making maniac. We want the player to need to do all three from the very beginning, and make a balanced mix to prosper.

But a mining strategy is a valid strategy. They suffer later because their cities will max out much smaller than others. I actually find that less offense than building huge cities and pop rushing. I dont find that historically accurate or humanitarian. I would be less opposed to pop rusing wonders but that isnt an option. How does killing people create settlers faster?

quote: I wasn't assuming it would be in graphical form, though that would be ideal. Just some text on these are the new or renamed techs and here's what they do would allow me to give some feedback until you have something better. Of course, an improved bic would also do this, but you might want to get the feedback before you do the work.

i think we need to nail down the units/wonders/buildings first. We should try to agree on the very basic advances. i think these are the ones that do not need requirements: bronze working, writing (includes alphabet, because not all writing was alphabetical), hullmaking, cerimonial burial, wheel, ballistics, animal domestication (renamed from horse riding), pottery, and masonry. Using these as stepping stones, we can then work on the next tier of advances.

quote: I think Civ2 is a good guide for this one. If you recall in that one, the first governments have caps of 50 or 60% or so and only the end gvmts get up to 90%. Whereas in Civ3 even Despotism allows 90%!

i have to admit that i was surprised not to see a science limit. But with all the changes being made to science costs, i wouldnt lower any to under 80%. Even at 100% advances are taking 20+ turns each. Eventually, as i build units i have to lower it to support my armies. i suspect that this is the same thing hampering the AI treasuries. The AI build far more units than I do. I bet if we modify the # of free units for each gov, then treasuries will grow more. (plus the 80% cap)

quote: By the way, I hope you remove the +1 hitpoint for bombard units, and reflect that in other values if you think necessary. I noticed Archer has +1, Bowman +2, etc. I think that's very confusing.

you are making it too complicated:
+1 non-gunpower ranged OR +2 gunpowder/rocket
+1 UU
+1 light armor armor (tanks, MI, early iron ships, knights, newest ships)
+2 heavy armor (battleship, MA)
also gave some to subs for their actual difficulty in finding.

OK, maybe it is a little complicated
i wanted the A/D values to reflect actual power and HP to be for survivability. I went thru some scenarios in my head (ironclad vs dreadnaughts, warriors vs archers etc) and looked at what result i'd want and the frequency of those victories. HP seemed to be reliable way to get those results. I tried just using A/D but the results werent satisfactory. After adding the HP, its much more reliable, not that the occasional surprise doesnt happen.