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KnT
Jul 12, 2010

CommissarMega posted:

So against OP's advice I downloaded this mod, and I'm strangely enjoying myself, though my enjoyment was slightly spoiled by the fact that one of the German leaders on offer is of course, Hitler.

Thank you for the mental image of a bunch of Neanderthals goose stepping around roaring "Wir sind die Übermenschen!".

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Radio Free Kobold
Aug 11, 2012

"Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."




KnT posted:

Thank you for the mental image of a bunch of Neanderthals goose stepping around roaring "Wir sind die Übermenschen!".

but that's just the alt-right today?

Mightypeon
Oct 10, 2013

Putin apologist- assume all uncited claims are from Russia Today or directly from FSB.

key phrases: Poor plucky little Russia, Spheres of influence, The West is Worse, they was asking for it.
Neandertalers had higher brain size relative to average Homo Sapiens.

Kind of doubt the veracity of that for the alt right.

Yessod
Mar 21, 2007

KnT posted:

Thank you for the mental image of a bunch of Neanderthals goose stepping around roaring "Wir sind die Übermenschen!".

This is actually a thing some nazis believe, that the thing that makes Aryans genetically superior is their pure neanderthal DNA. Check out Varg some time.

Then, of course, there are the ones who think it's their pure tibetan space yeti DNA.

Jossar
Apr 2, 2018

Current status: Angry about subs :argh:
I was going to leave a funny comment here, but nothing I can say is really going to top the juxtaposition to that last post.



(This is also the last one of these I post, because the ways in which the game flips out become less visibly interesting after this point.)

Jossar fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Mar 4, 2019

Roobanguy
May 31, 2011

Jossar posted:

I was going to leave a funny comment here, but nothing I can say is really going to top the juxtaposition to that last post.



(This is also the last one of these I post, because the ways in which the game flips out become less visibly interesting after this point.)

drat space barbarians.

Cerebral Bore
Apr 21, 2010


Fun Shoe
Even worse: Illinois space barbarians.

Gridlocked
Aug 2, 2014

MR. STUPID MORON
WITH AN UGLY FACE
AND A BIG BUTT
AND HIS BUTT SMELLS
AND HE LIKES TO KISS
HIS OWN BUTT
by Roger Hargreaves
Good lord, level 1 unit: "man with rock"

Deep Dish Fuckfest
Sep 6, 2006

Advanced
Computer Touching


Toilet Rascal
Oh loving christ, how did I miss this? How does this exist? How does it not explode on startup? I've played the ancestor of this thing ages ago, but I never though it was still a thing. gently caress, I never thought Civ4 modding was still a thing. What is happening? Is it because it's 2019?

Next you're going to tell me people are still working of Fall from Heaven. Or Dune Wars. Actually, do tell me if that's the case because both of those rule.

Deep Dish Fuckfest
Sep 6, 2006

Advanced
Computer Touching


Toilet Rascal
Oh god there's something wrong with me the more i read this the more i want to give it a shot and it can't be entirely ascribed to civ4 being the best in the series oh god please send help this isn't normal

Super Jay Mann
Nov 6, 2008

The original FFH2 is dead and has been for a while since its creator got a job with Stardock. It's still getting modmods galore though of various quality. Dune Wars was taken up again a couple years back and had a new release in 2017(?) and I think is kinda being worked on still on and off? Not sure though. You also have stuff like Realism Invictus, Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn, History Rewritten, Rhys and Fall, and others being worked on and having recent releases, Realism Invictus in particular is getting its 3.5 release within the next couple weeks I believe.

The Civ 4 modding scene is very much alive.

Jossar
Apr 2, 2018

Current status: Angry about subs :argh:

Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:

Oh god there's something wrong with me the more i read this the more i want to give it a shot and it can't be entirely ascribed to civ4 being the best in the series oh god please send help this isn't normal

It's horribly mesmerizing that way. I've lost dozens and dozens of hours at this point just wanting to see what's next.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Super Jay Mann posted:

The original FFH2 is dead and has been for a while since its creator got a job with Stardock. It's still getting modmods galore though of various quality. Dune Wars was taken up again a couple years back and had a new release in 2017(?) and I think is kinda being worked on still on and off? Not sure though. You also have stuff like Realism Invictus, Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn, History Rewritten, Rhys and Fall, and others being worked on and having recent releases, Realism Invictus in particular is getting its 3.5 release within the next couple weeks I believe.

The Civ 4 modding scene is very much alive.

FFH2 isn't dead, iirc he had a plan and got to the end and called it final. I guess it's not getting updates any more but that's not the same thing? Semantics I guess. Man I loved that mod, should pull it out again.

e: actually there are a lot of people talking about it being unfinished, so I may be misremembering something I read

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Mar 5, 2019

oystertoadfish
Jun 17, 2003

i don't think anybody ever finished a fall from heaven LP on this forum. not seeing anything in lparchive.org. if i'm wrong, i'd love to get a link - but if i'm right, one of you should make an LP for it so i can see the whole story!

the same thing goes for Crusader Kings II's After The End but that's not related to this thread

Jossar
Apr 2, 2018

Current status: Angry about subs :argh:

oystertoadfish posted:

i don't think anybody ever finished a fall from heaven LP on this forum. not seeing anything in lparchive.org. if i'm wrong, i'd love to get a link - but if i'm right, one of you should make an LP for it so i can see the whole story!

the same thing goes for Crusader Kings II's After The End but that's not related to this thread

These might require archives, but...

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3515773 - The big FFH LP that I remember, has a link to a bunch of others on-site, including one for Rise from Erebus and one for the scenarios. I dunno if these go through literally everything, but there's a lot there.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3725369 - The After the End LP. The first playthrough died due to a save file corruption and the second one petered out but it's still a pretty good read up until that point.

Jossar fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Mar 5, 2019

Cerebral Bore
Apr 21, 2010


Fun Shoe
FFH2 is really good as far as I recall. It strikes a balance between having enough new stuff to feel fresh, but not so much new stuff that it devolves into a tedious slog really well.

Deep Dish Fuckfest
Sep 6, 2006

Advanced
Computer Touching


Toilet Rascal
There was this FfH succession thread (archives): https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3297065

The main reason I remember it is because I participated in it and had quite a bit of fun during my turn.

King Doom
Dec 1, 2004
I am on the Internet.

Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:

Oh loving christ, how did I miss this? How does this exist? How does it not explode on startup? I've played the ancestor of this thing ages ago, but I never though it was still a thing. gently caress, I never thought Civ4 modding was still a thing. What is happening? Is it because it's 2019?

Next you're going to tell me people are still working of Fall from Heaven. Or Dune Wars. Actually, do tell me if that's the case because both of those rule.

The newest build for the latest iteration of the mod of the mod of the modmod of fall from heaven came out like 3 weeks ago. It's called Ashes of Erebus now.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Is it good?

E: Here is a blog post on it

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Mar 5, 2019

AncientSpark
Jan 18, 2013

Super Jay Mann posted:

The Civ 4 modding scene is very much alive.

From what I understand, part of this was that there was a huge amount of frustration with Civ 5 modding in terms of full conversion mods due to how it handled some backend stuff (stuff that I didn't look into, so I don't know the technical details).

And I don't think there is as much interest in modding Civ 6...or really as much interest in Civ 6 in general as much as Civ 4/5. That might have changed with the newest expansion though.

Jossar
Apr 2, 2018

Current status: Angry about subs :argh:
Also probably a matter of sunk cost at this point - especially for big mods like C2C and FFH, even if people wanted to reinvent the wheel it would be a massive undertaking to create the same level of content for a new game. Combined with the fact that the modders still don't see themselves as done, for example the C2C mods are currently in the middle of discussing how to introduce new late-game mechanics, why switch over?

Super Jay Mann
Nov 6, 2008

I was actually considering doing a Realism Invictus LP rather than C2C since that mod is pretty fun in the mid- and late-game and has some interesting design choices as well (and I still may do some side updates on it, who knows) but it's also far less insane than C2C and playing it recently reminded me that I REALLY hate the early game in that mod.

I'd still recommend playing it though as despite the questionable early game design, it's still far more robust as a playable balanced game than C2C ever will be.

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Mind talking about Realism Invictus and what makes it so good? Because between C2C and Ashes of Erebus I'm not going to see the sun for a loooong time :v:

oystertoadfish
Jun 17, 2003

Jossar posted:

These might require archives, but...

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3515773 - The big FFH LP that I remember, has a link to a bunch of others on-site, including one for Rise from Erebus and one for the scenarios. I dunno if these go through literally everything, but there's a lot there.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3725369 - The After the End LP. The first playthrough died due to a save file corruption and the second one petered out but it's still a pretty good read up until that point.

thank you! i've got archives. i read the After the End one, I think, but maybe not up to the end. the FFH one will be awesome, and its links to the other ones work too!

i really appreciate you jumping in with the best possible answers to my question, that's ideal

habituallyred
Feb 6, 2015
The Master of Mana extended mod linked in that blog post was completely insane last time I checked.
Promotions are tied to unit str/int/dex insane.
Combat works like Civ 5 insane, with one round of combat and then automatic retreat insane.

Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

Insane.

I’m gonna check out Ashes of Erebus. I haven’t played FFH2 in years.

Radio Free Kobold
Aug 11, 2012

"Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."




yeah i think i'm just gonna play Ashes of Erebus. first time ever touching the civ modding scene so here's hoping i don't poo poo the bed too hard

Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

Trip report: It's not that great, or at least it plays too slowly for my liking. There's some great stuff in there and I especially appreciate the way it does map gen and seeds starting terrain to match a factions background, but it's very hard to play in a satisfying way.

^^^ I recommend trying out the Colonization game Firaxis did off the Civ4 engine. There's a bunch of great mods for that one too and it's very faithful to the original game.

Pvt.Scott
Feb 16, 2007

What God wants, God gets, God help us all

Demiurge4 posted:

Trip report: It's not that great, or at least it plays too slowly for my liking. There's some great stuff in there and I especially appreciate the way it does map gen and seeds starting terrain to match a factions background, but it's very hard to play in a satisfying way.

^^^ I recommend trying out the Colonization game Firaxis did off the Civ4 engine. There's a bunch of great mods for that one too and it's very faithful to the original game.

It seems strange that you can whip slaves all day in the base game, but not at all in Colonization.

Super Jay Mann
Nov 6, 2008

C2C Gameplay Chapter 6: Let The Revels Begin, Let The Fire Be Started, We're Dancing For The Restless And The Broken-Hearted




So the Thief is actually the second in the very extensive Criminal unit line, the first being the unseen Exile. Criminal units are the antagonists to the Law Enforcement units we've been building up to this point, and provides an active way of interacting with our opponents outside of the stock Civ 4 diplomacy options. I said before there's actually quite an extensive underlying system of using Criminal units for our own ends and dealing with criminal elements from other civilizations, and I do plan on getting deeper into that when its various mechanics come into play, but for now we're only really dipping our toes by building the Thief units and looking at what options we currently do have.

All that aside, the Thief has quite a number of abilities. It's our first invisible unit, has Hidden Nationality, and unlike Civ 4 spies can actually engage in combat as well. They also provide a heavy source of Crime to whatever city or tile they're stationed in and can even kill certain civilian units, Traders, undetected. The main trade-off is that they require the Bandit's Hideout to build, so you need to take on all the negative effects of the Banditry civic and its corresponding building to really make use of them.

They're quite the mess to deal with if you're not privy to the mechanics, and indeed in earlier versions the AI had an absolutely miserable time dealing with Criminals. They're allegedly a lot better though, so I guess we're gonna put that to the test over the course of this game.



Incidentally, Thieves we build ourselves don't limit their abilities to our enemies. They will vastly increase our Crime if we leave them in our cities, and in fact a turn of this increase can't actually be avoided, since when Criminal units complete they spawn in our city before the Crime calculation occurs. Turn rollover shenanigans are fun.



Water is no longer useless to us, hooray!



We even have some Shrimp in our immediate workable radius, which is at least a nice extra source of food if we need it. Now of course, we can't improve said Shrimp yet cause work boats aren't a thing yet, because this is C2C we're talking about after all.

Also note the Childcare Hut and Dance Hut in the build queue. That will become important shortly...



Oh yeah, did I mention that Thieves only have 1 movement? I send the first one to Carthage as they're somehow my closest neighbor despite meeting them fourth. As you can see, it will take some time to get there.

I'm also building a second Thief as we speak. I'd love to build more but I actually can't! Thieves are considered national units, just like Spies and Missionaries in BTS, so we're only limited to two of them at a time. A good form of balance, as Thief stacking could really cripple an opponent if you ramp it up high enough. Incidentally, Trackers are also a national unit, limited to 5 at any given time, which is the reason I haven't completely showered the map with hunting units.



Binding allows our people to figure out stuff like building rope and tying knots and all that jazz. It also unlocks the next upgrade to our Stone Thrower, the Slinger, a unit we will not be seeing today because defensive units are pointless right now.



So uh, I improved and hooked up the Beavers that just just came into my borders with the recent border pop, and was hoping to use one of the Subdued Red Foxes to make a Camp(Fox) to provide a source of Pelts... except that I can't actually do this because I don't meet the requirements, despite having a source of Beavers. That's when I reread the requirements, and it turns out, in order for a building like this to become available, I first need a source of that required resource hooked up, and in addition I need to fulfill one of two conditions: A) I need to manufacture the resource locally. Having, for example, a Herd(Elephant) in my city provides a locally manufactured source of both Elephants and Ivory, so any building that explicitly requires either of those resources to be manufactured locally can be built in this city specifically. The second is B) the resource must be in the city vicinity, or, in other words, in the workable radius of the city. So because the Beavers are in the third ring of my city and are not actually workable, I can't actually build this building despite having Beavers.

Yeah it's kind of annoying and I really should have realized this before expecting to be able to do this, but still, :argh:

And no, there's no good way of "manufacturing" Beavers to fulfill that condition either. I checked. So the only way we're getting Pelts in the near future is to plant a city that can work those Beavers and build it in there using our Red Fox. Not that inconvenient, except for the fact that, as you probably might have noticed seven updates in, we can't actually build Settlers yet. Yeah, that's still a ways out. :v:




In other news, Venus of Willendorf is built by an AI. Given that, like us, the AI can't build settlers at all this strikes me as an incredible waste of hammers unless you really really want that Priest slot.



Binding also gives us access to the Bounty Hunter I promotion, something I hadn't really looked at closely until I started putting together the first Promotions update below. More of that in that post, but I'll be trying to make use of it in the future.



Simple Wood Working let's us do stuff with wood.

Hehe... he said Wood.



My Tracker finally finds Assyria's capital, which seems to be in the deepest, darkest corner of the Southern tundra. Yikes, not exactly a hospitable spot for the capital of a burgeoning empire.



Besides various methods of acquiring the Wood resource, the easiest of which is the Driftwood Gatherer which requires little more than being coastal, we also gain access to our first anti-Mounted unit, the Wood Spearman. Since Mounted Infantry isn't a thing and won't be for a while yet, this is a useless unit. Oh, and there's some Culture-specific units we don't care about as well, though I would have loved to build some Aborigine Boomerang Throwers because come on. :v:



Sharpening improves our Stone Tool Maker further and makes our workers faster, but is otherwise not really useful.

Oh hey, remember that Dance Hut I was talking about earlier?



Building one unlocks the other use of our Story Tellers, the Dances. Dances are built by Story Tellers and each have unique benefits (and drawbacks) that we can take advantage of. Considering that Story Tellers are cheap and unlimited there's no reason to not pick and choose the ones you want in any given city.



These are the options we have, for now anyway. Some of them have other prerequisites, for example the Fertility Dance requires that Childcare Hut we built before this. I use my two Story Tellers for Fertility Dance and Nature Dance for the time being.



With the Dance Hut, we can also build animal-based dances as well. They only provide culture as a yield, but they also provide our first source of Great Person Points, specifically a Great Artist. Though considering we need 1600 points for our first great person, that's gonna take a while to do anything.



Assyria gets in on the Developing Trait action as well. Being Creative probably means he'll get to the third trait selection first, unless of course we follow suit. :ninja:



Forest Worker I does about what you'd expect, makes improving on forests faster but, again, that doesn't matter for units that die after improving anything.



Germany's borders are waaaaay out East. Not a problematic trek for Boksi, the Master Hunter of course.



Microlith improves the Stone Tools Maker again, but in addition also gives an additional hammer yield to the Stone Tools Workshop improvement. Not bad, I've been building some of those since I have nothing else to do with my Gatherers right now.



I sent my second Thief over to France, which went fine until this little issue. Thieves are technically combat units you see, so if I attempted to move through this choke I'd just attack into the barbarian and die horribly. There's no other way to get to France (or China and Assyria for that matter) so it looks like I'm just plain out of luck. Gotta turn around and go all the way to Germany or something. What a major letdown.



Nah, just messing with you. As an invisible unit our Thief has access to the Stay the Hand status. The +1 cause thing is weirdly phrased but the tooltip does have the courtesy of explaining the important part, that with this status on we can move through units we would normally attack. Provided they can't themselves see us of course.



The Stone Thrower never even knew we were there. :ninja:



Time to get started on getting some real food going. Having Bone and the extra food and gold will be useful, but I'm really going to need the Raw Meat from the Butchery down the line more than anything else.



The Microlith Workshop that comes with this tech is a National Wonder that provides a straight +25% production bonus to military units, all for only 470 hammers, a relatively cheap amount on Marathon at this point. I absolutely will be building this, assuming I don't forget in the period between when I'm actually in session with this game.



At some point I don't remember we gained the ability to build Meager Wealth/Research/Culture, which converts 30% of our hammers to those particular yields. Doesn't sound all that special at first glance but 30% of 31 hammers is actually not all that bad to be perfectly honest. Not that I'd use it much as you will likely never stop running out of things to build in this mod.



Such as this Wet Nurse's Hut, for example, which provides extra Disease prevention and is a prerequisite to an important building we'll be getting soon.

You can also see the filters in action here. All I needed to do was click the Disease icon and it shows me only the buildings that affect the Disease property in some way.



I do the same for Crime, as I need to assess my options for reducing Crime without having to build more Enforcers immediately. Public Stoning is a thing, and -5 Crime is pretty nice, but those drawbacks though. Makes sense though, such a barbaric and public practice certainly wouldn't be appreciated by our citizenry.



Now, private execution at the hand of a sanctioned executioner, that's the ticket. :hist101:




Poison Crafting is a neat tech, and opens up a couple of interesting options for us should we be able to fulfill the requirements. It's also around this point where you start to realize that being a Middle Eastern culture kind of sucks in Prehistoric Era. There's already been a couple Cultures I would have liked that I had the resource requirement for but have no option of going for simply because of my Civ's region. Kind of a bummer but hey, that was the whole idea of going Random, was it not?

Anywho, the tech gives us ways of generating Poison which can can use to build a Poison Crafter's Hut, a building that gives a nice free promotion to our units at the cost of some Pollution and unhealth.



Oh, and it lets us build Ambushers, a combat unit that, like the Thief, is an invisible Hidden Nationality unit. Unlike the Thief however, which is designed for passive Economic harassment, the Ambusher belongs to the illustrious class of Strike Team units, which are very much designed for precision concealed strikes against enemy targets, military or civilian in nature. I'm hoping to have a lot of fun with these. :getin:

Of course to do that we need a source of Poison and that's actually kind of hard to come by via resources. Both Poison-generating buildings I can make in my city require at least Indigo, something which I most certainly do not have, not to mention the lack of Grapes or Prime Timber I'd also need. So we're kind of out of luck there.



Or we can just use Snake Venom for the job. That sounds reasonable.

Why does this building provide happiness exactly?



Naturopathy unlocks the next tier of Disease prevention buildings and units, as well as some new generic improvements that can be built on their respective terrain features. Nothing that's needed in our capital, but improvements that can help make certain inhospitable city sites in the future quite a bit.



My Thief arrives at Carthage, and I can see everything going on in her capital. She's got Enforcers and Healers already and seems to be doing a pretty good job at Crime prevention.




For now, our actual active options are limited. We can gain a paltry amount of gold, which isn't worth it, or we can gain a pretty nice sum of Espionage, which is nice for when we get Spies later on. As the tooltips imply though, success is not guaranteed.

For now, I'll just sit it in the capital and force Dido to invest more hammers to keep her Crime from creeping up.

Also Carthage's capital is size 8. 8! Meanwhile we just got to size 5 and even with all of our current food it's going to be a while yet until we sniff size 8. See, it turns out that while we're severely limited by food in the early game, what isn't limiting us is happiness There are tons of sources of happiness in the Prehistoric Era from all sorts of buildings, so the AI, which still gets major discounts on build costs and growth costs, can just grow and grow and grow without a care in the world like the cheaters they are. This is also why I didn't play this mod on Deity. You know how in base Civ 4 the AI starts with 2 settlers instead of 1? That hasn't changed here.



Some of the nastier Disease buildings start to show up at this point, and they're only going to get worse as we go on.



Built a new Tracker to replace one that died, decided that since he's going to be roaming around the desert areas near my capital that he should get a suitable promotion. These promotions are how you deal with traversing hostile terrain that would otherwise damage you.



I believe Trap Fishing opened up this turtle-specific building for us. I'm focusing on gold-generating buildings right now to try and deal with our gold deficit.



Adhesives lets you do interesting things if you have a Tar Pit terrain feature nearby, but otherwise just leads to other things.



Aside from the Raw Meat, we also get Lard from the Butchery as well as a pretty substantial amount of food, so long as we get the relevant animal resources of course.

I should also note that the mod is not entirely clear on when certain resources get enabled as opposed to revealed. A revealed resource is one that we know exists and can hook up, but an enabled resource is one that actual counts as being acquired that can be used for stuff. So I can't actually get the extra food from, say, Sheep, until I reach the tech that enables it, and the only real way to check when Sheep gets enabled is to check the Civlopedia entry for it.

It's all quite annoying and fiddly, so I'm just not going to point out these instances unless necessary.



Some of the animal-based Military Standards (I called them Military Traditions in an earlier update, whoops!) don't necessarily apply to military, oddly enough.



We see the effects of our Thief sitting in Carthage's capital already as Dido is forced to build another Enforcer to deal with the increased Crime rate. A pretty good start!



I'll admit, as far as random forum quotes goes, this is a pretty funny one.



Another Legendary Landscape wonder falls. I'm quite interested in who the other two AIs are as they seem to be monopolizing most of the wonders so far, even considering the Group Wonder mechanics in play. The Prehistoric Cave wonders (the PC abbreviation) haven't been mentioned to this point because they all require you to have a cave tile feature in your workable radius, and are thus useless to us and any of the AIs I've seen so far.



Here's what I needed the Wet Nurse's Hut for. Omega Child Crew provides +2 base hammers, which is nice, but additionally provides up to a 15% straight multiplier to production based on our resources. Now granted, two of these resources (Pottery and Tools) aren't even obtainable until the Ancient Era and Flint is a bit hard to come by, but a 6% multiplier is still pretty solid with the amount of hammer production we usually are working with in this mod.

Of course the building only works with certain early Civics so it doesn't stay relevant for long, but it's nice while it lasts.



Composite Tools comes with more worker speed, another hammer for the Stone Tools Maker, but also some new units.



Pest(Flies) shows up annoyingly in our city upon completing the Butchery as it's a direct result of our acquisition of Raw Meat. Some of these are just plain unavoidable.



Our second Thief arrives in France. Unlike Dido, Joan of Arc doesn't seem to have done anything to deal with the Crime in her capital. I should point out that the Crime amount on the city tile doesn't correlate 1:1 with the Crime in the city itself, but there is a close relationship, and it being at only -8 spells bad times for her if she doesn't get some Enforcers and/or crime-reducing buildings up quickly.



Annnd here's what I mean when i say you need to carefully keep track of your Properties. I used my two Story Tellers for dances but forgot to actually replace them, so that combined with growing another population means I've been steadily losing Education for quite a number of turns now. No bad effects right now, but letting it get below +10 would hinder our science a bit, so I queue up some Story Tellers to raise my Education some. I can probably then get the rest of the dances I want as well.



The Stone Macemen is an upgrade to our Spiked Clubman, a base strength 4 unit with +25% against Melee. But it's not the only upgrade for that unit...



Another upgrade option comes with Axe Making, alongside a small gold buff to our Stone Tool Maker.



After failing to find another elephant to subdue, I decide to just queue up the Camp(Elephant) in my city and get it myself. Not a huge deal. I also end up queuing a whole bunch of miscellaneous buildings that will be useful in no particular order as I'm not targeting anything in particular right now. With so many buildings available you end up just making a large queue and letting the city run through it while you take care of other business, slotting important new stuff to the front as needed. This is especially necessary when trying to get new cities up to speed, as we'll see soon.



Nujalik is an Inuit hunting god, in case you were wondering.



Near Assyria's borders a Neanderthal Warrior shows up. Looks like the barbs are starting to tech up a bit too, gotta be wary of that.



And of course right as I'm finishing my Elephant camp I end up finally finding and subduing an Elephant in a wild :argh:



But enough dwelling on impulsive mistakes, we've reached 1600 capital in our capital! That means another Positive Trait :woop: but also our first Negative Trait :smith: Just like last time we're going to let the Prehistorically-unknown democratic process take over from here.

Audience Participation: Second And Third Leader Trait

We've got two things to vote on, just go with what feels right. Just like last time the poll will be up for at least 24 hours and no more than 48, give or take depending on my availability.

First up our Positive Trait. Creative and Nomad are up in the running again, this time joined by a new third option.



A. Creative

Pros
- Culture becomes more important soon for border popping as we're nearing the point where we get new cities.
- As the next trait comes at 16000 national culture, having steady culture generation will get us to that point that much sooner.
- Unlike BTS Creative, we have some more increased culture sources so the bonus actually scales pretty decently as the game progresses.
- Cheap libraries are still good

Cons
- Outside of culture, almost nothing to help our economy besides the happiness bonus and I guess a couple of the cheap buildings
- War weariness is minor, but still can become a thorn in our side if we end up tilting ourselves into a more war-focused style of play



B. Nomad

Pros
- Still early enough in the game that we'll reap the benefits of this bonus for some time to come.
- We just got the ability to make Desert/Jungle/Wetland Camps, and this trait buffs all of those.
- One of the traits that lets you upgrade units outside of national borders, an ability we (still) definitely want at some point.
- :shittydog:
- Did I mention :shittydog: :shittydog: ?

Cons
- Becomes entirely useless past the Ancient Era when camps fall out of favor and hunting is not nearly as useful
- Other traits allow the upgrading outside of borders thing, so it isn't crucial we pick this specific one
- All cities gain 1/3 crime per population in the city without exception. Not important now, hugely important when our cities start growing. Spoiler alert: We're going way, way past the 20-25 pop megacities you're probably used to from normal Civ 4.



C. Industrious

Pros
- Lots and lots and lots of boosted hammers. The hammer yields from trade routes (oh yeah, that's a thing, put that one on the shelf for a later date) in particular are quite powerful when they get rolling.
- +1 unhealthiness is basically nothing at this point.
- Alongside those boosted hammers from improvements, we also build the relevant improvements with our workers much faster than usual.
- Double production of a lot of important and useful buildings from the Ancient to Renaissance Eras.
- On top of all of that, we also get 20% wonder production just because.

Cons
- +1/2 Water Pollution, Air Pollution, and Disease per citizen is really really bad. Not to spoil too much, but pollution is quite a bit more difficult to deal with than the other properties, so you really don't want that building up too much if you're not prepared to deal with the consequences.

And when I say consequences I mean consequences :stonk:


Next up, we have the first vote for our Negative Trait. Instead of showing you what the traits' effects are though, I'm gonna be cheeky and just give you the options and a short description and let you go with what sounds the most interesting, because why not? And just to provide an easy contrast with the simple A/B/C vote above, for this vote you're going to be using smilies because I said so.

All the negative traits so have some positive bonuses though, so no matter which one you pick it won't be all bad for us.

:black101: Cruel

We're complete and total bastards. It's not enough that we have absolute power and the willingness to wield it to our own advantage at the expense of everyone, but we take great glee in making our enemies, and sometimes even our friends, as miserable as possible. But hey, at least that marble statue of our glorious figure will be standing sooner and with greater radiance.

:sparkles: Idealistic

Everything is awesome! Pay no attention to our growing government deficit, it's all worth it for the growing strength of our glorious empire! Of course since we're so convinced that everything is great and not at all terrible, it would be quite a shock if our perfect well-ordered government required a rigorous shakeup every now and again. As if that would happen though.

:smugdog: Megalomaniac

Pfft, all those other leaders are a bunch of ignorant losers. I'm the best leader there ever was and everyone in my glorious capital loves me and worships me. Well okay yeah, there are those advisors I fired a while back, but that's because they had the gall to tell me that I needed a couple more capable hands to properly administrate my empire, as if I weren't smart and strong enough to handle everything on my own. Losers, the lot of them.

----------------------

NEXT TIME: We start hunting more than just animals and barbarians, start to get something resembling a standing military, and who knows, maybe even get a new city or two. Or :shittydog: , I haven't quite decided yet.

And now to interrupt your regularly scheduled gameplay updates with some :goonsay:

Super Jay Mann
Nov 6, 2008

C2C Systems Overview: Unit Promotions I - Basic Promotions

:siren: Warning you now, this and other similar updates are gonna be little more than a straight cataloging of relevant promotions, their effects, and how they're useful. If you couldn't care less about any of this, feel free to skip this post. :siren:

So it's safe to say there's a ton of promotions in this mod. We have plenty already, but they only get more plentiful as we unlock new techs and new unit types, so it would be very difficult to cover them all. That's not gonna stop me from trying though, and we'll begin with this first listing of basic promotions, promotions that are either available to most units from here on out or are particularly relevant to the most common type of units we're using currently. I will not be covering promotions that already exist in Civ 4 BTS, as while some of them do have additional effects, they are minor and are otherwise identical to their original counterparts or close to it. Additionally, I will only be covering promotions in which at least the first level of the promotion is unlocked and available for our choosing, and this will apply for all subsequent updates.

Each promotion line in the list will be comprised of A) Any non-obvious prerequisites, B) the effects of each of their levels, abridged if necessary, and C) a short description on what practical purpose the promotions actually serve. Listed effects from higher levels do not include the effects of previous levels unless otherwise stated. The list will be in alphabetical order for simplicity's sake.

---


Arctic Combat I-IV

Requires: Combat I

Level I: Can traverse Taiga with no damage. Double movement in Taiga. +20% attack/+50% defense on Taiga.
Level II: Can traverse Taiga/Tundra with no damage. Double movement in Taiga/Tundra. +20% attack/+50% defense on Taiga/Tundra.
Level III: Can traverse Taiga/Tundra/Permafrost with no damage. Double movement in Taiga/Tundra/Permafrost. +20% attack/+50% defense on Taiga/Tundra/Permafrost.
Level IV: Can traverse Taiga/Tundra/Permafrost/Ice with no damage. Double movement in Taiga/Tundra/Permafrost/Ice. +20% attack/+50% defense on Taiga/Tundra/Permafrost/Ice.

Description: Makes travel in cold conditions less dangerous, useful if you're like Assyria and have a bunch of the stuff within earshot of your capital.

---


Back Down I-V

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +5% Withdrawal chance.
Level II: +15% Withdrawal chance.
Level III: +30% Withdrawal chance.
Level IV: +50% Withdrawal chance.
Level V: +75% Withdrawal chance. Movement +1.

Description: Basically Flanking but for slow, Melee-type units as opposed to swift mounted and/or armored units.

---


Bottleneck I-IV

Requires:

Level I: 10% vs EACH Group rank larger
Level II: 25% vs EACH Group rank larger
Level III: 45% vs EACH Group rank larger
Level IV: 70% vs EACH Group rank larger

Description: Provides a substantial combat bonus if fighting a unit with a higher Group rank (aka, more merged), the bonus compounds depending on how much higher the rank is.

---


Bounty Hunter I-III

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +3 Cargo space, can only transport Captive type units.
Level II: +6 Cargo space, can only transport Captive type units.
Level III: +9 Cargo space, can only transport Captive type units.

Description: Yes, certain land units can take this promotion. It basically provides a "space" to put Captive units in, which means fast units like, say, Ambushers, don't need to slow down to keep up with any captives they acquire.

---


Bully I-IV

Requires: Nothing

Level I: 10% vs EACH Size Rank Smaller
Level II: 25% vs EACH Size Rank Smaller
Level III: 45% vs EACH Size Rank Smaller
Level IV: 75% vs EACH Size Rank Smaller

Description: Similar to Bottleneck, but the combat bonus applies to units that are smaller than you. Note that Size is not the same as Group. Size is how big, Group is how many of them there are. Merging only affects Group.

---


Cautious I-V

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +5% Withdrawal chance. Starts Withdrawal at +10% HP.
Level II: +10% Withdrawal chance. Starts Withdrawal at +20% HP.
Level III: +15% Withdrawal chance. Starts Withdrawal at +35% HP.
Level IV: +20% Withdrawal chance. Starts Withdrawal at +50% HP.
Level V: +25% Withdrawal chance. Starts Withdrawal at +70% HP.

Description: An alternative to Flanking that functions differently. Your base Withdrawal chance is lower but the HP threshold for which Withdrawal calculation starts becomes higher. In practical terms, whereas Flanking aims to do as much damage as possible with a chance to retreat if you are dead or near death, Cautious aims to survive with as much health as possible by attempting to end the combat before health gets too low.

---


Chase I-V

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +5% Pursiot chance.
Level II: +15% Pursiot chance.
Level III: +30% Pursiot chance.
Level IV: +50% Pursiot chance.
Level V: +75% Pursiot chance. +1 Movement.

Description: Adds Pursuit chance to slow Melee-type units to counter units with natural withdrawal. Functionally identical Hunt Down but with reduced effect.

---


Decoys I-III

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +15% vs Hunters/Ruffians/Strike Teams.
Level II: +35% vs Hunters/Ruffians/Strike Teams.
Level III: +60% vs Hunters/Ruffians/Strike Teams.

Description: Specifically counters those three unit types. Ruffians are another variant of criminal units that we haven't gotten to yet. Especially useful on units that can see through the invisibility of the criminal type units.

---


Desert Combat I-III

Requires: Combat I

Level I: Can traverse Desert with no damage. Double movement in Desert. +20% attack/+50% defense on Desert.
Level II: Can traverse Desert/Dunes with no damage. Double movement in Desert/Dunes. +20% attack/+50% defense on Desert/Dunes.
Level III: Can traverse Desert/Dunes/Salt Flats with no damage. Double movement in Desert/Dunes/Salt Flats. +20% attack/+50% defense on Desert/Dunes/Salt Flats.

Description: Functionally identical to Arctic Combat, just for hot desert terrains.

---


Enclose I-III

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +15% vs Recons/Strike Teams. +15% Pursuit chance vs Recons/Strike Teams.
Level II: +35% vs Recons/Strike Teams. +35% Pursuit chance vs Recons/Strike Teams.
Level III: +60% vs Recons/Strike Teams. +60% Pursuit chance vs Recons/Strike Teams.

Description: Somewhat similar to Decoys. The main difference is that this promotion is available to Criminal units whereas Decoys isn't.

---


Fieldsman I-III

Requires: Combat II

Level I: Double movement in Grassland. +15% defense on Grassland/Plains
Level II: Double movement in Grassland and Plains. +15% attack/defense on Grassland/Plains
Level III: Double movement in Grassland and Plains. +35% attack/defense on Grassland/Plains

Description: Another terrain promotion, though it works differently from hostile terrain promotions.

---


Forestry

Requires: Combat II

Level I: Double movement in Jungle/Forest/Young Forest/Burnt Forest/Ancient Forest/Bamboo

Description: Allows easy movement through trees, not much else to say.

---


Forward Observers

Requires: Combat II

Level I: +5% Withdrawal chance. +15% vs Explorer/Strike Team

Description: Basic defensive promotion for Explorer type units (Scouts and such) specifically for Strike Teams, since they don't get Decoys or Enclose.

---


Goad I-III

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +5% Withdrawal chance. +25% Taunt chance.
Level II: +10% Withdrawal chance. +75% Taunt chance.
Level III: +15% Withdrawal chance. +150% Taunt chance.

Description: Not entirely sure on this, but I think Taunt chance increases the likelihood that a hostile unit will attack you, which can be useful since some barbarians and animals might not attack into you otherwise if you're sufficiently stronger than they are.

---


Hillsman

Requires: Combat II

Level I: Double movement in Hills/Peaks

Description: Can move through hills quicker. And mountains too. Why yes, units can move through mountain tiles in this game. Eventually.

---


Hit and Run

Requires: Combat II

Level I: -1 Terrain movement cost. +10% Withdrawal chance. +5% capture chance. +5% avoid capture chance.

Description: Exclusively for Explorer units, makes moving through all terrains slightly easier and even improves the chance of capturing a unit defeated in battle.

---


Hunt Down I-V

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +15% Pursuit chance.
Level II: +35% Pursuit chance.
Level III: +60% Pursuit chance.
Level IV: +90% Pursuit chance.
Level V: +125% Pursuit chance. +1 movement range

Description: Gives pursuit chance to fast units like Mounted units and Hunters. Functionally identical to Chase, but with increased effect.

---


Hunter I-IV

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +25% vs Animals. +10% Subdue animal chance. +1 First strike chance
Level II: +65% vs Animals. -15% Strength. +25% Subdue animal chance. +1 First strike. +1 First strike chance.
Level III: +120% vs Animals. -20% Strength. +40% Subdue animal chance. +2 First strikes. +1 First strike chance.
Level IV: Multiple attacks. 150% vs Animals. -25% Strength. +55% Subdue animal chance. +3 First strikes. +1 First strike chance.

Description: The tried and true method of turning wild animals into economy. Worth nothing is that while most combat units can get Hunter I, Hunter II-IV is exclusively for Hunter units and no one else.

---


Hunting Sight I-II

Requires: Hunter I

Level I: +1 Visibility range. +5% Subdue animal chance
Level II: +2 Visibility range. +10% Strength. +15% Subdue animal chance

Description: I guess it's supposed to be Sentry for Hunters, but as far as I can tell you can't actually get this promotion at all. Including it nonetheless for posterity.
EDIT: Turns out it's a free promotion for more advanced Hunters than we have access to, which is nice to know. Can also alternatively be acquired via random event for our Trackers.

---


Loose Formation

Requires: Combat II

Level I: +5% Withdrawal chance. +5% capture chance. -10% chance to avoid capture. +15% vs Archers/Mounted

Description: Sorta generic anti-Mounted promotion for Explorer units I suppose? A couple small bonuses but otherwise there are always better options.

---


Marauder

Requires: Flanking I (normally)

Level I: Plunder 4% of Enemy gold reserves on combat victory

Description: Normally only available at Horseback Riding, but comes for free on newly built units when Banditry is active.

---


Looter

Requires: Nothing

Level I: Yields +50% gold from pillaging

Description: Normally only available at Warfare tech, but comes for free on newly built units in cities with a Bandit's Hideout.

---


Master Hunter I-III

Requires: Nothing

Level I: Multiple attacks. +20% Subdue animal chance
Level II: Multiple attacks. No combat penalty when attacking across a river. +40% Subdue animal chance.
Level III: Multiple attacks. No combat penalty when attacking across a river. Can use enemy roads. +60% Subdue animal chance.

Description: Unique promotion for Great Hunters promoted to Master Hunters. Makes subduing extremely likely

---


Might I

Requires: Combat Quality between Inferior and Divine

Level I: +1 Base strength

Description: There are 13 levels of Might. Yes, you heard right, 13. Instead of listing them all now I'm listing them as they become available.

---


Mountaineer

Requires: Combat III, Guerilla III

Level I: Can pass through Peaks

Description: Like I said, we can climb mountains in this game. :getin:

---


Poison Tips

Requires: Nothing

Level I: -15% capture chance. +10% avoid capture chance. +25% vs Archers/Mounted/Melee/Animals/Explorer/Throwing

Description: Fun promotion only available to units built in a city with a Poison Crafter's Hut.

---


Rugged Combat I-III

Requires: Combat I

Level I: Double movement in Barren. +20% attack/+50% defense in Barren.
Level II: Double movement in Barren/Scrub. +20% attack/+50% defense in Barren/Scrub.
Level III: Double movement in Barren/Scrub/Rocky/Badland/Jagged. +20% attack/+50% defense in Barren/Scrub/Rocky. +10% attack/+25% defense in Badland/Jagged

Description: Another terrain promotion. These terrains don't damage you despite how harsh they sound.

---


Self heal I-V

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +1% Max HP. +1% Heal rate. +3% chance to heal on combat victory. +1% Heal rate in neutral territory.
Level II: +3% Max HP. +2% Heal rate. +6% chance to heal on combat victory. +2% Heal rate in neutral territory.
Level III: +6% Max HP. +4% Heal rate. +9% chance to heal on combat victory. +2% Heal rate in neutral territory.
Level IV: +10% Max HP. +6% Heal rate. +12% chance to heal on combat victory. +2% Heal rate in neutral territory. +1% Heal rate in enemy territory.
Level V: +15% Max HP. +7% Heal rate. +16% chance to heal on combat victory. +4% Heal rate in neutral territory. +2% Heal rate in enemy territory.

Description: Allows for more self-sufficient healing. The extra max HP also slightly improves your combat prowess because of how the combat mechanics work.

---


Sidestep I-III

Requires: Combat I OR Drill I

Level I: +20% vs Throwing
Level II: +45% vs Throwing
Level III: +70% vs Throwing

Description: For the record, there will continue to be a distinction between Throwing and Archer units even when the latter finally start coming into play. Naturally their counter is just moving slightly to the left, something I find kind of amusing.

---


Sophistication I-IV

Requires: Combat I

Level I: +15% vs Barbarians. +5% Strength. +5% vs Ruffian/Strike Team.
Level II: +35% vs Barbarians. +10% Strength. +10% vs Ruffian/Strike Team.
Level III: +60% vs Barbarians. +15% Strength. +20% vs Ruffian/Strike Team.
Level IV: +90% vs Barbarians. +25% Strength. +30% vs Ruffian/Strike Team.

Description: The go-to anti-barbarian promotion. Also does well against combat-focused criminals.

---


Sting I-IV

Requires: Nothing

Level I: 10% vs EACH Size rank larger.
Level II: 25% vs EACH Size rank larger.
Level III: 45% vs EACH Size rank larger.
Level IV: 70% vs EACH Size rank larger.

Description: The flip side of the Bully promotion. Functions the same otherwise.

---


Stringing Insults I-III

Requires: See below

Level I: Requires Flanking I. +5% Withdrawal Chance. +50% Taunt chance.
Level II: Requires Flanking II. +15% Withdrawal chance. +150% Taunt chance.
Level III: Requires Flanking III. +30% Withdrawal chance. +350% Taunt chance.

Description: A supercharged version of Goad for Recon units. Promotions do not build on each other like normal, instead each level requires their corresponding level of Flanking.

---


Street Fighter I-IV

Requires: Combat II

Level I: +5% Capture chance. +5% Avoid capture chance. +10% City attack/defense.
Level II: +10% Capture chance. +10% Avoid capture chance. +25% City attack/defense.
Level III: +15% Capture chance. +15% Avoid capture chance. +45% City attack/defense.
Level IV: +20% Capture chance. +20% Avoid capture chance. +70% City attack/defense.

Description: An alternative to City Raider for Melee units, more focused on capturing enemies rather than killing them.

---


Swarm I-IV

Requires: Nothing

Level I: 10% vs EACH Group rank smaller
Level II: 25% vs EACH Group rank smaller
Level III: 45% vs EACH Group rank smaller
Level IV: 70% vs EACH Group rank smaller

Description: The flip side of the Bottleneck promotion. Functions the same otherwise.

---


To The Death I-IV

Requires: Nothing

Level I: +20% Avoid capture chance. +5% Strength.
Level II: +45% Avoid capture chance. +10% Strength.
Level III: +75 Avoid capture chance. +15% Strength.
Level IV: +110% Avoid capture chance. +25% Strength.

Description: Exactly what it says on the tin. Each level comes with free complimentary cyanide pill.

---


Wetland Combat I-III

Requires:

Level I: Double movement in Lush. +20% attack/+50% defense in Lush.
Level II: Double movement in Lush/Muddy. +20% attack/+50% defense in Lush/Muddy.
Level III: Double movement in Lush/Muddy/Marsh. +20% attack/+50% defense in Lush/Muddy/Marsh.

Description: Last terrain promotion, this time for wet, swampy terrain.

------

Some of these descriptions are more supposition than based on real experience, but I think most of them are pretty clear about how they're supposed to be used and why. I'm not sure which promotions I'll do next, but I anticipate it'll either be Criminal/Law Enforcement stuff or some of the initial Naval stuff. We'll see how the game progresses.

Super Jay Mann fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 9, 2019

Boksi
Jan 11, 2016
Pretty sure Hunting Sight comes from some buildings built by captured animals or great hunters or something. Unless they've changed it since I last played, that's entirely possible too.


Anyway, I'll be voting for Industrious and Cruel.

Cerebral Bore
Apr 21, 2010


Fun Shoe
Clearly the blatantly correct choice is :shittydog: + :smugdog:

Captainicus
Feb 22, 2013



Cerebral Bore posted:

Clearly the blatantly correct choice is :shittydog: + :smugdog:

Maybe we should have voted nomad the first time but I'm voting double dogs!

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
A and :sparkles:
Idealistic liberal arts-civ!

Yami Fenrir
Jan 25, 2015

Is it I that is insane... or the rest of the world?
Industrious and :smugdog: makes the most sense to me.

Yami Fenrir fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Mar 8, 2019

Innocent_Bystander
May 17, 2012

Wait, missile production is my responsibility?

Oh.
Industrious , :black101:. Long-term costs don't matter, right?

Right?

Manic_Misanthrope
Jul 1, 2010


A and :black101: There are so many fantastic shades of red we can get out of blood, really adds to the marble statues.

Slaan
Mar 16, 2009



ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH
:sparkles:Nomads for excellent adventures

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berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
Creative and Idealistic please!

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