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Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface
Mermaids from dugongs.

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NewMars
Mar 10, 2013
Leviathan from whales and Pheonix from certain birds.

Super Jay Mann
Nov 6, 2008

Since I'm out of town right now I'll take the opportunity to potentially light this topic on fire until I get back by pointing out that the current lead dev of the mod, Thunderbrd, contacted me on Discord a couple days ago regarding this LP. He quite likes how it's gone so far and graciously offered to clarify some minor things I missed and/or misinterpreted, as well as offer his own thoughts on how and why the development of the mod has turned out as it has for us to mock mercilessly discuss in a civil and composed manner :v:

I think I've made my current opinions (both good and bad) on many aspects of the mod clear and will continue to do so in the main updates, so I won't offer much beyond mechanics comments and just let him speak for himself (Minor formatting for clarity).

On the relationship between HP and combat strength

Thunderbrd posted:

just to clarify what I think you're simplifying for folks, HP and Strength... Max HP AND Str are modified by size categories in [Size Matters] but if you modify Max HP alone, you don't increase the Str naturally.

What I gather is that Strength is not directly a function of Max HP as I thought but that both are modified in the same fashion when doing things like merging or raising Combat Quality. Not really important in practical play but a subtle distinction for technical minded folk.

On what Taunt chance does:

quote:

Taunt won't make it more likely for a unit to attack so much as it will make that unit more likely to be the one to come up in defense of the tile ... It is an adjustment to the perceived strength of the unit when it finds the 'best defender' ...
Scouts make great decoys for stacks. By taunting they can often get to be the first to defend and when they are hit, they often flee rather than dying

This makes a lot more sense than my supposition. He also goes on to mention how this can be useful even in Prehistoric Era, as you can cover your Hunters with Scouts (since they have the same movement) and put Taunt and Withdrawal promotions on them so that if the group runs into any wandering strong Barbarians your Scout will take the brunt of the attack, potentially withdrawing. But even if they die they would protect your more valuable Hunters.

Probably a bit late to truly put that into practice but we'll see.

On Spearmen units:

quote:

One more point that I recall, the wooden spearmen are great military power against animals, not just mounted. If you find some animals that are very very strong and giving you severe problems, those wood spears are your go to and if you want to generate great generals rather than great hunters, but still want to hunt for food and production, they make great wilderness hunting units.

These are good points I hadn't considered when playing. I can't speak for whether this ancillary use should be communicated more clearly in game, but it seems like there are a few choices in unit availability and abilities that seem useless or superfluous but do actually have a reason for being the way they are. It'd behoove me to maybe think more creatively about how to use them :)

And now for the other stuff. First, on just making a new game from scratch instead:

quote:

If I was any good at starting a project, I'd do exactly what one of your posters suggested. I think I'd prefer to create a new game anyhow. ... As I've explained on the [CivFanatics] forums before, I'm a game designer struggling to learn how to program rather than a programmer struggling to learn how to design. I've only learned what I've learned in C++ to do this and what lies beyond my understanding in programming is absolutely vast. But what I know about this particular code is pretty strong familiarity at this point.

At least he's honest about what he can't actually do.

On user feedback and feature bloat:

quote:

One thing I'd ask you to mention is that on our [CivFanatics] forum, we're always looking for feedback. It doesn't have to be confirming feedback either. We also don't necessarily respond to change the mod based on all feedback either because if we did that we'd be changing things back and forth endlessly. But all are more than welcome to comment. We could use a bit more engagement lately. I feel like some of us have been a little vitriolic to a detrimental degree (and who knows, maybe I'm one of them) but that doesn't mean we don't want to hear what anyone has to say. That said, telling us the game needs to be shaved down in size is probably the thing we'd ignore the most. Everybody has something about the mod they'd like to see go and if everybody got their way, we'd have no more mod. The mod began with the ideal that 'more is more' but that said, nothing is in there for no reason. The reasons may vary as to a given thing specifically but there's always a reason. We weren't looking for excuses to put everything we could think of, though with some buildings and animals I do think they might not be necessary. The main reason for 90% of the content is that we wanted to include as much of the human experience into this game as we could. There's no one goal here but many. For me, I see this not just as a game to get to its conclusion but an experience in world development and I look at every unit as its own protagonist in its own game.

...

Too many people play games to get to the end. This one is so that each phase of the game feels like its own game and that many games within the one game are taking place. It's making the point that the game is enjoyed in the playing, not in racing to an end achievement, but in each little one you experience along the way. Your experience in playing with your hunter [RIP Boksi :( ] was a good example of this

And finally, a mission statement of sorts? I guess?

quote:

There's a certain hypocrisy that game aficionados possess these days in many cases. They are quick to complain that there's not enough content in a game - it played through too fast so wasn't developed enough, but also just as fast to complain when something seems too involved. So what do you want? To be engaged into play or not? When you're enjoying a game or a story, do you want it to end before you tire of it or do you want it to go on as long as you can keep enjoying it? I understand all things are a matter of striking the right balance, particularly where interest and enjoyment are concerned. I also understand that many people will look at this game and get intimidated. Even children get tired of hunting Easter Eggs by the end of the day. So I get it. BUT, this is a turn based strategy game that's intended to be experienced rather than simply beaten and that experience should be truly epic. I mean the subject matter begs for it, does it not? We're talking about a game that covers all of human history and everything we suspect lies ahead. How can that NOT be a HUGE game? Why would one even want it to be a glossed over game without any finely detailed resolution on that one mega story - the story of Mankind as a whole?

Civ has always disappointed me with how much detail it lacks considering the topic matter. In Civ I I understood that it was due to limits in computing. Also true in II. Beyond that, it seems the limit is established by the public's overall terrible attention span rather than the limits of design. With C2C, one should find it has made them smarter, wiser, deeper and has given them new perspectives on every aspect of Humanity's existence just to have played it. And it should have been as realistic a simulation as possible, while maintaining a 'What if' element throughout it's design.

That said, where details are concerned, the team has a deep and rich history of arguing savagely over various subjects. And how much to include or not include has always been a big one. I don't agree with everything we have in the game being there, but I also understand this is a conglomeration of donated efforts and I tend to defend the works of others because I know it was all a labor of love by those who contributed. You'd also find, that as the mod's team leader, I'm trying to address each individual problem with a sense of prioritization. Some building reviews to get them to work a bit more in harmony with one another, particularly through era upgrades and in resource generation and consumption, are pending much more development soon. But y'know, this ship IS huge and it's like trying to drive a barge... it takes a lot of time to make any large adjustments. My traits took 3-4 years to develop alone.

So yeah, that's a thing. This mod is clearly insane but from the sounds of it the developers are at least trying, engine limitations and knowing lack of coding ability be damned. I'm not sure what the ultimate result is gonna be but I'd be lying if I said I'm not quite interested in seeing for myself :v:

I suppose having him in this topic would be convenient, though I find it doubtful he'll put forth the :10bux: since he finds the idea of paying for forum membership rather unusual, not that I blame him for thinking so. And even if he does, from my understanding the history of fan game devs interacting directly with SA LPs of their own work is... mixed at best.

General Revil
Sep 30, 2014

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Jossar posted:

Dragons from various big scaly lizards.

A quick RL note, I'm not sure if this a consensus yet, but there is a theory that dragon myths come from people unearthing dinosaur fossils.

Jossar
Apr 2, 2018

Current status: Angry about subs :argh:
I think it's great that the dev was willing to answer your questions!

That said, here's my reflections on their reflections. Mostly on concept stuff, since i'm not great enough on mechanics to really argue those one way or another.

quote:

Too many people play games to get to the end. This one is so that each phase of the game feels like its own game and that many games within the one game are taking place. It's making the point that the game is enjoyed in the playing, not in racing to an end achievement, but in each little one you experience along the way. Your experience in playing with your hunter [RIP Boksi ] was a good example of this

This was how I played the mod... but a lot of my experiences, especially in the Industrial/Atomic Era, were made up because I wanted to try and give myself a narrative rather than because one naturally existed. Once you finally defeat the AI, you are going to have a long period of time where things are mind numbingly boring and static because you are lord and master of the planet and there's nothing you can really do for AGES apart from developing a faster and faster engine. And it WILL happen. SJM admitted as much, and someone I spoke to on Discord who was a more experienced C2C player that said that if any of your opponents are left past turn 1000, you are suffering them to live. I found myself racing for an end achievement until the space phase started because there wasn't anything to do apart from colonizing silly places on the map or trying to spread eleven religions to all of my cities, or hunting all the animals to extinction, which didn't reflect the real human experience during these ages and felt like I was trying to distract myself after I had reached some Fukuyama-esque End of History. I finally put the game down at Nanotech (although we'll see how long that lasts this time :v:) because the experiences that did open up once I finally made it off planet just seemed like, after the brief initial expansion period, it was going to be several hundred more turns of the same.

quote:

BUT, this is a turn based strategy game that's intended to be experienced rather than simply beaten and that experience should be truly epic. I mean the subject matter begs for it, does it not? We're talking about a game that covers all of human history and everything we suspect lies ahead. How can that NOT be a HUGE game? Why would one even want it to be a glossed over game without any finely detailed resolution on that one mega story - the story of Mankind as a whole?

Civ has always disappointed me with how much detail it lacks considering the topic matter. In Civ I I understood that it was due to limits in computing. Also true in II. Beyond that, it seems the limit is established by the public's overall terrible attention span rather than the limits of design. With C2C, one should find it has made them smarter, wiser, deeper and has given them new perspectives on every aspect of Humanity's existence just to have played it. And it should have been as realistic a simulation as possible, while maintaining a 'What if' element throughout it's design.

That said, where details are concerned, the team has a deep and rich history of arguing savagely over various subjects. And how much to include or not include has always been a big one. I don't agree with everything we have in the game being there, but I also understand this is a conglomeration of donated efforts and I tend to defend the works of others because I know it was all a labor of love by those who contributed. You'd also find, that as the mod's team leader, I'm trying to address each individual problem with a sense of prioritization. Some building reviews to get them to work a bit more in harmony with one another, particularly through era upgrades and in resource generation and consumption, are pending much more development soon. But y'know, this ship IS huge and it's like trying to drive a barge... it takes a lot of time to make any large adjustments. My traits took 3-4 years to develop alone.

I like this motivational statement. I really do! I am not that much of a fan of Civ IV and was mainly in this for the C2C experience of seeing all of human history...

But, as a way of trying to sum up my feelings from above in a way that directly addresses the mission statement: C2C's scope was too big after all. And not in the sense that people are talking about with regards to there being 5 billion animals or buildings or techs or mechanics. It's possible to have a lot of options and they can still be weird, fun, and informative. C2C is too big because Civ INDEED really isn't that ambitious, and the mod is trying to shove the entirety of human history in a game that isn't built to last as long as it takes to tell that story. You might as well stop playing the game in the last half and just read the Civilopedia instead.

I'm not sure what could be done about that, even if the game was built from scratch (which I recognize is not practical here based on what the dev said), because it's a common strategy game problem. Design it as some kind of variant city builder instead?

Jossar fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Mar 17, 2019

WhitemageofDOOM
Sep 13, 2010

... It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit.

quote:

There's a certain hypocrisy that game aficionados possess these days in many cases. They are quick to complain that there's not enough content in a game - it played through too fast so wasn't developed enough, but also just as fast to complain when something seems too involved. So what do you want? To be engaged into play or not? When you're enjoying a game or a story, do you want it to end before you tire of it or do you want it to go on as long as you can keep enjoying it? I understand all things are a matter of striking the right balance, particularly where interest and enjoyment are concerned. I also understand that many people will look at this game and get intimidated. Even children get tired of hunting Easter Eggs by the end of the day. So I get it. BUT, this is a turn based strategy game that's intended to be experienced rather than simply beaten and that experience should be truly epic. I mean the subject matter begs for it, does it not? We're talking about a game that covers all of human history and everything we suspect lies ahead. How can that NOT be a HUGE game? Why would one even want it to be a glossed over game without any finely detailed resolution on that one mega story - the story of Mankind as a whole?

Civ has always disappointed me with how much detail it lacks considering the topic matter. In Civ I I understood that it was due to limits in computing. Also true in II. Beyond that, it seems the limit is established by the public's overall terrible attention span rather than the limits of design. With C2C, one should find it has made them smarter, wiser, deeper and has given them new perspectives on every aspect of Humanity's existence just to have played it. And it should have been as realistic a simulation as possible, while maintaining a 'What if' element throughout it's design.

That said, where details are concerned, the team has a deep and rich history of arguing savagely over various subjects. And how much to include or not include has always been a big one. I don't agree with everything we have in the game being there, but I also understand this is a conglomeration of donated efforts and I tend to defend the works of others because I know it was all a labor of love by those who contributed. You'd also find, that as the mod's team leader, I'm trying to address each individual problem with a sense of prioritization. Some building reviews to get them to work a bit more in harmony with one another, particularly through era upgrades and in resource generation and consumption, are pending much more development soon. But y'know, this ship IS huge and it's like trying to drive a barge... it takes a lot of time to make any large adjustments. My traits took 3-4 years to develop alone.

When a game designer has to insult the audience rather than ask why their project isn't beloved, they really don't even deserve the benefit of being criticized.

But the answer is blunt, A large experience needs to have more enjoyment/hour than a smaller more bite sized experience. As it turns out, that is very very hard.
Our LPer has played 24 hours, a casual run of...pick a game of pokemon for instance generally is about 20 hours. And almost certainly would have been a more fun eventful experience.
When people ask for more content they are not asking for more time wasted, they are asking for there to be more things to do in the amount of time spent, your mod is the definition of lacking content as huge as it is, because there is very little to do for long long stretches.

And not killing things just because they are someone's babies? You are a game designer, you should know game design 101 is "Kill your babies".

quote:

With C2C, one should find it has made them smarter, wiser, deeper and has given them new perspectives on every aspect of Humanity's existence just to have played it. And it should have been as realistic a simulation as possible, while maintaining a 'What if' element throughout it's design.

Looking at the civics and :biotruths: do you really want my honest response to that?

Jossar posted:

I'm not sure what could be done about that, even if the game was built from scratch (which I recognize is not practical here based on what the dev said), because it's a common strategy game problem. Design it as some kind of variant city builder instead?

It's scope expansion, you have a bunch of mechanics that work fine with 1-4 cities and then break down at 15+.
I would argue this happens to strategy games because expansion comes by adding new "cities" rather than just slowly pulling out.

Sure when you are a city state you build individual buildings, but when you are a Nation State you should instead be building a "University grant" that when finished creates a "Universal secondary Education" project.

WhitemageofDOOM fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Mar 17, 2019

Jossar
Apr 2, 2018

Current status: Angry about subs :argh:

WhitemageofDOOM posted:


It's scope expansion, you have a bunch of mechanics that work fine with 1-4 cities and then break down at 15+.
I would argue this happens to strategy games because expansion comes by adding new "cities" rather than just slowly pulling out.

Sure when you are a city state you build individual buildings, but when you are a Nation State you should instead be building a "University grant" that when finished creates a "Universal secondary Education" project.

I'm going to half disagree on this and say that's the one problem that is at least recognized. Even though you mechanically reach the post-Earth content by adding new cities, those cities have different building trees and are eventually meant to be much different in scale from your earlier cities. So even if what you list here isn't quite executed perfectly, the devs did think about how things should zoom out, as far as they could twist the baseline Civ mechanics for a single map.

But the fact that it takes until the Nanotech era for stuff like that to start showing up is pretty indicative of an emphasis on trying to plan things out on the basis that players will reach that far in the game despite the fact that the gameplay has been otherwise the same for a very long time.

Jossar fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Mar 17, 2019

WhitemageofDOOM
Sep 13, 2010

... It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit.

Jossar posted:

I'm going to half disagree on this and say that's the one problem that is at least recognized. Even though you mechanically reach the post-Earth content by adding new cities, those cities have different building trees and are eventually meant to be much different in scale from your earlier cities. So even if what you list here isn't quite executed perfectly, the devs did think about how things should zoom out, as far as they could twist the baseline Civ mechanics for a single map.

But the fact that it takes until the Nanotech era for stuff like that to start showing up is pretty indicative of an emphasis on trying to plan things out on the basis that players will reach that far in the game despite the fact that the gameplay has been otherwise the same for a very long time.

It wasn't meant on the devs of this and more a general issue with strategy games.
More of a "Why does civ have mechanics for cities that when you have 50 are micro hell, and not mechanics for running your empire that scale to the intended scale?".

King Doom
Dec 1, 2004
I am on the Internet.
The one thing I'd change is the availability of animals - I'm playing a game now, and I'm on the not-australia continent. Lots of platypi and kangaroo's, none of the big animals that got domestocated. No deer, no horses, no buffalo, no camels, no llamas, no elephants... it does kinda leave you lagging behind the guys on the not-europe continent or wherever who all have herds of goats, sheep and deer. Can't think how I'd change it though. I see why the animals spawn the way they do, to reflect how they evolved in the real world and all that. Maybe a repeatable project once you get rafts where you send some guys out to explore and they come back in x turns with animals you don't have yet.

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013
The real answer is to make more australian animals domesticatable.

WhitemageofDOOM
Sep 13, 2010

... It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit.
The real answer is that no one starts in australia.
And when you get there you get the natural wonder "Set this loving hellhole ablaze".

Then the giant death forest burns down, and you get the giant death desert we all know and love.

Bloodly
Nov 3, 2008

Not as strong as you'd expect.
WHich means you made the hellhole that everyone hates so much. And for what reason?

xelada
Dec 21, 2012

King Doom posted:

The one thing I'd change is the availability of animals - I'm playing a game now, and I'm on the not-australia continent. Lots of platypi and kangaroo's, none of the big animals that got domestocated. No deer, no horses, no buffalo, no camels, no llamas, no elephants... it does kinda leave you lagging behind the guys on the not-europe continent or wherever who all have herds of goats, sheep and deer. Can't think how I'd change it though. I see why the animals spawn the way they do, to reflect how they evolved in the real world and all that. Maybe a repeatable project once you get rafts where you send some guys out to explore and they come back in x turns with animals you don't have yet.

Interestingly enough, this is a common hypothesis/theory on why there was such an apparent gulf between the tech level of the old and new world (or at least a contributing factor), as well as why old world diseases did more damage to the new world than the new world to the old.
CGPGrey has a video on it "Americapox: The Missing Plague"

Chatrapati
Nov 6, 2012

King Doom posted:

The one thing I'd change is the availability of animals - I'm playing a game now, and I'm on the not-australia continent. Lots of platypi and kangaroo's, none of the big animals that got domestocated. No deer, no horses, no buffalo, no camels, no llamas, no elephants... it does kinda leave you lagging behind the guys on the not-europe continent or wherever who all have herds of goats, sheep and deer. Can't think how I'd change it though. I see why the animals spawn the way they do, to reflect how they evolved in the real world and all that. Maybe a repeatable project once you get rafts where you send some guys out to explore and they come back in x turns with animals you don't have yet.

I kind of like that though. I remember having a game of Civ IV, sharing my not-Australia continent with three other civilisations. After centuries I managed to defeat the other civilisations and started turtling for a little while, then explorers from the North came who were far more technologically advanced than me. I felt like I was probably the best in the world after defeating my neighbours, but it turned out we were just all living on backward-rear end island and everybody else was literally ages ahead. I lost the game when they started invading my lands, but I liked being the underdog, and the early fights against the invaders were very exciting and frought.

Never played this mod back in the day (even then, it looked like a bungled mess), but I like the idea that some civs can be greatly advantaged purely through their surrounding fauna and geography.

Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface
It depends on how aware of your situation you are in this mod. Being stuck on an island like that can be super benefical. Once you figure it out its key to wipe out and conquer any other city on your island than focus on getting the tech that allows ocean travel, since that also allows you better ships to hunt whales and such with which helps your expansion. Then you can use those ships to scout for villages or new islands or whatever and expand that way.

Most AI wont focus on ship stuff unless they are also isolated and Island bound so you should have a good fleet advantage to help fend off any naval invasions.

Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Mar 18, 2019

Red John
Jul 12, 2018
More is good. Like the Tower of Babel, we must go higher.

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..."




xelada posted:

Interestingly enough, this is a common hypothesis/theory on why there was such an apparent gulf between the tech level of the old and new world (or at least a contributing factor), as well as why old world diseases did more damage to the new world than the new world to the old.
CGPGrey has a video on it "Americapox: The Missing Plague"

This is one of the big points of a book called "Guns, Germs, & Steel", which is basically devoted to analyzing this question. Good read if you're the sort to enjoy that kind of thing.

Radio Free Kobold fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Mar 19, 2019

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Radio Free Kobold posted:

This is one of the big points of a book called "Guns, Germs, & Steel", which is basically devoted to analyzing this question. Good read if you're the sort to enjoy that kind of thing.

However, that book isn't particularly well regarded in serious academic circles. The book's theories are certainly possible, but the author is trying to deal with a subject matter where there simply isn't much evidence and simple luck and happenstance have huge impacts on history.

Not everything has a grand explanation for why things happened the way they did, and that's one of the main criticisms I've heard from serious historians about the book: the author goes way too far in trying to extrapolate grand theories and explanations from a very small amount of data even if his leaps of logic are fairly plausible.

Aerdan
Apr 14, 2012

Not Dennis NEDry
Cultures generally only develop the things they need to survive more readily. Take the wheel, for instance; for non-toy use you need hard surfaces for them to run on, or they're generally going to be less efficient than just pulling a travois. No draft or riding animals means you won't acquire such surfaces at sizes big enough to make wheeled vehicles practical.

Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface
Also for areas like Yucatan its way easier to just boat up or down a river than bushing a trail for a cart or whatever that needs to be maintained. Since they get pretty nasty dry seasons the permanent water source helps too so you get big population centers there.

Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Mar 19, 2019

RoboChrist 9000
Dec 14, 2006

Mater Dolorosa

Telsa Cola posted:

Also for areas like Yucatan its way easier to just boat up or down a river than bushing a trail for a cart or whatever that needs to be maintained. Since they get pretty nasty dry seasons the permanent water source helps too so you get big population centers there.

Did the Egyptians not develop the wheel prior to meeting other civilizations? Given how easy transit along the Nile was and how Nile-centric their civilization was, it seems curious that they would.

Obliterati
Nov 13, 2012

Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is optional.
Thunderdome is forever.
When folk are talking about 'inventing' the wheel they are more going for 'using' the wheel: most notably the peoples of the Yucatan absolutely did know what wheels were because they used them in kids' toys, even though their environment prohibited, say, wagons. The ancient Egyptians fukken loved chariots, and so used wheels there, but you wouldn't bother along the Nile because water-based transport is just much more efficient.

Pvt.Scott
Feb 16, 2007

What God wants, God gets, God help us all
I know the Aztecs used kids as porters for their warfare. That was kinda like their first military rank or duty. In the rear with the gear until uncle Jaguar Fist taught you how to murder your first man. Who needs beasts of burden when you have child labor?

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013

Telsa Cola posted:

Also for areas like Yucatan its way easier to just boat up or down a river than bushing a trail for a cart or whatever that needs to be maintained. Since they get pretty nasty dry seasons the permanent water source helps too so you get big population centers there.

That's actually the worst possible example, the Yucatan has no major rivers and in fact is geographically unique in supporting historical urban civilization despite the complete lack of permanent water sources. What they have are cenotes: giant natural wells that fill with rainwater. One of the most common theories for why the Maya civilization underwent at least one major rearrangement is because of a small shift in rain patterns causing urban life in many places to become unsustainable because of this.

Pvt.Scott
Feb 16, 2007

What God wants, God gets, God help us all

NewMars posted:

That's actually the worst possible example, the Yucatan has no major rivers and in fact is geographically unique in supporting historical urban civilization despite the complete lack of permanent water sources. What they have are cenotes: giant natural wells that fill with rainwater. One of the most common theories for why the Maya civilization underwent at least one major rearrangement is because of a small shift in rain patterns causing urban life in many places to become unsustainable because of this.

Are cenotes anything like stepwells?

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013

Pvt.Scott posted:

Are cenotes anything like stepwells?

Only vaguely, in that they are below-ground-level water sources. Cenotes are naturally occurring due to the geology of the Yucatan and are generally even lower.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Pvt.Scott posted:

Are cenotes anything like stepwells?

No. Cenotes are naturally occurring phenomena, naturally occurring sinkholes that filled with water from rain.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


A long time ago, the Yucatan had the good fortune of being hit by the Chicxulub meteor. A good portion of the cenotes come from this impact crater (which covered roughly an eighth of the peninsula.)

Put simply, a cenote is any hole big enough to penetrate all the way to the aquifer. The whole region has a two layer water system where meteoric rain water filters down to rest on top of the saltier oceanwater.

Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface
Eh not worth it.

Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Mar 19, 2019

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013
Oh, sorry, I guess that'd be right, though I was wondering about the population transfers that took place.

DariusLikewise
Oct 4, 2008

You wore that on Halloween?
Cenotes are cool as hell

Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

NewMars posted:

Oh, sorry, I guess that'd be right, though I was wondering about the population transfers that took place.

In southern Yucatan, lots of people went north, the Puuc region did really well comparatively during the Terminal Collapse and I imagine its continued success was a draw for people. Others I think went south and west. You still had people stay in the region though population densities went real low.

Also IMO the best explanation for the population transfers is that a combination of factors, like climate change, social unrest, and warfare kicked everything off. Having power dynamics solidified by the rulers being able to appeal the gods for rain likely did not help once the rains stopped coming.

Also Cenotes are super neat and you can get fossil giant sloths embeded in the side of them which blew my mind when I found out. Bitch to excavate though.

Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Mar 19, 2019

Super Jay Mann
Nov 6, 2008

Telsa Cola posted:

Also Cenotes are super neat and you can get fossil giant sloths embeded in the side of them which blew my mind when I found out. Bitch to excavate though.

Maybe the Mapinguari Spearman was a real thing in our timeline after all. :allears:

Xenoborg
Mar 10, 2007

I think its time to throw in the towel in my current game. Not to the AI, but to my computer. I got to the beginning of the Renaissance but am now having 5+ min turn times and crashes every few turns. Probably my own fault for playing a huge map.

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013

Telsa Cola posted:

In southern Yucatan, lots of people went north, the Puuc region did really well comparatively during the Terminal Collapse and I imagine its continued success was a draw for people. Others I think went south and west. You still had people stay in the region though population densities went real low.

Also IMO the best explanation for the population transfers is that a combination of factors, like climate change, social unrest, and warfare kicked everything off. Having power dynamics solidified by the rulers being able to appeal the gods for rain likely did not help once the rains stopped coming.

Also Cenotes are super neat and you can get fossil giant sloths embeded in the side of them which blew my mind when I found out. Bitch to excavate though.

I think that it's a shame there's no games that do justice to Mesoamerica. Like the closest you get is EU4 I think and that's at best really abstract. Not to mention that whole thing with NA being comprised of about two-dozen one province nomadic minors.

Angry Salami
Jul 27, 2013

Don't trust the skull.

Obliterati posted:

most notably the peoples of the Yucatan absolutely did know what wheels were because they used them in kids' toys, even though their environment prohibited, say, wagons.

There's some evidence they used pulleys in the construction of the larger temple complexes, so they found uses for wheels, just not as transportation.

Aerdan
Apr 14, 2012

Not Dennis NEDry

Angry Salami posted:

There's some evidence they used pulleys in the construction of the larger temple complexes, so they found uses for wheels, just not as transportation.

:ssh: You don't need wheels to have pulleys, although they definitely help.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



Reading through this thread has made me want to play through some Civ4 mods again. Whenever I used to get the hankering, I would load up FfH2, but are there others on roughly the same level of changes? I know Dune Wars (I downloaded Dune Wars Revival, I'm assuming that's the same but more), but how is Ashes of Erebus compared to FfH2? And are there other mods worth checking out? You can suggest C2C all you want, but I'm not crazy, I did read this thread.

Super Jay Mann
Nov 6, 2008

BABA is YOU and GOOD

BABA is TIME-CONSUMING :sweatdrop:

C2C Gameplay Chapter 8: What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me



We begin this update, not in Hattusas, but in Paris, where Joan of Arc's attempt to build the LL Blackwater Draw falls just a bit short. Assyria finishes it instead, becoming the sixth player with a Legendary Landscapes wonder. This leaves only France and China left to build one.



France, for its part, goes immediately into another LL wonder, the LL Cactus Hill immediately after failing the previous one.



Aside from that brief interlude, the turns to finishing Slavery are uneventful and it comes before we know it. Outside of the Slavery worldview mechanics and some Cultures, the tech comes with a very useful promotion and a fairly effective crime prevention building that replaces Public Stoning called... Crucifixion Crosses, because it turns out we humans only get better and better at learning how to properly kill people. :suicide:



Speaking of crimes against humanity, let's get this show on the road. Worldview - Slavery is exactly what it says on the tin, but also kind of not. Slavery in Civ 4 BTS is, as was mentioned by someone in this thread already, by far the best Civic in the entire game, and mastering its use is an absolute necessity at getting any good at the game. It was also a pretty big abstraction, portraying the oppressive nature of Slavery as instantly converting population into hammers, which honestly isn't much better if you think about it too hard but hey, historical simulation video game, we just gotta learn to roll with it.

C2C's Slavery mechanics are none of that, and while I do recall that rushing production with population is still a thing in this mod, I believe the conditions for doing so are far more restricted, but I could be wrong. I guess we'll see as we go through the tech tree. Anyway, the initial Worldview wonder is built by a Captive unit, and has an immediate effect of granting +10% capture chance to every unit in our empire, which is pretty nice, and the ability to work up to 3 Slave specialists



It additionally unlocks the Slave Compound, a building also built by captives that provides 5% production to non-military units and another Slave slot. Quick side note that everything related to the Slavery Worldview is built by Captive units, so I'll stop mentioning that fact after this point.



Slave Specialists, for their part, provide pretty solid yields for a specialist to be honest. Not as good as your average tile will become of course but, spoiler alert, this game is such that we'll very easily run out of workable tiles and have to rely on specialists in the mid- to late-game for increased economic power. Of course, these yields come with some pretty hefty drawbacks, in particular the +5 crime and disease is downright debilitating without preparation, and the unhealthiness and unhappiness shouldn't be underestimate either. Also, there's the obvious elephant in the room that they don't provide any Great Person Points whatsoever. Worth running? Sometimes. I mean they're better than Unemployed Citizens at the very least.




However, the Slave Compound also allows another ability, something you may have gathered from the tooltip. Captives in cities with a Slave Compound may be turned into Settled Slaves, which functions like any normal settled great person in that they provide permanent bonuses (and penalties) to the city at no additional cost to the city itself. A Settled Slave provides only +1 of food, production, and commerce, but its penalties compared to a Slave specialist are far more minor and they don't require me to use a population to work it. Settled Slaves will make up the bulk of our Slave economy, provided we can handle the penalties as they build up.




But it doesn't stop there. Captives in a city with a Slave Compound may also be used to build additional specialized Slave Compounds tailored for different purposes. The Slavery tech gives us access to three of them, of which I've built two, Slave Compound - Food and Slave Compound - Production (the last just provides culture and happiness so I don't worry about it at this point).

+2 food and production are pretty nice, but I can get similar results from just settling the slave directly. So why bother building these additional compounds?




Because these different compounds also give access to different types of Settled Slaves. The Settled Slave (Production), for example, sacrifices some food and commerce yields to provide an astounding +8 production to our city, no small amount this early in the game. We can make a similar settled slave dedicated to food which has the same +8 -2 -2 spread only for food, but I have enough food in my capital that I don't bother with it for the time being. Sadly, you're only limited to one of each specialized Settled Slave as far as I can tell, so you can't make ridiculous production cities by just spamming Production slaves like I had wanted to :argh:

These aren't the only compounds either, as more of them get unlocked with later techs. There are compounds for military, commerce, disease and crime reduction and a couple others I don't quite remember, but it provides a surprising amount of specialization for each city, provided you have a sizable amount of captives to be able to make the required stuff in your cities.

Of course, it's not all positives. As shown already, the penalties for maintaining these slaves can get pretty steep, and though I won't get into details right now, you can't run a Slave economy forever and doing so will quickly become untenable as we enter and go through the Industrial Era for various reasons. You might think that this means all the investment we would put into our Slaves would be rendered meaningless by the time we have to end Slavery, but fortunately the devs thought of that too. More on that though another time, for now we're just ignorant previously-but-now-not-quite-cavemen who are trying to make our place in the world, and if we need to make a few slaves along the way then so be it!



Anyway, onto more international matters. My Rogue makes it back to Carthage only to be immediately accosted by a unit. Seems like Dido still has a Thief sitting around her capital so she can see my unit, and though it withdrew from one combat it likely won't from another. I had expected this and went back to try and gain more espionage points on her, but it seems like I don't have the option of doing so. Probably because I'm being seen right now?

In any case, I decide to simply take the 60 gold and high-tail it out of there to heal. Her units can't actually attack me in the city except in one particular special case so I could have just sat there, but a little extra gold never hurt.



Bark Working is another straightforward tech with absolutely nothing interesting outside of the new Housing option, [h]Housing (Bark Huts)[/b], which provides +1 production and gold.



Since I'm starting to build up Slaves and am still growing, I decide to finally go for the next tier of Disease-related goodies, starting with the Healer's Hut. It offers a flat -5 Disease and lets us build or upgrade into Healers, the tier two healing unit.



Oh yeah, I did mention a promotion didn't I. Take Prisoners is a very important promotion line as it gives a +10% capture chance bonus with each level, at the cost of -10% strength. Not ideal for units you want to keep strong but for our Ambushers who are designed to pick off weaker units undetected, it's perfect for the job as we seek to collect Captives to add to our workforce.



Our break-even point in Crime has risen a bit closer to 0 than I'd like. Building and upgrading more Enforcers fixes things, but of course all of that costs money, which means I'm running the science slider at 0% quite often right now.



Strike Team units can pillage improvements, but require gold to do so and can actually fail? All while our normal Criminal units can just pillage with abandon? :confused: I don't mind the "Criminals being able to pillage" part but why even have such an expensive yet worthless option available in the first place?




This is the second Exile I've run into in this area, almost certainly from China. Ambushers have sight on them, making them easy pickings for potential Captives, of which I get one. :woop:



Oh hey, here's that event we were discussing a while back, the one that let's us give all our hunting units Hunting Sight, a pretty nice promotion as it gives increased subdue animal chance and free Sentry. I definitely take it.



The first option is grayed out cause it needs an option I have turned off I believe, but the third option looks curious. Wonder what Hunting Great does.



Eh. :geno:

No thanks.



So yeah, I can infiltrate Paris just fine with my other Rogue, so this option does indeed seem to only be available if I'm not being currently seen by the opponent. That'll suck if Carthage decided to keep their Thief in their capital for whatever reason.



Successfully completing missions does grant experience to Criminal units, which is another incentive for using them that way as opposed to just sticking it in their capital. Back to France he goes.



Do you need to build a Bark Gatherer to get the Bark needed for Housing (Bark Huts) and other buildings requiring the resource? Yes you do.

Am I just stalling by reiterating incredibly obvious things to stick to my established convention of commenting on each tech I research twice? You bet I am :v:



Woodworking has a lot more to talk about. In particular, Gather Wood is actually an improvement that's the first of the Lumber Mill line of improvements, and the Lumber Camp building is the first good source of getting a Wood resource if you didn't spawn coastal and build a Driftwood Gatherer.



The Wise Woman->Healer upgrade is very cheap at least, though like Law Enforcement units they become more expensive to maintain as the game goes.




Now this is a great event :woop:

Leadership in BTS is a Great General-led unit exclusive promotion that gave double experience and it does much the same here. Wish I had gotten it on one of my Ambusher units but beggars can't be choosers I suppose.



The Spiked Pit Traps and Log Bridge are each part of their own respective line of buildings dedicated to increased defense from invaders and improving trade routes respectively. I haven't covered those buildings at all because no one is attacking me and trade routes aren't a thing yet in only one city. Just know I'll get to them soon.



Oh wow, don't tell me



Poor France lost another Legendary Landscape wonder to its only remaining competition in China. Which means France has spent the past 25-30 turns or so on absolutely nothing. :lol:

France is kind of struggling in this game.



Carpentry lets us do things with the Wood we have and also gets us Bamboo if we have that terrain feature in our workable radius (we don't). Bamboo would actually be pretty nice to have, there are some interesting things you can do with the resource.



Rundas is a Hittite hunting god. He is also one of the bounty hunters you fight in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

I just found the association funny.



Well I'm in a bit of a bind. I got another Captive from a kill but it was with an Ambusher that is already carrying another Captive, and since this version of the mod I'm on still has the Bounty Hunter bug, I can't get more space to carry another one. If I could cover the captive with my Ambusher that'd be fine but that unit is invisible, so any hostile unit can just attack my Captive right over my Ambusher.



Luckily, we have a Status just for that. Status (Standout) nullifies the invisibility of units so they can be seen and attacked by other units. Not ideal for the Ambusher, but really nice for the unit he's protecting.

I should also take this opportunity to mention that all those invisibility icons there are actually relevant to another game option called Hide and Seek, Hide and Seek greatly extends the invisibility system by allowing units to have different types of invisibility based on the task at hand, and also allowing units to take promotions that allow them to see certain types of invisibility. Additionally, if that game option is turned on there's another option available called Without Warning that adds various combat options and modifiers for units attacking from a cloak of invisibility, including the option to Assassinate units on the same tile as the invisible unit.

I have both of these turned off because I'm not a huge fan of stealth mechanics anyway and the extra layer of complexity with invisibility isn't particularly appealing, and because it opens up even more avenues to exploit the AI without recourse. As I've said before, the AI needs all the help it can get to keep the game interesting throughout.



I only just noticed here that the game does plainly tell you what a unit's capture chance is, which is somewhat embarrassing. I blame the glut of information the tooltips provide, sometimes you just have to tune some things out :colbert:



The disadvantage to Standout, and escorting units manually in general, is having to fight through mini-stacks of units like this as opposed to just walking through them.



The Wooden Palisade and Wooden Watchtower are defensive improvements. The watchtower in particular also gives improved line-of-sight to units stationed on it.



The most important part of Carpentry is the Carpenter's Workshop, which is just a straight +10% production. Percentage buildings are always incredibly valuable in Civ and C2C is no exception.



Tattoos is one of those "not useful but needed to get other more important techs later" tech.



Wow, this is pretty nice! Just free gold out of nowhere, guess building that Jewelry Shop was well worth it.

The event itself is wildly anachronistic of course, but I ain't complaining :sparkles:

We get 129 gold from it by the way.



China also gets their Hunting event, and chooses the clearly inferior option.



This tech also unlocks the Maori culture, which is irrelevant to us but reminds me of how incredibly busted they are in the new Civ 6 expansion :v:



Spearfishing improves a bunch of Natural Wonder related buildings which makes sense. Now if only I had any of those natural wonders.



My Rogue makes it back to Paris to mess them up some more. Since none of the other available promotions are appealing I go with the one that lowers Education, though -1 isn't particularly significant.



Following Thunderbrd's advice, I decide to queue up a bunch of Stone Spearman to eventually merge and set out to kill some stronger animals. I'm also hoping to get a Great General as my next Military Great Person, and using spears instead of hunters to take down animals will be one way to assure that.



Sea Hunter is what you'd expect, a promotion for naval units that mirrors the respective Hunter promotions on land units. Of course we can't build even the most basic of naval units yet even though the tech has been available for a while, but I do have my reasons for that.




Atlatl Making unlocks the upgrade to the Slinger, the Atlatlist. It's also I think the last tech we get that gives gold to the Stone Tools Maker.



As expected we've pulled ahead in tech due to our aggressive hunting. Dido is also doing the best on our continent as I surmised, but it seems like the two AIs I haven't met sitting somewhere across the ocean are doing even better than that. I'd quite like if those two managed to snowball and present a credible threat once I finally get off this continent, we'll see.



Our Ambusher gets enough experience to grab Might, which will make him quite a bit stronger. I'll stop pointing it out from this point since you all can safely assume that I'll take Might early and often unless I'm specifically saving up for other promotions.



I did manage to get a Neanderthal Captive that was sitting around. They serve the same function as a regular Captive but peculiarly take up far less Cargo space than a regular military Captive. Maybe cause there's less of them or something? I dunno, but I'm alright with it as it allows me to carry both it and the military captive on the same tile without having to do escort shenanigans.



Hunting Tactics finally gives us the next upgrade to our Hunter line of units, aptly titled the... erm, Hunter. We'd also be able to upgrade our Master Hunter into a more powerful version of the unit... if I had one :argh: (RIP Boksi)



My captives make it back safely, although not to my capital. I'm just gonna have my units chill on my borders for a while. No special reason, just think of it as a vacation from their forced servitude, nothing to see here.



I tried to combine my three already merged units together into one super Spearman, but it turns out I can't! Not yet anyway. See, the Group ranking for a unit is a soft cap that progressively increases with each era until late game when it reaches Billions or even Trillions. I knew this from the very start, and also knew that Battalions were the cap in Prehistoric, so it's not like I was caught off-guard. I just didn't realize a freshly built Spearman would start as a Company, the Group ranking below Battalion. It's no big deal though, I'll just have 3 strong units to roam around hunting animals as opposed to 1 super strong one. They can join up later on when I reach Ancient Era.



I reiterate that Paris is not doing well. Not sure what Joan of Arc is doing but she really should be doing something about all this.



Hunter IV is a pretty important promotion. It's the last of that promotion line and, in addition to the usual bonuses, allows our Hunter units to attack multiple times a turn. Definitely worth taking, though I've been intentionally keeping my Hunters somewhat idle for the time being to try and build Great General points.



The Jewelry Shop gave me a merchant specialist slot, which I start working so I can make my first great person come quicker and also to supplement my gold incoming.. The -8% is pretty annoying as it's essentially a straight -1 GPP for a long time because of rounding, but it's fine.



Stone Building provides another Housing option that would be pretty nice if I had Stone.

I wish I had Stone right now :(



My other Trackers are very far out roaming the countryside, but my Desert Combat Tracker was fairly close so it becomes my first Hunter upgrade. Pretty steep upgrade cost though.



Neanderthal captives can be converted to the Neanderthal versions of relevant combat units, something I wouldn't have access to otherwise. A nice option if you manage to get plenty of these types of Captives!



I find it interesting that we already have City Garrison III while only having City Raider I, as if early aggression in the Prehistoric Era when each player only has one city was ever a thing that needed to be guarded against. Maybe in multiplayer?



My capital has so much production that I was able to build 5 Gatherers in one turn, illustrating exactly why Multiple Production is no longer an option that can be turned off. Along with these Gatherers I'm also building some more Enforcers, Healers, and even some Story Tellers. Seems superfluous to be building even more of those at this point but well...



Tribalism is a pretty important tech. It provides some really nice building in the Village Hall that grants the city a free specialist in exchange for slightly higher maintenance, the Warrior's Hut which is out first major source of unit experience, and unlocks not one, not two, but three new Civics, all of which we want to switch into ASAP.

But more importantly...




:woop: :woop: :woop:

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

NEXT TIME: Oh god we're not stuck in our capital anymore we can build cities and create trade routes and have other stuff to do than move Hunters around and oh boy I'm going to spam Tribes and fill the map with cit-- What?? Only five cities?!?! :argh:

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Bloodly
Nov 3, 2008

Not as strong as you'd expect.
With all those buildings and build up to redo? 5 total seems fine.

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