With a 28 player game, the odds of winning are what, 3.5%? Sure, I'll go along for the ride. I do not want to be piloting a 40-city empire, so please Lewwyn, put me in a smaller part of the map with slightly richer land and let me play in my sandbox for a long-shot cultural win Maybe you could also roll me SPI/PHI of an early UU civ for extra security?

(February 22nd, 2021, 04:15)Lewwyn Wrote: Okay guys! All the picking is completed here is what everyone has chosen from RNGesus. In the end only 2 civs were rejected twice(Japan and Korea), I left them in the pool and they didn't get rolled so it was a non issue.


PLAYER                   Final pick

1. Miguelito + Rusten   Pacal (FIN/EXP) of France
2. Tarkeel                   Hannibal (FIN/CHA) of Egypt
3. Jowy                   Kublai Khan (AGG/CRE) of Byzantium
4. Amicalola           Roosevelt (IND/ORG) of Ethiopia
5. civac2                   Shaka (AGG/EXP) of Sumeria
6. naufragar           Joao (EXP/IMP) of India
7. Mr. Cairo                  Darius (FIN/ORG) of Aztec
8. Ramkhamhaeng        Cyrus (IMP/CHA) of Arabia
9. Mjmd                   Zara (CRE/ORG) of Portugal
10. Automated Teller   Justinian (SPI/IMP) of Khemer
11. General KilCavalry  Julius Caesar (IMP/ORG) of Mongolia
12. pindicator           Lincoln (PHI/CHA) of Dutch
13. Elkad                   San Martin (CHM/CRE) of England
14. The Black Sword   Catherine (IMP/CRE) of Chinese
15. superdeath           Charlemage (IMP/PRO) of Inca
16. Lazteuq           Montezuma (AGG/SPI) of Persia
17. Donovan Zoi   Sitting Bull (PHI/PRO) of Spain
18. mackoti           Ghengis (AGG/IMP) of Ottoman
19. Frozen + Dulland   Victoria (FIN/IMP) of Babylon
20. Piccadilly + Flunky  Willem Van Oranje (FIN/CRE) of Mali
21. Cornflakes           Pericles (PHI/CRE) of Native America
22. Charriu           Ramesses (IND/SPI) of Greece
23. Commodore           Lieu-Ye (ORG/PRO) of Rome
24. Ichabod           Hammurabi (AGG/ORG) of Germany
25. Joshybravo963   Asoka (SPI/ORG) of America

Well hello folks.

Just realized that my last PB (52) just finished in November 2020. Since then 6 more PBs started and finished; we are definitely crazy for more civ 4 in these times.

Normally I would do bigger paused between PBs, but you've gotta play a big PB when it appears. Actually this is one item on my civ4 bucket list: Play in one bigger PB.

The way I reported PB52 was in perfect balance for me. I never felt totally stressed out. So expect the following again:

• I won't report every single turn
  
• Same crazy micro managment spreadsheet: I've updated my spreadsheet, so that it will work even better, while also making life easier for me.
  
• (Almost) no sims: I will actually run almost no sims this game, because my spreadsheet got that good already. I remember back in PB52 I stopped running sims about T50 or so, but I used my spreadsheet up to T110 or so. Expect more of that.
  
• C&D: This very tedious for me and the benefit is smaller. With no score and the know easy display of KTB it should be a lot easier to track tech across the board.
  

See if I can kill some better players than me. See if the game actually ends (hint this book series has been waiting FOREVER for its 3rd book).  Note thread title edited from 'Kingkiller Chronicles'

I've decided Fate Mastery will have the effect of "all spells cast by you that requires a save have an X% chance to force the enemy to save again in case of a successful save roll.", in addition to the current effects.

We need to decide on the percentage for X next.
You can see how much the success rate of various spells becomes depending on how much it was before in this table :
   
0% and 100% are obviously unaffected. In general, the effect is the strongest when you had 50% chance to succeed and weakest if the spell had a very low or high chance to work. (This is what makes it very different from simply adding a -1 to the save roll. It alters the outcome most at the spot where it's the most random.)
Even a 100% chance to reroll only increases the success rate from 50% to 75% which is a 25% increase, so it might be our best option?

Well the title already gives it away. I'm planning to rewrite the changelogs for our mods RtR and CtH. The problem and question at hand is, how should this new changelog look.

So I ask you what are some things that bother you in particular?
What could be done better?

For example one thing that bothers me in the CtH log is that in order to make the log shorter I hid a lot of civ changes in other parts.

This deep dive article into the Master of Orion AI was linked in my Livestream chat today. I'm in the process of reading through it and there's a lot of interesting information about how the MOO AI makes decisions. Well worth a read!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zDVp...yA2jB7vswk

I find a little bit strange that most heroes are humans in a game with so many diffent races (the same could be said for wizards). There could be a new system where you can only summon heroes of a given race on a certain city (like if you cast summon hero on a elven city an elven hero shows up). But to make this system meaningful a 100 portrait pack DLC with heroes from all races would be needed so that`s not that feasible and maybe not even desirable as your empire has cities from multiple races. So after rejecting this idea but still retaining the desire to have at least 1 hero from each race I propose another idea: having at least a single hero exclusive for each race that can only be summoned if you choose  a given race (example you start
with gnolls, you can only summon the "gnoll champion"). Why do we need this? Although the idea came from a "roleplay discomfort/ weirdness" I do think this would be an important mechanic to make the initial choice of races more meaningful. That mechanic is already subtle implemented but
there are inconsistencies as racial traits weren't consciously applied to hero design: it's obvious that Gunther is a barbarian based hero that aligns with its "barbarian civilization" although it's not that obvious why Brax is hanging around Arcanus or what is unique about Bahgtru being an orc and not something else. Long story short:

-We need race based heroes as imagining new racial habilities for them can lead to an unexplored and new aspect of gameplay
-We need to design those new racial hero traits that are something distinctive from habilities, item powers and spells (those racial traits inspired powers should only be applied to the  new heroes as it's unpratical and undesirable to remake all the older heroes from scratch)
-Potencial new hero racial inspired powers: 

      Set 1 (habilties that interacts with racial units and racial resource rates of production)
*New resource production habilities (Food, Population, Production)
*Global Unrest reduction
*Unlocking Armory/ Fantastic stable unit production without the need of those buildings if
  the hero is stationed in city
*Military Conscription: increase chance/ ensures that a "mercernary" of the given race joins
  you (either for reduced cost or free). Maybe that should only apply to the hero stack.

     Set 2 ("Retort inspired powers")

A) Batte retorts: Basically retorts that are only applied on the stack the hero is and do not stack if the wizard has the same retort or a similar one [example warlord and tactian]

Channeler, Warlord, Tactician, Guardian (without food bonus), Astrologer (without power bonus)

B) Resource retorts: Effects that give a medium amount of resources when the hero is summoned (as opposed to production per turn or a global percentage discount). Those B type retorts could be implemented as an event that is triggered when the hero is summoned.

Alchemy (receive X gold or X mana when summoned), Warlord (hero is summoned along with 4-6 normal melle troops), Tactian (hero is summoned along with 4-6 normal ranged units), Artificer (hero comes with a random artfifact equipped), Charismatic (bonus diplomacy with a random
wizard), etc.

*Note: I didn't come up with new names to make easier to understand what the habilities are supposed to do although its pretty easy to come up with new ones like a charismatic inspired power could give the hero the trait "diplomat" or something like that.

Greetings, all. 

Being suddenly unemployed (thanks, COVID, and the printer's union. fat lot of good you did me after sucking my paycheck) I now have time to dive into a game that I first discovered years ago when the insecticide patch first came out.

After a short vanilla game on the intro difficulty as Ariel to get myself familiar with the game again, 
I decided to play a fresh game in CoM as Merlin, High Men. I didn't take a screenshot of the setup screen but I'm pretty sure I'm on normal difficulty and all the settings except landmass set to "fair".

I wound up on a goodly-sized continent all by my lonesome, but it wasn't too long before red lizardmen settlers came pouring from across the sea. I didn't feel like making enemies just yet, so I let Raven have the settlements around the periphery of my continent while I built up the inner core.

There were only a couple of neutral towns, two being Men and one orc.

I tried to keep friends with Raven (Red), hoping that I could use him to exchange spells while I played a peaceful builder/research game, but I didn't know how the diplomacy worked.

Soon enough I figured out that I couldn't be friends with him, as his settlements all over my continent meant I couldn't even move settlers or engineers around without tripping over his settlements, triggering the "Y u move ur d00ds next to me" messages and his Lawful personality made it worse.

So I started putting his cities to the torch and began a fresh wave of settlers. Of course this meant war and it see-sawed back and forth for quite a while.

I split my attention between sending ships and cheap (swords, bows, and crusaders) soldier's over to Raven's continent and trying to tech up to magicians/paladins and using heroes to plunder what small neutrals I could.

Time passed and I made contact with my other opponents: Ariel (yellow) and Freya (green).




Freya turned out to be the big problem, as you can see! Chaotic-Militarist. Frankly I just didn't take her seriously. All I wanted was to have my continent to myself, build up my cities, explore with my heroes and research my way to victory. My already large gold income skyrocketed when I discovered Prosperity, and I thought if I just subsisted Ariel and Raven (who had already gotten into long-standing wars with Freyja) I'd be left well enough alone.

It was when Freyja started sending multiple large stacks of barbarian 'zerkers, backed up by a steady stream of cockatrices, sprites, and water walking giant lizards, coupled with my finally looking at the rest of the map with the nature reveal spell, that I realized just how much of a runaway Freyja was.

and for the past eight years or so I've been barely hanging on against wave after wave after wave after wave of lizards, barbarians, orcs, summons, and the occasional hero. I've had a couple cities wiped out, or simply taken, but I've always rebuilt them and I am hanging on.

My mana and gold income is great, it's just she has 3X the cities I do and at first I insisted on going magician heavy back up by paladins, but that combo didn't work when she started throwing resistence-buffed flyers at me. I started throwing earthquakes at her cities but it doesn't seem to slow her production down, much.

Ariel and Freyja allied for a number of turns, and so Ariel DoW'd me, but I just now noticed they were at war with eachother again, managed to make peace with Ariel for some gold and Disjunction.

I have finally, FINALLY been able to bring the war to Freyja. Not on her home continent, but Ariel's. I've managed to take a single high elf city that I'm guessing used to belong to Ariel, and ye gods and little catfish, that has redirected every last green soldier and then some.

nothing but stack after stack after stack marching up to the walls of Gatewood and..


Nothing. sitting there.



That hero on the outside is Torin with a halfstack; a couple elite halberdiers, magicians, and priests.

You can download the mod here: Close to Home 2.0.8

CtH on Github

Note that all the changes here are additions to what you already find in BtS unless otherwise stated as NEW

Changelog version 2.0

Tile Yields and Improvements

• Lumbermills: Available at Metal Casting, +1 commerce with Machinery, +1 commerce with Electricity, Lumber mills get their +1 commerce bonus next to a river on all river tiles, not only on straight river tiles, reduce buildtime to 5 from 8
  
• Forest preserves: +1 commerce, now +1 commerce on the corner of rivers like above
  
• Jungle no longer grows onto resources
  

• Drafting: Rifles now cost 2 pop to draft.
  
• AP Resolutions: Declare War (on a non-member), Force Peace (between two members), Religious victory, and Assign City are no longer eligible resolution actions.
  
• Fail-gold: You never get fail-gold if you also completed the wonder somewhere else (so no National Wonder fail-gold, or doubling up on a wonder to guarantee yourself a paycheck. The game still informs you that you received "0 gold" from your hammers).
  
• Toroidal Maintenance: Now return city maintenance as if the map were Cylindrical.
  
• War Weariness: War weariness decreases faster during peace
  
• War Weariness: Increases only by half during an MP game
  
• Religion spread: Spreading religions via missionaries to your own cities never fails
  
• Global warming: Removed
  
• Espionage: Active missions removed
  
• Espionage: 'No espionage' option fixed, see bugfix section for more details
  

• Agriculture: Cost 40 instead of 60
  
• Mysticism: Cost 60 instead of 50
  
• Fishing: Cost 50 instead of 40
  
• Metal Casting: Cost 300 instead of  450
  
• Alphabet: Cost 250 instead of 300
  
• Refrigeration: lose +1 sea movement
  

• Aqueduct: Reduce cost to 80
  
• Castle: Obsoletes at Corporation instead of Economics
  
• Customs House: Cost 120 instead of 180, also applies to all UBs based on Customs House (Feitoria)
  
• Colosseum: -25% war weariness
  

• Red Cross: Cost 200 instead of 600
  
• West Point: Cost 550 instead of 800, +5 XP instead of 4, Requires a level 5 unit instead of 6
  

• Resource modifiers: All wonders that had +100% production with a specific resource now only have +50% production with that resource.
  
• Great Lighthouse: +1 trade route in coastal cities instead of +2
  
• Statue of Zeus: Obsolete at Gunpowder
  
• Mausoleum of Mausolos: Obsolete at Nationalism
  

• Flanking: Flanking strength (used to calculate damage from flanking strikes) of all units reduced by 50%.
  
• Circumnavigation: Unlocked by Optics, +1 trade route in all coastal cities instead of +1 movement and can be achieved by everybody (due to the way the code works this is aquired the turn after Optics is researched)
  
• Coastal blockade: only blocks sea trade routes and resources provided by sea trade, blockaded cities can still work blocked tiles.
  
• Barbs now never attack your unit stack if the stack includes a settler and a unit that is giving military happiness
  
• Barbs never raze a city even autoraze. On recapturing such a city you too do not autoraze it.
  

• Scout: +100% vs Animals gained with Hunting, no tech required, that way everybody starts with a scout
  
• Swordsman: +25% city attack instead of +10%, also applies to UUs Jaguar Warrior and Gallic Swordsman
  
• War elephant: Strength 7 instead of 8, requires Ivory or Iron, applies to all UU
  
• Explorer: Gains Flanking
  
• Airship: Cannot see submarines
  
• ICBM: Cost 1500 instead of 500
  
• Tactical Nuke: Cost 750 instead of 250
  
• Nukes: Nukes never create fallout on tiles containing strategic resources.
  

• Work Boat: no longer require any tech (still require Fishing to work water tiles).
  
• Galleon: Requires Paper and Astronomy, Dutch UU still only requires Astronomy
  
• Privateer: Required techs are Gunpowder and Astronomy instead of Chemistry and Astronomy, removed hidden nationality, can plunder during war time
  

• Tech: Discovering the corresponding tech for a corporation earns you an executive of that corporation. To settle the HQ you still need a great person.
  
• Sid's Sushi Co.: Food bonus per resource 0.25 instead of 0.5 and culture bonus per resource 1 instead of 2, maintenance costs halfed
  
• Mining Inc.: Hammer bonus per resource 0.75 instead of 1, maintenance costs 3/4 of original
  

• Serfdom: +1 commerce on Farms, +1 hammer on Watermills and Windmills, available on Monarchy instead of Feudalism
  
• Emancipation: lose unhappiness bonus, gain +10% Hammer in all cities
  
• State Property: Lose +10% Hammer in all cities
  
• Environmentalism: Available at Biology instead of Medicine, remove Corporation costs
  

• Financial: +1 commerce on land tiles that have 3+ commerce, lighthouse gives: +1 commerce on water tiles that have 2+ commerce
  
• Expansive: Remove Worker bonus, add +100% production of Aqueduct
  
• Creative: Remove production bonus for Colosseum
  
• Charismatic: +100% production of Monument, +100% production of Colosseum
  
• Aggressive: -50% unit maintenance cost, free Barrage I for all siege weapons
  
• Philosophical: +150% GPP instead of +100%
  
• Protective: +100% domestic trade route yield (works like a harbor mechanically, just only for domestic trade)
  

• UBs no longer obsolete at any time. Affected civs are Celts, Egypt, Ethiopia, Native America, Spain
  
• America UB: NEW Immigration Station - Harbor replacement, +3 Great People Points, +1 happy from Hit Musical, Singles and Movies
  
• America UU: NEW Minuteman - Musket replacement, Starts with Guerrilla 1 and Woodsman 1.
  
• Arabia UU: Camel Archer starts with March
  
• Babylon UB: +5% food storaged on growth
  
• Celts UB: +1 culture
  
• China UU: max 40% collateral damage instead of max 60%
  
• Germany UB: Assembly Plant available at Steam Power instead of Assembly line, +2 hammer
  
• Germany UU: NEW Riesengarde - replace Grenadier, available at Chemistry, starts with Pinch
  
• Greece UU: Phalanx - replaces spearman, strength 5, +25% hill defense
  
• Inca UB: Makes city act as a source of fresh water instead of +2 culture, Cost 45
  
• India UU: movement 2 instead of 3, start with Mobility promotion
  
• Japan UB: NEW Tatara, Forge replacement - +2 XP to Melee, +10% hammer bonus with coals
  
• Maya UU: Starts with Woodsman 1
  
• Native America Tech: Fishing/Hunting instead of Fishing/Agriculture
  
• Native America UB: Available at Archery instead of Mysticism, additional +1 XP for gunpowder units, never obsoletes
  
• Persia UB: NEW Bazaar - replaces market gives 25% trade yield
  
• Russia UB: Replace University instead of Laboratory, only +1 free scientist
  
• Spain UB: Never obsoletes, +2 XP for naval units, does not require Walls
  
• Zulu UU: Remove Mobility promotion
  

• LieuYe (ORG/PRO)
  
• San Martin (CHM/CRE) and
  
• Nebuchadnezzar (IND/PHI)