Super Massive Enhanced Gameplay Mod

[Krill]

Given the late game tech costs? And the increased viability and output of Free Speech? And the increased commerce %age modifiers for multiple cities? If anything, it seems wiser to alter the actually level of culture needed for CV.

[GermanJoey]

I suppose you could also increase the cultural output of a cathedral...

[Krill]

To what? +100%?

[Cheater Hater]

To what? +100%?

More likely +50% naturally, then +50% more with a State Religion to match what's done with the Temple (and probably could be done with the Monastery, though I don't know if that's overpowered compared to a Library)--I don't know if the XML that let's Cathedrals work is specific to happiness though, and thus it might require DLL work?

Is there an updated changelog anywhere, both in terms of what's changed overall (at least from RTR, if not from Vanilla--or heck, I'd appreciate just from the last changelog at this point ), as well as what's specifically left to code (IND and PRO--though I don't know what's left for them to be honest).

Speaking of traits, what's going on with the replacement for Spiritual? Are we just leaving that out of this release, or did it get added sometime in the period where there have been few updates?

[GermanJoey]

yeah I suppose that would work... perhaps also increase the number of temples you need to make per cathedral to compensate. I don't know if it matters, I've never read a game here where anyone uses any of the single-player CV tricks to pull off a late-game CV in multiplayer, but I never understood why that is considering how far less resource-intensive it is than building a 25k hammer spaceship.

here's some example numbers to you can help calibrate. to measure time for a culture victory, lets assume we have two very strong cities (e.g. bureau cap for one, and say some city with some towns and a lot of culture-doubled marble wonders or whatever) and then some weaker city as our third. the third city will use some great artists to help boost it over the top but it will still be our limiter. lets also say that a player can set up perhaps 6k culture in such a city before cranking the slider for their capital and second city, and then have 6 great artists in reserve for finale bombing. thus, a city needs to get 20k culture on its own.

• example 1, sistine artist center:
  size 14, working 9 sistine artists + 28 food from tiles from 5 citizens (helped by biology farms):
  9*6 specialist culture + ~30 building culture + 26 commerce culture at full slider = 110 base culture per turn
  FS + 1 cathedral + BCT: 330cpt -> 63 turns of full slider
  FS + 2 cathedral + BCT: 385cpt -> 52 turns of full slider
  FS + 4 cathedral + BCT: 495cpt -> 40 turns of full slider
  FS + 6 cathedral + BCT: 605cpt -> 33 turns of full slider
  FS + 6 cathedral + BCT + Hermitage: 715cpt -> 28 turns of full slider
  

• example 2, big commerce center:
  size 17, working 3 regular artists + 8 FS towns:
  3*4 specialist culture + ~16 building culture + 112 commerce culture at full slider = 140 base culture per turn
  FS + 1 cathedral + BCT: 350cpt -> 57 turns of full slider
  FS + 2 cathedral + BCT: 420cpt -> 48 turns of full slider
  FS + 4 cathedral + BCT: 560cpt -> 36 turns of full slider
  FS + 6 cathedral + BCT: 700cpt -> 29 turns of full slider
  FS + 6 cathedral + BCT + Hermitage: 840cpt -> 24 turns of full slider
  

in each case, its about a 5 turn difference off of one's finish date to have two 100% cathedrals instead of six 50%ers... pretty important considering that in an MP game you'd be in a fight for survival by that point.

[Krill]

Is there an updated changelog anywhere, both in terms of what's changed overall (at least from RTR, if not from Vanilla--or heck, I'd appreciate just from the last changelog at this point ), as well as what's specifically left to code (IND and PRO--though I don't know what's left for them to be honest).

Since the last update that you gave, what is left is to rebuild PHI and IND, and to introduce the work boat change. I think that's it.

The SPI replacement can be done at any point, is not needed for the first test games.

However, before then, just need to sort out a bit of a conundrum with the tech tree: Assuming that Communism is split into two techs, with SP and Kremlin moved over to Around Nationalism and Constitution, What else should stay in the original posiiton of Communism?




Don't trust all the effects of the techs in the above tech tree, that's a work in progress. Tech costs also need fixing.

[spacetyrantxenu]

This isn't helpful, just having a bit of fun with the way the techs lined up. I promise I'll help in a minute.

I'm not arguing about its placement in the Civ tech tree here, but I find it amusing that Corporation appears to be the evolutionary successor of basically every prior concept of government previously researched by mankind. It looks like, in turn, we have tried mystic/religous goverments of varying types, made the religious leaders the monarch, then progressed on to a Code of Laws. We merged a line of research based upon Writing and literacy into a concept of Philosophy, wherein we probably lamented in all the horrible abuses of government throughout history. That outpouring of thought led to a fervor where (everywhere!) the people of a nation decided that they were the best nation of all the nations, all else be damned, and probably a lot of wars were fought in the name of Nationalism (and much drafting to supply stock for those wars was needed). After wasting away the blood of many generations people sought new forms of government, casting this way and that for a better answer since Nationalism only led to bloodshed and mistrust among different nations. Some people walked down a road toward laws (Constitution), others to the dictatorship of the majority (Democracy), others to the dictatorship of the proletariat (lol, yeah right, but that line sells better than "Dictatorship of the oligarchy") and Communism. And then, having tried all these, some few leaders decided all this need for law and order and government for the people was a lot of horse shit and then they invented the Corporation, the highest form of government apparently availabe this side of Alpha Centauri. Who says you can't buy happiness? Anyway, I hope you can buy it because it looks like Corporation is either a dead end, or the pinnacle of human achievement. I guess which one you believe depends on how many shares you own. </offtopic>

However, before then, just need to sort out a bit of a conundrum with the tech tree: Assuming that Communism is split into two techs, with SP and Kremlin moved over to Around Nationalism and Constitution, What else should stay in the original posiiton of Communism?

OK, so after that I have to try and help to redeem this post. You need something to split off the former placement of Communism. What about bringing back good old Fundamentalism from Civ 3? It isn't going away in modern times, it seems, yet there isn't a modern religious equivalent to Theocracy in the game. I guess that's because medieval Theocracy isn't all that different from what's being offered in the modern age in RL. Only the weapons have changed, the rest seems to be the same old same old.

I hate the idea of introducing that into the game though, because much moreso than corporatocracy, which is horse shit, fundamentalism is man, bear, pig, and horse shit. So scratch that. Maybe invent Utopia technology to hold whatever civics option needs to go there. It can also unlock a +1 global happiness for providing plentiful rainbows and sunshine. Or, going back to old school Civ, maybe Republicanism, or Federalism to reflect modern government technology. Although the ideas for both of those obviously go back to the Classical age, and there is nothing new under the sun.

[Krill]

I'm not arguing about its placement in the Civ tech tree here, but I find it amusing that Corporation appears to be the evolutionary successor of basically every prior concept of government previously researched by mankind. It looks like, in turn, we have tried mystic/religous goverments of varying types, made the religious leaders the monarch, then progressed on to a Code of Laws. We merged a line of research based upon Writing and literacy into a concept of Philosophy, wherein we probably lamented in all the horrible abuses of government throughout history. That outpouring of thought led to a fervor where (everywhere!) the people of a nation decided that they were the best nation of all the nations, all else be damned, and probably a lot of wars were fought in the name of Nationalism (and much drafting to supply stock for those wars was needed). After wasting away the blood of many generations people sought new forms of government, casting this way and that for a better answer since Nationalism only led to bloodshed and mistrust among different nations. Some people walked down a road toward laws (Constitution), others to the dictatorship of the majority (Democracy), others to the dictatorship of the proletariat (lol, yeah right, but that line sells better than "Dictatorship of the oligarchy") and Communism. And then, having tried all these, some few leaders decided all this need for law and order and government for the people was a lot of horse shit and then they invented the Corporation, the highest form of government apparently availabe this side of Alpha Centauri. Who says you can't buy happiness? Anyway, I hope you can buy it because it looks like Corporation is either a dead end, or the pinnacle of human achievement. I guess which one you believe depends on how many shares you own. </offtopic>

...I think you copied that from a history book Xenu, cos that sounds like reality to me.


On topic: I simply copied TECH_UTOPIA (which is actually Communism) then changed the name to Geology, leaving it in Communism's original place. I mean, Chemistry is earlier on in the tech tree and the other two techs that come off SM are Biology and Physics. I was tempted to name a tech Scientology and have the first person to research it have all their cities deleted but novice wouldn't let me. I was thinking make Geology reveal oil, enable Rushmore and enable Kremlin (but make Kremlin also need something like Military Science).

Really, the name of the tech is a flavour point which I leave to every to set up polls and argue over: I don't care so long as it isn't something completely retarded (unless it's retarded and ironic then it's automatically in).

[spacetyrantxenu]

Scientology is both retarded and ironic, since it's neither science nor worthy of study. I could support its use as the tech, but only if this is the image that appears when you research it:

Obviously having all your cities deleted represents evil thetans taking over, so that's an appropriate bonus. It also saves you from having to play out the end game because, honestly, if you've paid the money to cleanse yourself of thetans unlocked the secrets of Scientology you've already lost won.

As for the history, that's the use I get out of my history degree these days. I didn't rip it out of a book. I may be a villain from Scientology but I'm not plagiarist!

Anyway, Geology sounds like a good fit for the tech, with the effects you've described. Biology and Chemistry being represented did seem unfair to the geologists, who did a lot of important (and at the time compared to other scientific fields, relatively unappreciated) work to increase human understanding of the world around them. Additional proposed effect of Geology: Introduction of plate tectonics theory marks the end of the days when players can whine about map resources, because they will then realize that the mapmaker put everything on the map in the right place, but the planet moved it all around on its own, despite the Great ClockMapmaker's best intentions. No blame remains to be assigned to the mapmaker after the advent of Geology. Thus, anyone not having aluminum for their spaceships are out of luck when it comes to playing the blame game. Or move the +1 hammer on quarries to Geology because it kind of sounds nice. Not sure where that was moved to in this iteration of the mod, so if that sucks from a gameplay/balance perspective skip it. It just sounds like nice flavor.

[Dreylin]

Thumbs up for a Geology tech!

It would be nice if you could work something related to canals into Geology, since many of the first Geologists were Canal Engineers. Perhaps a new Improvement that allows transit (slow, 1t per turn?) of naval units along a road-like network? Would need to overwrite the regular tile improvement, but would give a Commerce benefit in addition to the passage.