|
Post by friedrichpsitalon on Apr 19, 2006 7:18:37 GMT -5
You're going to see this thread in several iterations. Stage 1 - this thread - will solely be a sounding-off board and idea collection zone. What do you think needs to be done for a balanced MP environment?Stage 2 - in a week or three, depending on feedback levels - will be a proposed first version of the mod. Stage 3 - after we finish wrangling about Stage 2, or I at least get sick of listening to folks argue - will be a feedback thread about the released Stage 2 mod. Stage 4 - will be the finished product, but I imagine it'll be a long time until we get here. SO.... As long as it doesn't require creating new resources, abilities, etc, let's hear what you have to say. More resources? Less resources? More forests? Less forests? No chop bonus? Chop bonus with machinery? Chariots weaker? Archers stronger? I can't promise it will all happen, but we can at least talk about it. Please, please, PLEASE try to keep your comments in an orderly and well-formatted manner so that it's easier for me to sort through. This is probably going to be a colossal project, so I'd rather not have to fight it more than I have to. A few last words and reminders:1. This Mod will be intended for the 100-150 turn game. IMO, Epic Games are balanced with the standing patch. Argue that some other time. 2. My intent here is to create a mod that is viable for BOTH builders and warmongers. I'm not creating the Bloodbath mod (yet) and I'm not creating the Farmer Paradise mod (ever.) 3. Not everything you suggest will be commented on or implemented. I'm quite sure there will be a lot of disagreement here - I just want to see what people come up with. 4. Obnoxious, rude, or boorish remarks directed at me or other players will get your post in this thread promptly deleted, and I don't care how many other good ideas you had in it. We are all excellent civ players and professionals of a sort; act like it here or don't participate. 5. Please read what your fellow posters have said. Duplicate ideas are the sux0r. SOUND OFF!
|
|
|
Post by Avogadro on Apr 19, 2006 8:54:32 GMT -5
Allow for cities to continue growing while producing settler/workers.
PS-don't care what the population cost could be upon completion of these units.
|
|
|
Post by weaksauce on Apr 19, 2006 9:32:26 GMT -5
1. entire point scoring system is messed up. you get tons of points for culture and bullnuts, nothing for power/military units. zero points for razing an enemy city? whole point system is a joke and promotes building over fighting in every game, imo.
2. cossacks are absurdly overpowered. i can't believe firaxis hasn't changed this.
3. phi is overpowered, particularly with these super cities that stack 10 great people in 1 city and abuse caste/philosophy/phi attributes... i've seen guys with 0 cottages outtech everyone in a game doing this... it's a joke. there also should be a maximum on the # of world wonders that can be built in any city, particularly with Phi/Caste/Philosophy crap.
4. connectivity does not work at all. game splits, drops, etc. etc.
5. there is a total lack of good multiplayer maps, such that most people are stuck playing this crap inland sea map over and over. there should be a "mirror" version of pangea, fractal, team battleground. etc. such that it is exactly even and gameplay/decisions determine outcome.
6. you should be able to 'vote' a leader of your team and all players' technology research decisions are AUTOMATED to his choice.
7. you should NOT be able to see what your opponents' techs are in F4 (foreign relations) when technology trade is turned off. it really hurts strategic decisions when your opponents knows what research routes you are after... i am in constant amazement that firaxis allows your enemy to see exactly what your doing research wise when tech trade is turned off. i seriously question whether or not these people at Firaxis play their own game.
8. you should be able to gift units to any teammate in any part of your TEAM's culture. this would allow 1 person to control a 'stack' even if he is in the backline, rather than potentially leaving units in the hands of some noob on a front line or trying to coordinate simultaneous moves with this person.
OR -- you should be able to assign units to FOLLOW teammates' units or other game units automatically. if my catapults follow yours, then they attack/move when yours do.
9. you should be able to assign which civs are closest to enemy in launch screen or "RANDOM" proximity/location.
10. in random civs, you should also be able to assign the SAME civs to each team, rather than 1 civ of every kind to everyone. That is it will randomly assign 5 civs to 2 teams of 5... the SAME civs.
11. you should be able to overwrite tags/comments (ALT-S) from your teammates' in your own culture.
12. the staging menu should better facilitate team pickings/set-up by giving the "assigned leader/captains" ability to pick players/trade players. also allow the host to automatically assign all players to "no team" and set captains/leaders
13. teams should be MORE CLEARLY IDENTIFIED WITH COLORS in the staging menu rather than these little tiny 1, 2, 3 #s across 10+users, which are difficult to keep track of.. but team1 should be one color, team 2 another color, team 3 another color. this is so simple and basic... wtf is it not done already, i dont know.
14. staging menu should also list a person's rank, clan tag, along with their civ choice, team #, etc. so we don't have to alt-tab out and go look.
15. firaxis should embed rankings, clan statistics, personal win/loss statistics into this software and host it on a website themselves, so we can stop using this flawed case's system.
/weak
|
|
|
Post by MMV on Apr 19, 2006 12:03:21 GMT -5
I think the game strategy is actually fine the way it is (OH NO!)
but - what players want is guaranteed resources with a great map location for optimum growth and gameplay. WE ALL WANT THAT, lol (too win)! I think they already have that with the variety of "ages" and maps available, but that's only my personal thought and most won't agree.
this is good and certainly would level the playing field, but I think historically, that land is what it is, and the Civilizations that have great land (or bad land), with/without resources are truly reflective of history (to me, one of the fine points of the civ gaming series - until mods came into play) *NOTE* see game suggestion at end of post
Historically (and at the beginning of each's respective history), England, Japan, Mongols, Mali, Aztecs, and with few exceptions, a lot of the rest of the civs represented in C4 had few or little resources (and specific luxuries) and had to expand (or try to) and build into different parts of the world. Their success in expansion was THE KEY for their success in finding and exploiting new lands and resources. This became more important past the ancient era - through the ren-era and into the industrial era. Isn't that the basic premise of the game?
IF IF IF I could initiate a change, it would be the -
#1 - "settler" build (HIGH cost, no growth EVER during build) - settlers, after a city score of 3 should be able to build settlers at the same speed as they do a military unit - without stopping growth (prior to city growth of 3, I think it should remain the way it is now). The current game limitation of "build too much, too fast" would take care of and limit anyone who tried to overbuild (they'd go broke). workers should be the same build speed (and limitations) as a settler. Not to mention, of course, the weakness of having to DEFEND excessive cities.
#2 - India/Ghandi - there should be NO "fast worker" for India/Ghandi - what is in their history that would even THINK they should be different than the rest of the world for labor speed/efficiency - indeed, Egypt, Rome, Japan, China (and a few others) were ALL the early "examples" of worker efficiency. India should have a different UU than "fast worker" - perhaps like egypt and their "super chariots" the should have a beefed up (+1 promotion) war elephant as before since historically, that's what they had. OR (better yet), create the "Svadharma" unit for India (it could be just a +1 promotion elephant unit, renamed) - a warrior of a caste system basically equivalent to the japanese "samurai" traditions.
3 - woods, jungle, trees, workers - CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP and let them do it all they want. BUT - let them pay a price with their crops. Without trees to stop and/or limit wind, sun, heat, etc - their agricultural effectiveness (food) is decreased. Chop all or most the trees in your civ and lose some food due to unagrable land. I know this comes to play MUCH later in the game, but I think it should be an earlier "punishment" for "clear-chopping" and reduce civ growth. In ancient, the turns pass in MULTIPLE years so the over-chopping should be effective each time they chop down a forest. Good planning and forestry would allow them the appropriate amount of hammers AND good agricultural yield.
*NOTE* BUT FINALLY.............. if I could change the game at all, it would be the following..
What would Rome do without it's early bronze/iron and their legionares? What would Russia be without it's Cossacks (though these should be nerfed a tad, or the others in the same era increased)? What would England be without their Knights and iron? What would Japan be without their steel sworded Samurai? What would Mongols be without the Keishiks? What would Egypt be without their super war chariots? And Persia with their immortals, etc etc etc.
They wouldn't exist without the special resources that made their empire what it was/is.
Can't there be a way to "guarantee" (programming) that a civ had it's special unit? Rome with iron - Russia with horses - England with horses and iron - Japan with steel and iron - Mongols with horses - Egypt with horses - Persia with horses, etc etc etc etc. Although NOT revealed, of course, until the proper specific technology was learned.
Without the inherant resources that historically provided certain resources to certain civilizations - Rome wouldn't have been Rome, Japan wouldn't have been Japan, Russia wouldn't have been Russia, England wouldn't have been England, etc, etc etc.
I think THAT would be the best change that could be made.
|
|
|
Post by GERMANIA on Apr 19, 2006 13:33:28 GMT -5
well i have read allot of BS but well you both know anc that well that we should care about your comments MMV Well anyway we just need to go back how it was in 1,52 with out the bugs, so that the game wont be more so slow how it is at the moment. with out chopping you need at least 2 resource in your land like iron/copper and corn ore pigs to have a chance if you don't grow more fast enough you die because you cant rush your workers, and you need to rush because you don't get any shields for chopping( they are so less that i wouldn't waist them for a worker so i don't count them) that with out enough food you cant hold with some one who has it! At the time where you could chop your workers you still had a chance to fix your land so that you can compare with some one with good land and the game would become again faster and better ! I only agree that Russian UU needs to be fix, all others are ok at least in
|
|
|
Post by mrgametheory on Apr 19, 2006 13:35:11 GMT -5
If you create a great MP Mod, you will get a flux of amazing Gamers comming in from everywhere and the Civ 4 world will get a competative boost. You may even be able to host world wide cash tournaments that will promote serious gamers to start playing Civ 4 seriously. Serious cultivation of 1-4 hour games in civ 4 is going to significantly expand the player base of this game. I thank you Fried for what you are trying to do with this.
First, the things that a mod wont do, but would be amazing to see happen:
1) A ranking system (weak) - When you play in a game, the loser loses some points and gives them to the winner. How many players in the game will be factored in. If a person leaves the game there is a 7 Minute timer that starts before they get a lose. If there are too many bug issues people can vote to scrap the game. If there is a crash in the game or a problem. People can vote in the first 5 turns to scrap the game. Both must be unanimous. There shouldnt be personal clan tags like ( / - / . / { [ etc that people just make themselves. What stops some ass from annoying a clan by wearing their clan tag???
In this perfect world, People should be allowed to create a Clan once they have reached a certain level of points on the ranking system. The player will have the option for a menu where The person can than register a clan tag and the game adds a 1 - 4 character tag, of their chosing, in between ( ). Only the clan leader can add people to the clan and all people get the clan tag.
2) Online ranking system would also be nice where people can view the best of the best.
3) You have to make it easier to get a cultural victory. Based on the era and the amount of turns. A pre set culture point requirment is set. 120 turns ancient game = 3 Cities that need to reach 8000 Culture each. 150 turns ancient game = 3 cities that need to reach 12000 Culture.
------------------------------------------------- The Good stuff: ------------------
1) If this is seriously intended for 1-4 Hour games, than we can create a really balanced / Fun / Appealing game.
2) Horse archer (6) - 33 hammers and Chariot 16 hammers (4) ? You have to be kidding me Why not just make 2 chariots instead of 1 horse archer. The only thing they are really good for is harasment, both die against spears anyway so they are optimal pre iron or copper. If your opponent has iron or copper, it doesnt matter which one you throw at them. It is way to easy to get out chariots. You need to Make Chariots cost 20 - 22 Hammers and you need to either lower Horse archers to 30 - 32 or keep horse archers at 33-35, raise horse back riding to 300 hammers, and make Horse archers have (7) strenght.
OK OK OK OK. Lets walk through this. If I only have horse and my opponent has iron and copper. I am instantly dead? Shouldnt be the case. But more importantly, you know how hard it is to get horse riding in the beggining? Going for horseriding is like going for calvary, they are both compeltly out of the way and worthless if you are a serious Gamer and you look at the grand screem of things. Its better to try to make it to catapaults and elephants or long bowmen or rifelmen than go out of your way and lose the 3-11 turns on getting horse back riding and 4-20 turns on calvary. You have to make this sacrafice have a greater affect. Ofcourse a 8.4 Spear is going to kill a 7.7 horse archer as it should most of the time. "Even though the archer is shooting the spear with arrows and I dont see a logical reason why a horse archer would get near a spearman in real life, lol." But fine keep it that way. But When it gets down to getting that second rank from vas or theo, etc. 3.5 is going to need to help the horse archer. especially when a person doesnt have any other resources. But you say, 9.4 v 8.8 OMG super unbalanced, horse archers are going to run the board. Hellooo, first off, they are 33-35 and spears are 23. Your going to be able to get out 3 spears for every 2 horse archers, plus you have to take the few turn sac in turns to get horse riding and feudalism, which by that time people will have catapults, elephants, longbowmen..... What I am trying to do here is expand the militaristic board here, make more options available so it makes going for horseback riding worth it. I know this only deals with the first 40-80 turns of an ancient game. This will create a new type of tec route strategy that will make people go for horse back riding and straight for Vasalage. If you do this, maybe drop vs catapaults to 25%. You see what I am trying to do, I am trying to create different tec route strategies. One used to be fly to catapaults, another is fly to Lberalism, another is Fly to Knights, another is Fly to Great Library, another is Fly to engenner and long bowmen and go defensive, etc. This will also make engennering more effective and may force the liberalism runner to stop and get it. Make more tec variations available and there needs to be several difficult tec choices in every era.
4) You need to have Mathematics give +15% tree value and Metal casting Give +15% tree value and you need to raise the natural value of trees 20%. This way it makes it somewhat worth it to cut trees to get out an emergency settler and not too rediculous where you can destroy the world with all trees. This also creates balance on which way to go. Ofcourse you are thinking. Well the oracle is going to be looking super tasty at this point. But lets be serious, if you are playing with serious gamers, you will not be able to get pottery and priest and oracle before someone can get priest and oracle and oracle will inevitably start being used for monarchy out of fear of losing it to the guy trying to be smooth and get metal casting with it.
5) Lets start making certain tecs way more appealing and this is going to really make peoples tec choices tuff decisions. Make currency give 2+ gold per trade route. It wont hurt future eras, and will make currency something worth going for in terms of emergency money. Especially when you have the super tecers going Code, Beur, Phil, paper, education, liberalism. You need to make it so these people lose out on some good stuff. make corperation Give 2 Gold per trade route and and make it so all Finacial Buildings ( bank, market, grocer, Get built 25% faster) This wont hurt future eras, especially when we are talking 100-150 turn games and people want more money and excitment comming into the game anyways and it makes corperation worth going for. Make Biology give 1 extra hammer to all resources that use camping or pastures. Add sometihng cool to Fushion, Artillery, (Combustion - Sometihng land based). Add another 120 cost to Music and make Discoverying music, give 1 Happy face to every city. Banking Give 1 Extra Gold per trade route. Future Tec gives 1 health and happy the first time, 2 health and happy the second time 3 health and happy the third time. Make it exponatial madness and dont make tec so worthless in the future in comparison to buying units.
6) Give Cossacks 0 - 10% bonus vs mounted Units
7) Raise Kremlin to 50% and make it so everyone can build the Kremlin. I dont give a nuts If Kremlin is worth 50%, 33%, 25%, 10%, etc, making it cost that much less to buy units unbalances the game, I used to be able to easily win a 3v1 with the kremlin at 50% and now I can easily with a 2v1 with Kremlin at 33%, just make it so everoyne can build the damn kremlin and maybe make it so the first person to to get to communisims gets an instant -10% cost to hurrying production from gold,
8) Expansive gives - 8 Health 9) Creative gives - 25 Culture 10) Finacial Gets 50% towards grocers and Markets 11) Spiritual only has to wait 3 Turns to Switch again 12) Organized gets - 30% toward costs from having multiple cities 13) Agressive gives free 10% damage to all units except mounted units. 14) Camel Archer costs an extra 0-10 Hammers more or lower them to 9 strenght 15) Caravel Can carry 1 of any type of unit, 16) Great merchants give an instant 200-500 Gold if you want or somewhere around this. 17) Musketmen get a free 10% promotion from city defense. 17) Red Coats get 10% toward rifelunits 17) Samuri are 9 strenght 18) Castles need to give 75 - 100% defense. 19) All Wonders Give way more culture 20) 20 more hammers for the oracle 21) phyramids are only 50% production speed with stone 22) Make religion eating a good strategy in itself. For every Religion a Person has they get 1 more happy face or something. ( I dont knwoa bout this, but something really good, make it a good strategy to go out of a persons way to get religions.) 23) Draft up to 5 units a turn - drafting hurts bad and I know you will be able to pull a huge army fast if you need to, but so can the other person, it also destroys a civilization if a person drafts like that. Make a drafting strategy more effective. 24) Caste system allows unlimited of any type of specialist. ( I shouldn't just go and keep emacipation and other specific civics when I get them, It should be a tuff choice on which civics to pick throughout the game.. 25) Who the f**k wants free trade over mercantalism in a 100-150 turn MP game? Make free trade give 2-3 trade routes per city. 26) Environmentalism gives 2 health per swamp and forest and 1 extra food and hammer per forest. Dont hurt peoples chopping, make it more worth it for people to keep there forest around. 27) Theocracy gives 4 experience points in units with religion, make triple promotions easier, make all civics, more appealing and able to compete with one another, make it extremly difficult for people to make a choice on which civic to use because they all look so damn juicy.
1) make an option to disable all graphs in the game, I dont want my opponent to be able to know I am going gold, or military or whatever, I can read charts like no other and I can tell you exsactly what a person is doing and it takes away surprises and real life strategy.
2) Make it so you can even turn off the viewing of points, this may sound crazy, but it could be extremly interesting.
3) You shouldnt be able to obviously see opponents tecs if no tec trading is enabled. (weak)
4) What if there is 1 turn left on a tec and i send half my team to start researching another tec (weak)? Its not a good idea to force everyone to follow your leaders tec, if people dont wanna follow them than its a bad leader or they dont know what they are doing or the guy who doesnt follow is an ass and you shouldnt have played with him in the first place.
5) You have Pasifism going in a city, its hurting military, great person building is fine as it is, its not as easy as people think and its balanced in comparison to other things. leave phil alone. And great peopel alone.
6) Water tiles should count for points or 1/2 a point.
7) Wonders need to be worth hell of a lot more points
8) Needs a map where copper and horse are in home base and home area and the map looks like an octopus and there are 8 bases or small land areas where leaders start. It will look liek Hub and have 1 large center area, but the bases are very tiny and 75% of the land is in the middle and all other resources are in the middle area.
There is more but I got to run, this should get some things rolling
Sorry for spelling and grammer and stuff, i just wrote what came to mind and too lazy to spell check
;D
|
|
|
Post by GERMANIA on Apr 19, 2006 13:40:04 GMT -5
and Same like MMV, what a waist of room in the forum, sorry to say this at this way but this should be a Mode for Anc games and not epics ok, and that no one wants to win by culture in a teamer really.... Its should be all about planting city's, search the right techs, making units, let your empire grow, and fight till you win!!
Nothing else if you wane grow and play peaceful then the update 1,61 is perfect for you, but for aggressive game play is 1,61 unfair and to slow!!!
|
|
|
Post by MMV on Apr 19, 2006 14:25:32 GMT -5
well i have read allot of BS but well you both know anc that well that we should care about your comments MMV Well anyway we just need to go back how it was in 1,52 with out the bugs, so that the game wont be more so slow how it is at the moment. with out chopping you need at least 2 resource in your land like iron/copper and corn ore pigs to have a chance if you don't grow more fast enough you die because you cant rush your workers, and you need to rush because you don't get any shields for chopping( they are so less that i wouldn't waist them for a worker so i don't count them) that with out enough food you cant hold with some one who has it! At the time where you could chop your workers you still had a chance to fix your land so that you can compare with some one with good land and the game would become again faster and better ! I only agree that Russian UU needs to be fix, all others are ok at least in Odd, that's exactly what I suggested, but I used specific ideas, refined reasoning and positive suggestions to support my ideas. I'm glad you agree with my suggestions.
|
|
|
Post by friedrichpsitalon on Apr 19, 2006 17:31:03 GMT -5
FIRST AND ONLY WARNING - if you cannot be polite and civil to each other in this forum, you will have all your posts in this thread summarily deleted.
That goes for Germania and MGT especially.
I am not here to babysit your squabbling. I want all suggestions, and I'll sort through the value or lack thereof in each suggestion myself, thanks. Spend your time making good points, not slandering other people's.
|
|
|
Post by Lestat on Apr 19, 2006 17:55:34 GMT -5
1. In anc start with worker to 2. For cite razing 300 points
|
|
|
Post by zerza on Apr 19, 2006 20:46:21 GMT -5
1. In anc start with worker to 2. For cite razing 300 points Points for a city kill would be nice. It can be as changing to the course of history as a Wonder is, and would be nice if it reflected in the score
|
|
|
Post by weaksauce on Apr 19, 2006 22:09:22 GMT -5
i cant believe i'm saying this, but i actually agree with some of MGT's ideas, tho some are a bit off the wall. samurai/horse archer/kremlin/redcoats/oracle/pyramids comments r sensible to me. others r a bit too extreme for my taste.
also germania i totally disagree with you about a pure mod for anc teamer games. there are far more ren teamers played on ladder than ancient teamers.... a lot of the game structure problems are in later eras with many units, imo.... not ancient.
/weak
|
|
|
Post by mrgametheory on Apr 19, 2006 23:32:47 GMT -5
You cant make taking a city give 300 points or any points for that matter. First off. If a person is next to newbies they are going to pull these magical points that people who are next to tuff players wont be able to pull, the land you get from killing a person should be enough points. If you wanna pull points from anywhere, make it so people get like an extra 1-10 points when they are the first person to discover a new tec or reach a certain era.
Im not 100% on the no growth population when you are building a settler or worker. I can say, I don't see why not, but In theory and at the same time, It should be more difficult to get out workers and settlers in the beginning and especially in latter eras, I am going to be building like insane amounts of settlers and workers asap and All that expanding isnt going to hurt me so I will be able to jump right into building like crazy. The main point I am trying to make is there is a military strategy where the person who doesn't expand can grow and go military fast, and the person who does takes a hit in military. I dont want to make expansion like mathematics. Everyone going for math because its just logical or everyone building workers and settlers fast because it doesn't hurt. Having some set backs in expanding is good in my book and I dont think cities should be able to grow when a settler or worker is being built, especially when I will be exploiting the nuts outta this in the last 20 turns by building nothing but settlers in every single city and placing 25 settlers on the last turn and not having to worry because my population was rising while I was building them from pressing the maximizing food button and my points are just going to jump like a culture bomb used to.
;D
|
|
|
Post by GERMANIA on Apr 20, 2006 7:39:52 GMT -5
Well fried i may be a bit kindfuller... but i i am getting sick to see players who have no idea about anc post stuffs witch would make the game worser, i only want a version witch makes anc fair nothing else and for sure we don't need those suggestion
|
|
|
Post by Lestat on Apr 20, 2006 8:45:00 GMT -5
In c3c we had victory points : 1. how many enemie unit u killed u scoring +++++10 or 15 2. i dont remember exatly but about 100 or 150 or more points for cite razing. And this VP is funy , we played epic games with VP.
|
|
|
Post by Ellestar on Apr 20, 2006 9:04:03 GMT -5
2. My intent here is to create a mod that is viable for BOTH builders and warmongers. I'm not creating the Bloodbath mod (yet) and I'm not creating the Farmer Paradise mod (ever.) ... I want all suggestions, and I'll sort through the value or lack thereof in each suggestion myself, thanks. I, me with myself When i made a proposition to make a ladder mod, i thought about exactly that - a ladder community mod, not a FriedrichPsitalon mod. **** Changes for ancient teamers:A1) Every civ should start with both a scout and a warrior. Scout start may be too crippling on some maps. A2) Archers should be buffed a little (after all, it's a last ditch effort, noone will use them if there is a choice). So, archers need a small bonus vs Axemans and especially War Chariots that come too early and are too fast. Archery tech should be made cheaper as well (if someone is without a resource in capital then he shouldn't be penaltized even more because he needs to research archery instead of something more useful). A3) Horse Archers are on a separate tech path, they die to spearman and 2 Chariots are stronger than 1 Horse Archer... Probably it should be a Str 7 +25% vs Siege (or even no bonus vs Siege) unit like GameTheory said so to be about equal. Also, since it's a different tech path maybe they should get some other bonus? Say, free +1 sight range promotion? That way, they will be more useful. A4) Remove chopping bonus from mathematics. But chopping itself should be done in 2 turns instead of 3. A5) It's too hard to spread religion in ancient games. IMHO at that moment it's just inefficient in most cases. Probably we should get more free missionaries while discovering a religion, they should cost significantly less and shouldn't require a monastery (now they cost like a catapult IIRC, not to mention that you need a monastery). That will also make a lower part of the tech tree more important. Monastery should give +20% to research? Changes for Ren teamers:R1) Culture bomb is too powerful. There is no counter to it. So, i think it should be removed from the game but cities should need less culture for each culture level. That way, there will be a "conventional" culture battles. R2) Cossacks should be nerfed to 16 Str no bonus vs Cavalry. Since at that moment Cavalry is the primary unit in Ren teamers, +1 Strength is good enough. Cossacks will have a very good win/loss ratio vs Cavalry even with that Strength difference (with equal numbers of course). R3) Riflemans should be a counter to cavalry. For now, they appear too late and Grenadiers that counter them appear before them. Maybe, techs should cost 20%-30% less. R4) Civic changes. R4.1) It will be nice if everyone will have a free switch of civics in Medieval or later starts. We may change Spiritual leaders so they'll have a different civic instead of Spiritual. That way, there will be more strategic changes of civics. SMAC was fine that way and i don't see why it will be bad here. After all, they taken an idea of these civics from SMAC R4.2) Creative should give not only +2 culture but also a multiplier to culture that is equal to the culture ratio between different culture levels - 1. That way, Creative will have +1 to a range of culture spread (they'll probably focus on culture more than non-creative in border cities so they get -1 to this multiplier to offset it) R4.3) Industrial gets +1 health to offset Forge penalty. R4.4) Organized - 25% or maybe even 0% upkeep instead of 50%? Multiplayer empires are significantly smaller. The best way is to check saves to know how efficient it should be to be about equal to financial. R4.5) Expansive - +1 happiness +3 health. Changes for Modern teamers:Civs should start with Infantry instead of Marines. Marines are too crazy with a zero penalty while attacking from a ship. Just chop a ship and attack 2 to 1 enemy city - 100% win.
|
|
|
Post by Avogadro on Apr 20, 2006 12:04:01 GMT -5
Make roads a financial gain. (Dusty, 2006). Me like it. Gives gold to those who bother to develop their land and leaves those nasty choppers a little poorer. I think it was MMV? said cut forest=food loss Me like that too.
|
|
|
Post by Tony on Apr 20, 2006 14:34:18 GMT -5
Some small changes i would like are:
1) Explorers have 2-3 for move and all terrin is treated like road, and they should have 1 for strengh. So they are just that explorors and the strongest unit in classical and medi, so they often nuts on your iron and before you know it you have horses coming at you.
2) starting with fully loaded cites is a little silly, i would like new cites to be empty, maybe gran at most. Then you decide, what improvments you need, depending on how isolated you are and what your needs are. and i HATE starting with units, that is probally the worst thing about era starts IMO.
3) Would like stronger horse achers, and i would also like to see 5 str spears. Stronger HA's for mill axes.
4) Roll over hammers taken out
5) Bombers more like what they were in C3C, where they would break you stuff up, good and proper (Craters were great). BUT this would only happen if you didnt forsee it. This would require a unit that you can put on "control skies" mission.
6) The way money is made, cottages are fine but if you under any kind of pressure and you cant for some reason get them out early then it can really bite you in the ass, has knock on effects on every aspect of your game. Im not sure what the solution is, anyone have an idea?
7) This is probally going a little off topic, but i would like to see civics utilization come into play a little more, generally in most short era games, you dont really have to change civics much to ajust to the situation. I am aware you have to do a little changing, but in most situations there is a best route. Going 1 step futher i woule prefer governments, but im sure im in a minority there. Governments force you to make tough decisions rather then just picking the best bits.
8) After a certian tech i would like to see, no need for granision, not beacuse im too lazy to stick unit in my cites but bacuse it a skill leaving cites open, where you know you will see an attack. Or sometimes, you might take take a risk, when the units are very few in numbers. But in ancient its fine.
9) I would also like to see a unit that can be drop other units behind enermy lines, in future era.
Going football i see what else i can think of... TBC
|
|
|
Post by Elledge on Apr 20, 2006 16:49:24 GMT -5
4) Roll over hammers taken out Man, that would destroy the game so hard. I don't want this to be microfest 2006 on a 30 second timer, thanks. 6) The way money is made, cottages are fine but if you under any kind of pressure and you cant for some reason get them out early then it can really bite you in the ass, has knock on effects on every aspect of your game. Im not sure what the solution is, anyone have an idea? Idea is make dropping some cottages a priority. You have to do it, your opponent has to do it, it's part of the game and it's a part of the game I like. 7) This is probally going a little off topic, but i would like to see civics utilization come into play a little more, generally in most short era games, you dont really have to change civics much to ajust to the situation. I am aware you have to do a little changing, but in most situations there is a best route. Going 1 step futher i woule prefer governments, but im sure im in a minority there. Governments force you to make tough decisions rather then just picking the best bits. I'm not sure about this one - right now I enjoy doing exactly that sort of micromanagement - assuming I have spi trait, which I like to take in renaissance. I'm switching between Organized Religion / Pacifism / Theology and Serfdom / Slavery almost every four turns. It's fun and makes me look ahead at what I am building and working, which is a good feature. But on the other hand, for non-spi civs it's not really worth the turn in anarchy to do it, which is a shame sorta.[/quote] R2) Cossacks should be nerfed to 16 Str no bonus vs Cavalry. Since at that moment Cavalry is the primary unit in Ren teamers, +1 Strength is good enough. Cossacks will have a very good win/loss ratio vs Cavalry even with that Strength difference (with equal numbers of course). Jesus, man, nobody will use Russia then because it would be blowtastic. 16 strength might be acceptable (so that Redcoats and rifles get a decisive victory chance) but losing that edge vs Cavalry is just silly. Compare to other holynutsamazing UUs in the ren era like Musketeers and Conquistadors and Camel Archers, that really change the game. 16 strength still means one cannon sacrifice and a stack of Cossacks loses to a stack of Cavs with good odds. A3) Horse Archers are on a separate tech path, they die to spearman and 2 Chariots are stronger than 1 Horse Archer... Probably it should be a Str 7 +25% vs Siege (or even no bonus vs Siege) unit like GameTheory said so to be about equal. Also, since it's a different tech path maybe they should get some other bonus? Say, free +1 sight range promotion? That way, they will be more useful. I strongly agree! Horse archers are not worth the cost of the tech most of the time. 7 strength would be a nice upgrade. A5) It's too hard to spread religion in ancient games. IMHO at that moment it's just inefficient in most cases. Probably we should get more free missionaries while discovering a religion, they should cost significantly less and shouldn't require a monastery (now they cost like a catapult IIRC, not to mention that you need a monastery). That will also make a lower part of the tech tree more important. Monastery should give +20% to research? I think the answer here is to drop the hammer cost of a monastery and of missionaries, not increase its bonus in that manner. Giving more powerful research bonuses through buildings will only increase the potency of a "one uber commerce city" strategy, and it's already gay IMHO. R4.3) Industrial gets +1 health to offset Forge penalty. I don't think this is necessary. Half-price forges are already very very powerful, especially in Renaissance when they can provide an engineer as Mercantilism free specialist. 3. phi is overpowered, particularly with these super cities that stack 10 great people in 1 city and abuse caste/philosophy/phi attributes... i've seen guys with 0 cottages outtech everyone in a game doing this... it's a joke. there also should be a maximum on the # of world wonders that can be built in any city, particularly with Phi/Caste/Philosophy crap. Firstly, this strategy is totally weak unless the civ in question gets both pyramids and parthenon, which requires 2 different resources, and is unlikely if there are other good players in the game. Secondly, even with both of those, I've beaten some good players who tried this in tech with Catherine rapid expansion and cottaging in long games. If you have someone good at this, then speak up and I'd be happy to try them, but until then I am not convinced. Thirdly, these players have a difficult time producing an army later in the game, when financial civs can switch to U. S. and get 1 hammer from each town plus the ability to rush buy. GPP players lose a great deal of research if they drop representation, and their merged specialists will likely be mostly scientists and engineers - so they don't have the ability to make nearly as much money for rush buying. So they really need to be way ahead in tech or they have no chance in a war. 6. you should be able to 'vote' a leader of your team and all players' technology research decisions are AUTOMATED to his choice. 7. you should NOT be able to see what your opponents' techs are in F4 (foreign relations) when technology trade is turned off. it really hurts strategic decisions when your opponents knows what research routes you are after... i am in constant amazement that firaxis allows your enemy to see exactly what your doing research wise when tech trade is turned off. i seriously question whether or not these people at Firaxis play their own game. 8. you should be able to gift units to any teammate in any part of your TEAM's culture. this would allow 1 person to control a 'stack' even if he is in the backline, rather than potentially leaving units in the hands of some noob on a front line or trying to coordinate simultaneous moves with this person. OR -- you should be able to assign units to FOLLOW teammates' units or other game units automatically. if my catapults follow yours, then they attack/move when yours do. 9. you should be able to assign which civs are closest to enemy in launch screen or "RANDOM" proximity/location. 10. in random civs, you should also be able to assign the SAME civs to each team, rather than 1 civ of every kind to everyone. That is it will randomly assign 5 civs to 2 teams of 5... the SAME civs. 11. you should be able to overwrite tags/comments (ALT-S) from your teammates' in your own culture. 12. the staging menu should better facilitate team pickings/set-up by giving the "assigned leader/captains" ability to pick players/trade players. also allow the host to automatically assign all players to "no team" and set captains/leaders 13. teams should be MORE CLEARLY IDENTIFIED WITH COLORS in the staging menu rather than these little tiny 1, 2, 3 #s across 10+users, which are difficult to keep track of.. but team1 should be one color, team 2 another color, team 3 another color. this is so simple and basic... wtf is it not done already, i dont know. 14. staging menu should also list a person's rank, clan tag, along with their civ choice, team #, etc. so we don't have to alt-tab out and go look. 15. firaxis should embed rankings, clan statistics, personal win/loss statistics into this software and host it on a website themselves, so we can stop using this flawed case's system. Holy nuts - yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Quick change suggestion: Culture bombs are so powerful because of the culture visibility and the lack of visibility for your opponent. Proposed change: Suppose you can see into any square you have any culture at all in, even if you don't culturally control the square? So then the culture bomber would get the visibility bonus into his enemy territory (and the ability to plant cities in the bombed area, another bonus), but the bombed guy wouldn't lose visibility. That seems like a good compromise. I mean, the nuts has to do something, you're using a GP on the thing that could go toward a whole bunch of beakers or a free wonder. Also, Indian fast workers are not historically authentic. Instead, the Indian UU should be the "Cheap Worker", which costs half the hammers and no upkeep but language barriers cause it to misinterpret one out of five improvement orders.
|
|
|
Post by Ellestar on Apr 21, 2006 8:51:09 GMT -5
3. phi is overpowered, particularly with these super cities that stack 10 great people in 1 city and abuse caste/philosophy/phi attributes... i've seen guys with 0 cottages outtech everyone in a game doing this... it's a joke. there also should be a maximum on the # of world wonders that can be built in any city, particularly with Phi/Caste/Philosophy crap. Production sucks in that case. Also, You need a lot of food for it - either 2 food resources or a food resource and flood plains. 4. connectivity does not work at all. game splits, drops, etc. etc. Hmm as i understand it's not even in SDK (C++) so we can't change it. 5. there is a total lack of good multiplayer maps, such that most people are stuck playing this crap inland sea map over and over. there should be a "mirror" version of pangea, fractal, team battleground. etc. such that it is exactly even and gameplay/decisions determine outcome. True, true. 8. you should be able to gift units to any teammate in any part of your TEAM's culture. this would allow 1 person to control a 'stack' even if he is in the backline, rather than potentially leaving units in the hands of some noob on a front line or trying to coordinate simultaneous moves with this person. Bleh. Then what's the point of a teamer? Anyway, it will require a complicated code changes. It's not just a mod. Although i'm surprised that many players who are in top 50 or sometimes are even in top 10 can't move their units. They can't move even one stack of units, when they were warned 2 turns prior to that move... I guess everyone with the hands growing from the wrong parts of their body (namley, their ass) do stop playing RTS games like Warcraft 3 because of despair and come to play Civ 4 multiplayer. ... Well, there are a lot of other good ideas but they'll require changes in either Python or C++ and it's not that easy to find what to change and how to change. Any new added functionality is very hard to implement compared to a simple mod Make currency give 2+ gold per trade route. Hmm it will require code changes. But it's easy to change a number of trade routes. 9) Creative gives - 25 Culture I imagine it on Ancient start... It will be crazy. 11) Spiritual only has to wait 3 Turns to Switch again 12) Organized gets - 30% toward costs from having multiple cities 13) Agressive gives free 10% damage to all units except mounted units. 16) Great merchants give an instant 200-500 Gold if you want or somewhere around this. Can't be done with XML 15) Caravel Can carry 1 of any type of unit, I don't see what's the point of it. Besides, i think that there is still a bug that allows to upgrade a caravel with a unit to a frigate (maybe it was fixed, i don't know). 18) Castles need to give 75 - 100% defense. Gunpowder units ignore castles. Do you want to change it? Also, i think castles give +100% defence total as it is now (+50% and they require a wall that also gives +50%). 24) Caste system allows unlimited of any type of specialist. ( I shouldn't just go and keep emacipation and other specific civics when I get them, It should be a tuff choice on which civics to pick throughout the game.. Now it allows unlimited of any but engineer (it was unlimited but it was changed, probably because engineers can rush wonders). 26) Environmentalism gives 2 health per swamp and forest and 1 extra food and hammer per forest. Dont hurt peoples chopping, make it more worth it for people to keep there forest around. Maybe it's possible with XML, but i don't see how to do it. 27) Theocracy gives 4 experience points in units with religion, make triple promotions easier, make all civics, more appealing and able to compete with one another, make it extremly difficult for people to make a choice on which civic to use because they all look so damn juicy. I don't really see where is the choice here, IMHO it's too powerful. Maybe it's for Ancient start only? 8) Needs a map where copper and horse are in home base and home area and the map looks like an octopus and there are 8 bases or small land areas where leaders start. It will look liek Hub and have 1 large center area, but the bases are very tiny and 75% of the land is in the middle and all other resources are in the middle area. For now i don't know how to make maps. But anyway, what is octopus? Jesus, man, nobody will use Russia then because it would be blowtastic. 16 strength might be acceptable (so that Redcoats and rifles get a decisive victory chance) but losing that edge vs Cavalry is just silly. Compare to other holynutsamazing UUs in the ren era like Musketeers and Conquistadors and Camel Archers, that really change the game. 16 strength still means one cannon sacrifice and a stack of Cossacks loses to a stack of Cavs with good odds. Any unit that is better than a primary era unit in exactly the same condition is good anyway. Well, if it will not be picked then it may be improved a little. If it will be a choice what to choose, Cossacks or some other UU, then it will mean that Cossacks are just about right. Quick change suggestion: Culture bombs are so powerful because of the culture visibility and the lack of visibility for your opponent. Proposed change: Suppose you can see into any square you have any culture at all in, even if you don't culturally control the square? So then the culture bomber would get the visibility bonus into his enemy territory (and the ability to plant cities in the bombed area, another bonus), but the bombed guy wouldn't lose visibility. That seems like a good compromise. I mean, the nuts has to do something, you're using a GP on the thing that could go toward a whole bunch of beakers or a free wonder. No, culture is powerful because of roads. Also, any city that can't be double moved is in a significantly safer position. But the primary reason why culture bomb is overpowered in multiplayer is because there is no way to counter it but to use a culture bomb.
|
|