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Post by tommynt on Apr 21, 2006 8:58:15 GMT -5
fine if other wana put time in this i dont - atm.
As long as the technical side of the game is as bad as it is atm there s no way to attract more players as the few 50s playing rehularly atm - even some (most) of these get either bored playing allways same people or pissed about all the problems.
On other hand i dont see why we should do work of firaxis.
So i just shut up - I dont think anyway that a game with either mirror start and pick civs or big distances is very unbalanced
I just might add 1 idea - why not make all units availabe as soon u get tech for it but make em double (maybe even just +50%)costs without resource - like wonders ...
horsearcher 60 shields but might get opp kinda off guard .. and a spear for 40 to help u defned these anyoing chariots - hm double costs is better - or early chariots d get totaly useless
hm on other hand ... no1 d build warriors anymore - maybe give em some 100% melle bunus to make em fight vs axe at least when they are in defending in wood
again: 1. clear techincal issues then improve gameplay!
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Post by weaksauce on Apr 21, 2006 9:21:28 GMT -5
fine if other wana put time in this i dont - atm. As long as the technical side of the game is as bad as it is atm there s no way to attract more players as the few 50s playing rehularly atm - even some (most) of these get either bored playing allways same people or pissed about all the problems. On other hand i dont see why we should do work of firaxis. So i just shut up - I dont think anyway that a game with either mirror start and pick civs or big distances is very unbalanced I just might add 1 idea - why not make all units availabe as soon u get tech for it but make em double (maybe even just +50%)costs without resource - like wonders ... horsearcher 60 shields but might get opp kinda off guard .. and a spear for 40 to help u defned these anyoing chariots - hm double costs is better - or early chariots d get totaly useless hm on other hand ... no1 d build warriors anymore - maybe give em some 100% melle bunus to make em fight vs axe at least when they are in defending in wood again: 1. clear techincal issues then improve gameplay! The unit cost suggestion is decent. It would help a bit. I have to agree with Tommy 100%. Someone said to me yesterday, "I read your suggestions on the forums and I thought to myself, 'Wow that would be awesome if that was implemented.'" And I said back to him, "Yea but it's really only common sense in a good multiplayer game, if you think about it." To which he said back, "You know what, you're right." A lot of these requests on here are just so obvious, I don't know why we have to 'do firaxis job for them,' as Tommy said. Firaxis also does need to fix technical problems first. I think there are only a handful of hardcore players left and the game is just so riddled with problems. I've not been able to complete a good, high quality multiplayer game in the last 3 days due to constant drops, errors, game splits. Every report I've gotten is due to people just quitting or conceding cuz no one wants to go thru the trouble to continue. Half the games I've played are scrapped due to inability to play. When 50% of your games are scrapped with some of the 'highest quality' ladder players, it just becomes a complete waste of time. I like a lot of the players and enjoy the competition, but this game really has so many problems and baggage. Firaxis has not proven themselves to be dependable in addressing these issues. :/ Time to quit this game, I think. /weak
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Post by weaksauce on Apr 21, 2006 9:39:14 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. 1. production does not suck becuz some will be great engineers. 2. the person will just make farms everywhere, no cottages... 3. I'm not talking about using caste system and making population into great people. I'm talking about constantly adding a great person to a city... so that you eventually have a lot of great people in 1 city. Phi/wonder abuse makes games in more isolated maps like hub, islands even worse, because you can never reach the guy effectively and he will abuse the nuts out of it.
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Post by Avogadro on Apr 21, 2006 9:53:37 GMT -5
I respect you guys frustration over the connectivity issues.
Helping here however is not helping Firaxis. It is simply building a mod you all feel is right and more suitable to ladder play.
Firaxis is not about to change the balance of their game for the ladder thus....with you MP's input. Fried and Ellestar can maybe offer something more to our liking "Balance wise".
For connections I dont know what the solution is. Is that hamachi as good as everyone says? If so maybe we should make it mandatory for ladder play.
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Post by Lestat on Apr 21, 2006 11:31:53 GMT -5
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. 1. production does not suck becuz some will be great engineers. 2. the person will just make farms everywhere, no cottages... 3. I'm not talking about using caste system and making population into great people. I'm talking about constantly adding a great person to a city... so that you eventually have a lot of great people in 1 city. Phi/wonder abuse makes games in more isolated maps like hub, islands even worse, because you can never reach the guy effectively and he will abuse the nuts out of it. Just remember 1 game where XX abused me with hes jungle-forest prommotions or in c3c with jags. Different traits different benefits ,different players different using of benefits. Just play all game types with all peps and enyoj. Forget those runk hunters which playing only with themself.
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Post by Elledge on Apr 21, 2006 18:33:36 GMT -5
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. 3. I'm not talking about using caste system and making population into great people. I'm talking about constantly adding a great person to a city... so that you eventually have a lot of great people in 1 city. Phi/wonder abuse makes games in more isolated maps like hub, islands even worse, because you can never reach the guy effectively and he will abuse the nuts out of it. The two go hand-in-hand - you aren't going to have loads of GP to add unless you are running a zillion specialists. And two things: first, it's hard to get a lot of great engineers, since caste system doesn't give additional engineer specs. Generally you will get about 3/4 scientists, 1/8 engineers, and 1/8 prophets/artists if you are sitting around teching with this strategy. That's not a lot of production. Secondly, you still can't rush buy effectively, which ends up being the major source of production in the endgame. I speak out of experience. I don't get outteched much, but I've played two or three custom_continents games where someone with this strategy, Pyramids, and the Parthenon, stayed a bit ahead of me in tech throughout the game, enough that they beat me to liberalism by about five or ten turns (like, they had 500 beakers per turn in their capital by 1000 AD.) But as soon as I got democracy and started fighting them actively, even though it was like grenadiers and pikes and catapults vs cavalry and rifles, my production capacity due to rushing units was so much larger that I just overran them.
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Post by friedrichpsitalon on Apr 21, 2006 20:40:17 GMT -5
fine if other wana put time in this i dont - atm. As long as the technical side of the game is as bad as it is atm there s no way to attract more players as the few 50s playing rehularly atm - even some (most) of these get either bored playing allways same people or pissed about all the problems. On other hand i dont see why we should do work of firaxis. So i just shut up - I dont think anyway that a game with either mirror start and pick civs or big distances is very unbalanced I just might add 1 idea - why not make all units availabe as soon u get tech for it but make em double (maybe even just +50%)costs without resource - like wonders ... horsearcher 60 shields but might get opp kinda off guard .. and a spear for 40 to help u defned these anyoing chariots - hm double costs is better - or early chariots d get totaly useless hm on other hand ... no1 d build warriors anymore - maybe give em some 100% melle bunus to make em fight vs axe at least when they are in defending in wood again: 1. clear techincal issues then improve gameplay! Someone else already said this but I'll say it again because it bears repeating: This is not a Firaxis venture. This is one guy trying to come up with a mod to satisfy some people. Frankly, given the wild range of ideas here, and the ....well, out-of-touch analysis about the effects it would have (25 culture/turn?! That was a joke, right)... I'm thinking this may simply be a lost cause headed for deletion. In any case, this isn't a Firaxis-bashing thread or a rant thread about connection issues. This is a thread about a LADDER MOD. Stay on topic, please.
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Post by manyaz1 on Apr 22, 2006 7:02:12 GMT -5
1. I really like the idea that you can build spears for 2x the cost if you dont have metal etc. (ie. metal or horses gives a 50% production bonus to the units which are associated with them)
2. Give the host an option to start people with more than 1 settler / workers/ explorers/ warriors (or basic unit of that era). I would really help shorten games - an ancient with 3 settler start could be a 80 turn game (rather than 120) - and it would help get over the nor resource in initial settle issues.
Imo the biggest problem with Civ4 catching on as a multiplayer game in the wider arena is how long each game takes - outside 1v1s an ancient cton is about the quickest game you can get and thats a 2.5 hour time commitment ... which is huge for even serious gamers .. yesterday I was in a 3v3 ren which normally i'd expect to last 3 hrs, instead stretched via lag out to 5 hours ... one thing that might help is a new speed setting between fast and blazing (in the last 30 turns of a "fast" 130turn game each turn is 2min+ long .. thats unnecessary)
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Post by Necrominousss on Apr 22, 2006 14:26:36 GMT -5
1. A mod with easier promotions would be cool. Start all newly built units automatically have 4 promotion points and make barracks and civics have a 50% increase in promotions points awarded. On top of that I might even have another building that can be built after barracks(say an elite training camp) so the all units built in that city are trained with even more promotion points. 2. A longer golden age would be better. 12 or 15 turns sounds more exciting to me. I would also have a national wonder G.A. trigger for each era and make Taj Mahal national wonder. 3. I would have later ear starts have only a settler and maybe a worker. The rest is up to the player. 4. Some one said take away hammer rollover If hammer or tech rollover is taken out I hit my civ disc with a hammer and never play again. That was the one thing I couldn't stand about c3c. 5. Now that horse archer has been made harder to get and some say it is not worth building compared to chariot I would like to see H.A.(and all horse units after that) have first strike capability when not in forest and get defense bonus when on a hill. I believe a H.A. would be at a disadvantage in the forest but would have a speed advantage on flat land so should get first strike against all single move units and H.A. would have a clear advantage owning the high ground. This would also add some flavor to the horse units and the game. 6. I can't figure out why one wouldn't be able to build a fort on top of an existing land improvement without destroying it. 7. I would like to see some continent and ring maps with land equivalent to inland sea(more rivers) or get +1 gold for land adjacent to lake. 8. It would be nice to see taking a city worth some points(Maybe 50 or 75). Sure having the extra space is an advantage if you take another and eliminate the player but its also an advantage for the other neighbor who may have contributed nothing to the cause. Taking a city can be a major accomplishment and should be rewarded by points imo. It would also add more spice to the later part of the game. Sometimes its not beneficial to attack someone in the later part of the game but if points were awarded for taking a city there might be a reason to attack rather then just defend what you have, which could have many interesting ramifications to the overall game and increase the excitement. 9. I agree bomber should be a little closer to c3c version. At least be able to destroy roads and destroy a unit completely. 10. Also agree that paratrooper is needed for modern and future starts. 11. As long as you are creating new units there should be a Mobile SAM to combat improved bomber. 12. And I do so miss the missile and cant figure why it was left out of modern arsenal. with sight expanded and double move nerf the missile would be much weaker than in c3c so there was no need to not have it. 13. I would give archers and gunpowder units zone of control. They get a free shot at any unit or stack travel beside the unit.(it's difficult to make this post short) 14. I'm starting to think catapults may be over powered collateral damage wise. Maybe give all units available promotion against siege weapons might even in out a bit. 15. I like the idea of semi overlapping cultural boarder. If you have over 25% cultural influence, being able to see square would make sense. I agree with tommy. I should be getting paid to do firaxis work. E-mail me and I will tell firaxis where to send the check. Thanks for at least trying Fried.
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Post by Elledge on Apr 22, 2006 16:55:11 GMT -5
1. I really like the idea that you can build spears for 2x the cost if you dont have metal etc. (ie. metal or horses gives a 50% production bonus to the units which are associated with them) Me too.
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Post by friedrichpsitalon on Apr 22, 2006 18:37:15 GMT -5
I like that idea, but I don't know if it's possible to do with the XML. I'll keep that on the list of good/doables.
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Post by tommynt on Apr 24, 2006 6:44:30 GMT -5
Friedrich Psitalon I really appreciate your work - but it s just useless to make a MOD for a game no1 is able to play. (I know we are somehow able ...)
I also dont think that a "ladder" mode is a bad idea - CounterStrike, kinda most played game ever, was a MOD, or not? But I cant imagine halflife was a game with so many technical problems.
Oh well I just add some idea poped into my mind -
1. ´maybe add mercanaries - no res needed for em - just some mercanry building with upgardes for later era units. These guys should be bit more expensie as usual unit - but should have special abilities - maybe somethink like a horse with antihorsepower or so - another idea for em d be to make em kinda powerful but not able to recover themself - like real mercanaries - when they died they were gone - there was no recruiting from local people for free to em. I could even imagine a mercanariy trait which makes mercanaries cheaper
2. I m not a experienced futrue player so I maybe cant rate it too good - but i really think it need soem change - missles and paratroppers are needed badly - sealanding work somehow to good - with a 7 moce transport u can just cross a map in 2-3 turns or so - due to the much smaller size of maps compared to civ3 this is kinda a problem imo. and these ciites with all the buildings in and size 5 - i ll never like that - civ is a game of buildup for me - maybe some people like drafting and heavy fights afteer 5 turns - I just dont do.
not sure how a start with a settler and a worker in futre d work out - but it worked great in civ3.
I also think some civcs should be changed - has ever some1 used this bio thing giving 6 health? for example.
3. horsearcher should get more antisiegepower - atm i think a stack of 6 hs dies to a satck of 8 catas - when u mix 2 spears to catas HA cant do nothing.
4. cre traits needs more power fur sure - also if u wana make this cuture concept that important as it looks like, cultural conversions should be easier to achieve - i never ever saw 1 - not even sure how it d work and what d happen
5. colonies for OCC pls - hm and the civ3 wonders werer just much more interesting for occc as civ4 wonders - but oh well not everything can be perfect.
6. more autoworker options - atm they street and irgigate mainly oh well i was never a fan of autoworkers as i like control over everything - but with more options they might be ionteresteing for later eras - oh well liked em more in civ3 anyway when u cuild build em in 1-2 t without choping
7. there s no antibow unit (appart from mass catas maybe) what makes longbows just superstong city defenders - kinda anyoing in med aswell in epics imo - u really need to wait for cavs to kill em. not sure what to do but this makes med kinda unayplable nofun for me
8. oh ya and timerspeed should be chageable - either ingame or at least in reload - oh well discussions about timer speed might go off - still a good idea
9. and weaksauce going caste system with phi civ and poping loads of guys is not to win any type of game imo - sure engineurs rock - but few wonders are really overpowered in fact some of em suck. phi ag fin and indu trait are kinda balanced exp might give even more haelth, org - i dont know about org and cre needs a boost
oh well soem of these idea might not be able in a mod but need the "expansion pack" ....
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Post by donaldkipper on Apr 24, 2006 8:37:27 GMT -5
i like the overall concept but i think the changes should be relatively small
rather than remake a game that has a whole host of new balance issues, i think we should tweak what exists to fix the current problems
1) i really like the idea to be able to build units requiring resources anyway but for a higher cost - reduces reliance on resources
2) currently, movement is too slow. Therefore, increase road movement to 3 and 4 with engineering
3) some of the traits are very weak compared to others
expansive should either get bigger boost to health or reduction in food required to grow
i like the idea of less turns between switches for spiritual - this doesnt scale with game speed making it stronger on epic and marathon
organised needs significant boost - maybe reduce maintenance costs as well as civic costs
creative is pretty weak too - maybe boost to 5 culture per turn or give money from culture generating buildings?
4) i like idea to make Kremlin national wonder - but then using economy to build units instead of production kinda sucks and is overpowered anyway so why not scrap kemlin - also significantly increase cost to rush buy production
5) to prevent clear cutting forests, make forest regeneration IMMENSELY quicker - this way it pays to keep forests around - also, drastically limit forest range to 3 squares from city - even city limits only would be reasonable
making forest worthwhile keeping might be an alternative - say +2 prod and +1gold and giving gold bonus by river
so Grass Forest by River gives 2F 2P 2G Plains Forest by River would give 1F 3P 2G
maybe even a 3 shield boost - what would it take to make it an actual choice whether to chop or keep
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Post by knupp on Apr 24, 2006 20:39:23 GMT -5
I like Dragoons idea above.
I like a lot of the ideas here. I hope all the disagreements in this thread doesn't lead to the abandonment of this project. Thanks for working on this Fried.
Nothing to counter a culture bomb? Simply not true, culture bombs counter culture bombs. If somebody has culture bombed you, have a team-mate or yourself run artists till you get Great Artist and culture bomb them back.
Some of my suggestions:
I personally think Gandhi (and Asoka) is far to overpowered. In ren games he will always dominate. He needs a new uu. I like what somebody said about a War Elephant with extra strength.
Russia's uu is far to overpowered. Its strength should be lowered and it shouldn't have a bonus vs. mounted units. You know it is unbalanced when it is banned from ren games.
Philisophical may need to be weakened but I don't have enough experience to say if it is extremely overpowered, I do know it is ridiculous when somebodies foundation of their civ is Great People. Maybe only +50% gpp?
Horse Archers need to be stronger.
What weak said about maps is 100% right. I am so sick of inland sea! Of course this is also partly about the community not being familiar with many other maps yet (me included). Hopefully this will change.
You should not be able to see what your opponents are researching in the Domestic Advisor screen when tech trading is off. Somebody else mentioned this too.
This is a great idea. It takes forever in large teamers to see who is on who's team. Another suggestion: Instead of colors when a player is assigned to a team they move up next to the rest of their teammates. Hard to explain. For example:
Current situation Person A : 1 Person B : 2 Person C : 2 Person D : 1 Person E : 1 Person F : 2
Ideal Situation Person A : 1 Person D : 1 Person E : 1 Person B : 2 Person C : 2 Person F : 2
Is this possible?
And Lastly the point scoring system needs a lot of work. Right now you get points from population, land, techs, and wonders.
I know Firaxis wanted to make the builder strategy more viable in Civ4 as opposed to only one strategy (WAR WAR WAR), but this is just messed up.
Right now you get the highest score by doing this: Grow your cities (less production), get lots of culture so you claim more land, research a ton, and build lots of wonders. That is a lot building strategy!!!
You should get a certain amount of points for razing a city. There should also be another scoring branch. "Power" for the amount of units you have. I can understand why Firaxis didn't have this in the game because of SP. If power was included in score then AI's would always be a few thousand points ahead in higher diffuculty levels (emperor and above) because they have 1000 units running around. But for multiplayer this needs to be added. I'm sick of people winning in CTON's for just having enough military to get by but researching and building wonders to score themselves to victory. CTON's are supposed to be AW!!!
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Post by Ellestar on Apr 25, 2006 1:40:59 GMT -5
Another idea: War Weariness should be removed from "Always War" multiplayer games. It's just stupid to give a penalty for fighting on the enemy territory or taking enemy cities in an "Always War" game. A persistent penalty that can't be rid of. I like that idea, but I don't know if it's possible to do with the XML. I'll keep that on the list of good/doables. With XML it's possible to give a bonus to production (like wonders). There is a mod like this somewhere. But there are some problems with it. Say, what to do if a unit needs bronze or iron? We can give +50% bonus from either but then with only one resource unit will cost more than it should. With +100% bonus and both resources it will cost less than it should. Also, it doesn't stack as it should with other production modifiers. Production modifiers are added up instead of multiplying. So, with a +25% forge and +100% bonus from a resource forge will actually give only +12.5% (+25% to a double production cost of a unit). Edit: I found where changes should be made. We should change 2 functions for it - "CvCity.cpp -> getProductionModifier(Unit" and "CvPlayer.cpp -> getProductionNeeded(Unit" Nothing to counter a culture bomb? Simply not true, culture bombs counter culture bombs. If somebody has culture bombed you, have a team-mate or yourself run artists till you get Great Artist and culture bomb them back. Well i guess you don't know what is considered a counter in strategy games. Same strategy is not a counter, if only because it has exactly the same cost. When something is overpowered and don't have a counter, then something is wrong here. Also, by removing it we also nerf Phi somewhat in teamers. Besides, culture is persistent so even if you culture bomb as well, he who did it first still has a big advantage. You should get a certain amount of points for razing a city. There should also be another scoring branch. "Power" for the amount of units you have. I can understand why Firaxis didn't have this in the game because of SP. If power was included in score then AI's would always be a few thousand points ahead in higher diffuculty levels (emperor and above) because they have 1000 units running around. But for multiplayer this needs to be added. I'm sick of people winning in CTON's for just having enough military to get by but researching and building wonders to score themselves to victory. CTON's are supposed to be AW!!! IMHO score for military idea is horrible. Since generally you lose more when attacking, it will be more efficient not to attack to someone with a bigger power. If they attack unsuccessfully, they not only lose units but score as well. Also, even if attack is successful it's not guaranteed that enemy will lose more score by losing a city than attacker will lose score by losing an army. Anything that promotes stalemates is a bad thing IMHO.
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Post by tommynt on Apr 25, 2006 2:12:15 GMT -5
uh ya, making ctons killerctons d be nice - u shold be able to set some value in setuproom for killing a opponent - I hosted some gems with +400 points for a kill - gave quite a boost to action
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Post by Tony on Apr 25, 2006 6:29:16 GMT -5
If people want to play killer cton they can add X pionts themself at the end, i personally dont like the idea so dont see any reason why it has to be built into the MOD when it works just as well adding it manually.
Pionts for amry is a foolish idea IMO, army is its own reward. The best players know when to build army, but more importantly when not to build it.
Coast should definatly be worth pionts, cant work out the thinking behind this.
I personally dont like science being worth pionts either, as science like army should be it own reward. When i play im generally doing pretty well in science, so im not saying this cuz im too lazy to make science, but it makes upgrading a real tatictic, and maybe even building banks. But not reseaching has risks assosiated with it, ie fighting knights with axes. In eras such as classical and med, you can generally get to cavs, so if somsone negelcts science they are really screwed, but if somsone wishes to do a risky rush, they should be allowed to do so, without score being affcted.
Also IMO future needs the most work, if a really good future mod is made, and all other eras are uneffected i would be very happy with this mod!
Ellester, you seem to know what your doing in terms of modding, how about start a thread for changes to future, and make a really good mod?
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Post by friedrichpsitalon on Apr 25, 2006 6:59:12 GMT -5
By this weekend, I will have a proposed changelist ready. Due to enthusiasm for the other two mods I've released and a pickup in logical, reasonable conversation here, the mod will go on.
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Post by zerza on Apr 25, 2006 7:30:36 GMT -5
Alot of these posts scare me Alot of them seem to be situations the poster should have thought themselves out of, rather then change the game.
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Post by donaldkipper on Apr 25, 2006 8:01:57 GMT -5
care to elaborate?
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