MP Mod

[Ming]

Since it does seem like it's going to be some time before we see a MP version of Civ III... and we really don't know at this point how long it will take to have a real playable MP version of Civ III...

Has anybody thought of coming up with a Civ II mod that would be designed specifically for MP.

If it hasn't been done... why not.

What things would you like to see changed in Civ II MP that might make it a better game, but could be done in a mod?

[ravagon]

Case is working on a "Cruel Sea" type scenario specifically for MP.
Check the thread "would anybody be interested in this?" in the Sleague forum.

[CapTVK]

I think Ming is referring to a general MOD for MP, Ravagon.

It's rather surprising though that we're still playing according to the standard rule.txt (or with 2x, 1x). Seeing how many people come with MOD's and rule changes for Civ3 we've been pretty lucky with Civ2.


Still, there's room for improvement...I would put more emphasis on early naval units and tweak the production values off nearly all the land types. Plus I would introduce something like the industrial square used in Red Front. Problem is that it shouldn't appear at the start. So generated maps are out.

[Chris 62]

What would you want in this mod, Ming?

I use altered Units and Terrain as standard, the game ones suck, so I changed them long ago.

If you mean a different tech tree, this has been done also, the Facist patch does this, alteres the tech tree and adds units and a different kind of government.

Many Diplo games, like the HOTW series use extra units and techs, and are for MP use.

Give me an idea of what you like to see.

[Brian Bergs]

I think random events are fun. Goodie huts are random but right now, just the random appearance of barbs is about the only thing going.

What about things like a pestilence that wipes out your population but nobody wants to invade or trade with you because then they catch it. Maybe a resource square appears in an established city, or a resource square gets mined out.

[Frank Johnson]

The problem isnt so much modding the game, but there's only so much room inbetween existing units for new ones. So if you add a few units, you end up tweaking all of them to scoot that unit in. Most people are too lazy to do this so a new unit is either really powerful (and makes some other unit useless) or totally redunant or useless.

Also, theres the logistics issue. Making everyone in the game aware of the new rules is difficult, much more difficult is getting people to correctly install them before a game. Also you have to put up with the whinners every time you successfully attack/defend with one of the new units.

This is why most mods occur in large, multi-session well organized games, and not in the standard duelish type games. And we try different things every game so nothing permanent evolves.

I agree that modding is fun and possible.........its just that theres no incentive to do it unless a group has become really bored, and then they need to have a good modder on hand.

[cavebear]

I think one of the more useful changes to Civ2 would be to truly randomize the resource squares. Something to eliminate the pattern so that the locations can't be predicted.

Eliminating the ability to get any information from a black square would help keep things fair.

Aside from that, a transport unit that could navigate rivers would be interesting. And it would be nice to be able to build a true bridge (spanning several water squares).

[Frank Johnson]

Well those are bug fixes and add-ons.......nothing someone who is modding the game can actually do.

[cavebear]

Then can you yourself give any example of the kind of suggestion you mean?

[Frank Johnson]

Well I thought the question posed by ming was this, being that civ2 can support about 10 new techs and units each, why hasn't a improved standard multiplayer mod come along to make use of those....

Asking for bug fixes for civ2 seems out there when you consider how busily they are creating new bugs in civ3.

Basicly I could easily make a mod, that would intergrate into the civ2 tech tree and provide those extra units and techs, but getting that mod played on a large scale is something entirely different.

[cavebear]

Ah. I thought he meant something to be incorporated by a new Civ2 upgrade by the software developers. You are looking at suggestions for what a skilled user might change?

[ravagon]

Well then,

Firstly it'll come down to the people playing it as to what would be included and any preferred settings (Historical, Sci-Fi, etc) and the degree of change involved. No use designing something if nobody wants to use it right?
Then said mod is going to have to deal with all of the problems of other mods/scenarios regarding unit/tech-tree quirks (of which there are legion) before even considering play-balancing.
Should it be evenly balanced for all sides or would it be better/different to have multiple players allying against one super-side?
The use of "house rules" should be considered before designing begins as well as the possibility of AI civs (Some groups seem to play with and some without these?) and how they would handle new units/techs (and obviously ignore house rules).

Events don't work outside scenarios unless you're using ToT so that avenue is out.

Editting/Modding exe's or other mostly inaccessible characteristics strikes me as unwise given that MP games seem to have enough stability(?) (not to mention AI) problems as it is. That would remove the possibility of ocean terraforming or river transports.

[Ming]

Hmmm... interesting responses so far.
Now that I've seen the initial reaction...

Here is what I meant

No... I'm not really looking for a bunch of new units, new sciences, or a new "theme"...

I'm just looking for ways to make the current game we are playing better...
And that a group of people who play together most of the time, would use them. We have a solid group that plays all the time.
We play by "rah rules" to avoid many arguments, and not waste a few hours arguing what rules we are going to play.

Could mods provide more options...
being able to start in a later era with everybody having the same starting sciences... but still, a random map...

More equal starting positions...

Maybe adding a science here or there if somebody thinks it makes sense... or a new military unit to fill in any perceived gaps in the combat model...

Downgrading the strength of spies/diplos

Making caravans for wonders worth less shields... or more...

I really don't know at this point. I was just wondering what suggestions might come from this forum, where MP is more the focus...

[Frank Johnson]

Ming I forgot who started it, but there was an alternate rule set out there for awhile that filled some holes in the game. It added an anicent era trading ship that wouldnt cause unhappiness in republic and democracy and increased the cost of diplos to 50 or 60.

What needs "improvement" is always debatable though.

[ravagon]

Ming,

I don't think modpacks by themselves, used on randomly created new maps can do anything about the starting sciences or positions.

In a mod making small changes you could add pretty much any unit you like but somebody would have to balance it very carefully (read: I don't know whether Xin will be playing this mod or not )

Spies/Dips could have movement rates reduced as well as increased costs which would reduce their effectiveness somewhat. ie: could still steal techs etc from ship if a city is adjacent to ocean squares but would have to land for a turn before use otherwise.

Lastly, it'd probably make more sense to increase the shield costs for a caravan (to 100?) as this would reduce a players flexibility in building them. Reducing costs would just encourage players to pump out even more of them.

[Smash]

1st thing is the Oracle needs to be brought into play.Bump back expiration or eliminate expiration completely.If expiration is bumped back to say,Commie,then lower the cost to 200.No expiration,cost should be inline with Mich's.

JSB could be moved back.Often,one player gets both of these.Could be moved to something like Explosives.Something in that era.

Courthouses cost 40 sheilds and no upkeep.This would help those with no happy wonders.

Lower cost of colliseums and cathedrals slightly and less upkeep.Has to help those without happy wonders.

For deity-something should be done with the Garden's.I just don't know what

Caravans..up the cost?..bump back their availability?.If you up the sheilds to say 75,do they contribute 75 towards a wonder?..if so this would not be good.Something to keep players from building nothing but camels.Maybe they should behave as bombers,missiles and choppers in Demo.Create some unhappys....

I'd like to see Magnetism in play more...or more frigate era boats.Some re-arranging of the tech or move frigates up to Navigation and stick caravels with something between Nav and Map...maybe Seafaring.

Dips..I like them as is but sabotaging is a tad strong.Could sabotage be removed from dips?

[-Jrabbit]

Originally posted by Smash
Caravans..up the cost?..bump back their availability?.If you up the sheilds to say 75,do they contribute 75 towards a wonder?..if so this would not be good.Something to keep players from building nothing but camels.Maybe they should behave as bombers,missiles and choppers in Demo.Create some unhappys....

Being a newbie, it's not really my place to say, but the thing that strikes me about caravans (encouraging abuse) is that there is no upkeep cost. Yet this is a very strenuous undertaking. Upping the cost is obviously viable.

Parking a bunch of caravans in a city requires no food or shields??? No logic there!
If you had to pay (food, shields, maybe even arrows for unused trade goods) to keep those caravans in drydock waiting for the next WOW, at least there'd be a cost for using the Caravan Savings & Loan.

Of course, I'm a lousy player, so I need every break I can get...
Just putting in my $0.02

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Smash

Caravans..up the cost?..bump back their availability?.If you up the sheilds to say 75,do they contribute 75 towards a wonder?..if so this would not be good.Something to keep players from building nothing but camels.Maybe they should behave as bombers,missiles and choppers in Demo.Create some unhappys....

Dips..I like them as is but sabotaging is a tad strong.Could sabotage be removed from dips?

Caravans/Freight give their entire shield cost back when disbanded. Bumping up the cost to 100/120 or even more however would have to make a player think twice about the large investment required and the loss due to probable wasted shields when wonder-rushing.
I'm not sure though whether this property is due to their unit location slot or the caravan/freight flag but probably the latter. Using the missile flag would make the unit transportable by carrier/sub units and could do strange things to an AI. Giving an attack of 1 however should do the trick wrt upkeep but would only cause unhappiness outside of cities of course.
[Edit: Oops. Just realized that giving a caravan an attack value might not work too well wrt trading with other civs. Mpers still use caravans for trading too right? ]
There is no way to make any unit pay upkeep of (i) food without the "settle" flag (hence eliminating it as a caravan) or (ii) trade at all; without hacking into files that probably shouldn't be messed with.


Units with the diplomatic ability automatically have the sabotage option. The option to sabotage units could be editted out of the game.txt (IIRC ?) file but I believe hotkey options might still work.
Wrt city production this isn't so easy as sabotage isn't the final option so the only thing you could do is remove sabotage and everything below it. Again with the hotkey thing.
This would of course not prevent AI civs from using it and wouldn't prevent anybody from using it unless they had the modified file as this doesn't affect the game itself, only the options "apparently" available to the player.
Overall a better option is probably either the elimination/replacement of the unit altogether or adopting more "house rules".

[Ming]

I love the idea of making Oracle worth something. In SP games, the AI doesn't race to Theo... In a Deity MP game, nobody builds it too often, because people race for Theo to get one of the three happiness wonders. If it didn't expire (or at least lasted longer) it would allow more people to get a happiness wonder.

Interesting...

[-Jrabbit]

Not MP specific, but another couple thoughts on caravans...

Historically, the notion of caravans is tied specifically to trade. There was significant risk that your caravan could be lost (high seas, barbs, starvation, whatever), and further risk that your goods would not bring a good price. So...

1. Why not randomize the caravan payoff schedule, or at least introduce a significant risk factor (maybe like when a trireme leaves the coast)? I also feel that when a caravan is parked in a city (waiting to build a WOW) that there should be an upkeep cost in the host city.

2. Instead of allowing a caravan loaded with, say silk or food, to opt for Wonder construction instead of trade, why not force a commitment to the WOW by requiring the player to load a dedicated resource ("raw materials" or maybe even "workers") on board? If the WOW is lost, these materials could be reallocated to other city improvements. This would eliminate the (ridiculous IMHO) notion that (for example) a caravan full of cloth could make a meaningful contribution toward building of the Pyramids.

3. Easier perhaps -- Instead of allowing use of caravans to contribute 100% toward a Wonder, why not just reduce that percentage?

Don't get me wrong, I love caravans. But their abilities are clearly way out of proportion to thier cost. I'm certain this has been discussed to death in the past, but that's the price you pay when a newbie takes an interest.

guess I'm up to 4 cents...

[cavebear]

3. Easier perhaps -- Instead of allowing use of caravans to contribute 100% toward a Wonder, why not just reduce that percentage?

I think that is a workable idea. But the percentage of return would have to be higher than 50%, since you get that for disbanding any unit homed to a wonder-building city. I often do that with obsolete units that are costing me support shields out of line with their usefulness.

Perhaps a interesting percentage for caravans would be 80%.

[Frank Johnson]

Hm well....let me ask this. Most people seem to think that diplos and caravans are too powerful. I tend to agree.

So if we were going to make an MP mod, how much would you hinder these units?

We can increase the cost of diplos, or reduce their movement, or both.

We can increase the cost of caravans, which does something for the trade equasion, but not wonder hording.


Also, if we go this far and address game play issues, do we want to address historical, or realistic concearns too? Or just add more flavor to the game with additon units where there are some whole? What units would you add, what techs?

Personally - I'd increase the cost of diplos to 60. This way, every diplo you sucicide trying to take out those walls could have been another attack unit (or 1.5!) Another option is to leave the cost and reduce movement to 1, or a combo.

I'd add a 0 attack costal trade vessal with map making and boost trireams attack power to show its war side. Some new ship could be added with seafaring. Magnetism should be altered to allow it to be introduced earlier so it is futher away from steam engine.

I'd make cannons appear with gunpowder, and switch metagulry to firearms and make that the requirement for muskteers. This will add a renianse war period where attack with the new cannons is possible. To counter it we could add a military unit with invention, like longbow man, which is 4/3/1 1/1 30......knights and crusaders wont tell the difference from pikemen, but these might do a bit better against cannons untill musketeers.

I'd take out apline troops. Infantry would be introduced with machine tools. Gives its a more WW1 feel. Infantry 6/5/1 2/1 50.

Marines would get apline instead (then maybe someone will build them)

Jet aviation should be added in between rocketry and space flight. By the values for stealth units would be bumped up a bit so the jet units can fit inbetween.

Late game.......suggestions? Howies rule the feild, however I guess thats the idea for late game. Maybe the structure can be worked out a bit better, labor union is too late in the tech tree, and a silly advance for mech infantry. Some form of mech inf should be available with Automobile, but maybe not at full strength since tanks havent even appeared yet. Maybe just a mobile infantry with def still at 5, but no third hit point. I don't know what labor union is going to be useful for. I maybe Women's Sufferage should be moved back to this advance....it might put it in the right era, instead of with industrialization.
Also the mech inf tend to make armor a weak player too early in the game, when it was the main force in alot of wars and arguably still is. I just think a modern armor unit like civ3 is just to generalized....modern armies are hard to represent because they never travel outside of their combined arms package. That reminds me, combined arms sucks paratroopers should come with advanced flight. Maybe combined arms can be given a better unit........

Basicly the mech infantry unit we have in the game now needs to come later, maybe laser, plastics, or miniturization...any way those are all more realistic advances than "labor union". if those are later....and maybe the howitzer solution can be solved, but I think its needed as an end game unit. Dont like it? Forest your city squares.

[deity]

Is this just a hypothetical thread or can we seriously get someone to hack the civ2MP code for us?

If so, I totally agree that we need:

* NO ability to see or calculate unexplored terain/cities

* Passwords that are uncrackable

* NO seeing the number of units/cities on session startup

* Expensive diplos and spies

* NO ability for caras to contribute to Wonders

* ICS penalties but this not such a big problem anymore

* Lock out icq contact instead of King Chat

* Fix all the genuine bugs like diplo guiding?? Maybe debatable

... I'll come up with more.... later

But we must keep the things we love and the Aployton version, by consensus, of this wonderful game:

* WLTPD stays

* Diplos and caras are maintained - not dropped in favour of Civ3 crap trade model etc

... more later....

[Frank Johnson]

I can give you expensive diplomats and spies. Even ones with reduced movement.

I can get rid of diplo guiding. Simply take ignore zones of control from all units.

ICS penalities? The only way to do that is to increase riot factor. But you could do this, while increasing happiness in general. For example I could make the first 2 people content on deity, but make the 3rd or 4th city take it away.....the 7th or 8th would take both.

Caravan cost can be increased, however this does nothing for the wonder hording.

We all know how the bonus system favors early trading. Why not really jack up the cost of early caravans? We could make them 100 with trade, then maybe 80 with banking, 60 with ecomonics, then freight would come with corp. That might be interesting twist on trade.

Everything else, are essientally game bugs or human work arounds we cant do anything about!

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Frank Johnson

Caravan cost can be increased, however this does nothing for the wonder hording.

We all know how the bonus system favors early trading. Why not really jack up the cost of early caravans? We could make them 100 with trade, then maybe 80 with banking, 60 with ecomonics, then freight would come with corp. That might be interesting twist on trade.

Everything else, are essientally game bugs or human work arounds we cant do anything about!

Caravan cost could be increased to some odd number (120 maybe?) such that rushing a 300-shield wonder will waste 60 shields as well as requiring 3 cities to spend a lot of turns building them rather than a 6 or so cities building one each in much less time.
For preventing this in early wonders, trade could be moved up in the tech tree - post gunpowder maybe - it doesn't necessarily have to make sense.

That, or simply use a house rule that caravans cannot be disbanded to rush wonders.

How would you change a caravans cost? Obsolescency and the use of additional unit slots?

[Frank Johnson]

Yeah we'd just use different unit slots for the newer caravans.

[-Jrabbit]

More newbie thoughts...

On spies/dips -- I suggest a "base unit" that moves only 1 square, then an upgraded version that either moves 2, or moves like an Explorer (no ZOC, all squares treated as roads).

On caravans/frieghts -- Since it appears wonder-hoarding of caravans can't be prevented via mod, I say just raise the cost.

Of course, if hoarding is the real problem, just eliminate the Help Build wonder function. Let people just build-and-disband at 50 percent like any other unit.

(Of course, this playing technique seems to be a cornerstone strat for every decent player I encounter, so expect that this will not be a popular thought.) the upside of this is that you can precision-buy your to-be-disbanded units to -- ableit to a minor degree -- eliminate the "waste" of a whole caravan when under 50 shields remain.

The other wonder-related problem I see is the near-auto destruction of a nearly-completed wonder by spies. could this be made more difficult (change success chance)?

Spies with nukes seems to be another incredibly cheap and powerful feature. IMHO this should be eliminated from all versions of Civ2.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit

Of course, if hoarding is the real problem, just eliminate the Help Build wonder function. Let people just build-and-disband at 50 percent like any other unit.

The other wonder-related problem I see is the near-auto destruction of a nearly-completed wonder by spies. could this be made more difficult (change success chance)?

Spies with nukes seems to be another incredibly cheap and powerful feature. IMHO this should be eliminated from all versions of Civ2.

Your first point here doesn't work I'm afraid. Caravans/Freight render up their full shield cost when disbanding. Only way to prevent it is pretty much by house rule.

Sabotage of production queues (or the difficulty thereof) can't be altered by any means except via hacking. House rules might be applied of course for non AI's.

Lastly, the only way to remove the plant nuke option from a spy's special ability list is to remove that and everything else below it (I forget where that appears in the options).
Alternatively one could simply disable either nukes (Via manhatten wonder being unbuildable) or spies (remove unit).
Again though, house rules may simply be the best way around this for the non AI players.