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KJN's RoN Quick Battle Mod 040
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| Author |
File Description |
| keithn |
Posted on 08/02/08 @ 02:22 PM (updated 08/31/08)
| File Details |
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| Needs T&P?: |
Yes |
Well, I had a few more tweaks I wanted to make, so here is version 040. As for the bigger changes, I required Classical Age for Empire to deprive me of a cheap way for me to get an edge on the AI, and I bumped up the Warring States mapstyle AI to fully naval so I can't count on the mapstyle's side islands as safe economic bases.
08/09/08 10:31:29 PM
Keith John Ness’ RoN Quick Battle Mod version 040
Changes from 039 to 040:
-- artillery boats: higher base cost; returned to default ramping (support) costs
-- empire (civic level 2) requires classical age (also indicated that it does in the descriptions of the tech; if games start after ancient age, this requirement is already met)
-- tidied up warring states maps so main island is (apparently) always completely circumnavigable (tested a bit on standard map size with four players); ai now treats it as a fully naval (level 3) mapstyle
-- reduced default fish
The following is a partial record of the work that went into this mod. Some of the work was done before I began keeping record. Basically, this mod has been designed from the beginning to make Quick Battles better in the following ways: smarter AI; deeper economics; greater balance among nations, wonders, and strategies; and greater randomness in random maps.
Implemented:
-- americans humbled (barracks unit resource gather removed; free bombers down to 1); dutch humbled (interest reduced dramatically)
-- enabled ai to build the forbidden city, red fort, and aircraft carrier; altered forbidden city and red fort to fit within limitations of enabling ai to build them; sped up the ai's early game a bit (under ai scripts)
-- increased red fort completion time to others of its age, and decreased its garrison healing/hit point bonuses; taj mahal hit point bonus reduced to 10%; porcelain tower support cost made equal (in number) to others of its age; late wonder hit points scaled down; wonder powers reduced generally; changed both wonder and territory victory timers to 10 minutes
-- for all buildings that can shoot at ground units, hit points reduced 30%, and armor reduced to zero; fort type buildings garrison max/max shots/upgrade garrison max down; dock type garrison max down
-- fighter hit points boosted; fighter cost/support doubled (carrier price scaled to it, too); all fighter types given fighter bomber properties; fighter type attack halved, fighter type balance vs buildings, air & citizen balance values doubled; hawk fighter fuel range normalized; airbase cost/supply upped
-- doubled bomber costs/support, 1/2 bomber attack; gave bomber/copter the d flag (stealth given j too) [bombers/copters built infrequently, but there]; all helicopter types attacks down vs. all tanks, support upped to 3 oil/3 wealth; attack helicopter attack down to 16
-- aircraft carrier cost reduced ~25%; carrier planes (true fighter bomber type) hp/atk/mana(fuel) reduced; carrier population up to 4; fighter bomber types take up no population, reduced atk/hp/cost/support 4/7; carrier cost/support reduced 5/7 (all off my changes); harrier reworked (apparently, only worked in as a graphics skin for lakota carrier jet fighter bomber (and other nations?))
-- anti-aircraft buildings attack reduced; lookout types (aa buildings) limited to cities, and 1 per city; industrial and later aa buildings ranges upped to aa unit equivalents; aa type units attack 1/2'ed
-- missile silo cost tripled; all missile types attacks down and population use and creation time up; missile silo creation time increased to redoubt's time
-- non-random resource gather rates down 30% (peasant rate under rules) (along with scaling down town base gather, german bonus town base gather, and removing mongol food/territory bonus); oil well/platform rate reduced to 28; tech production bonuses (granary/mill/smelter production boost techs, et c), and refinery production bonus decreased dramatically; commerce limits down 30%; random resources more bountiful, given more distinct character, and a tad more resource-type realism (just a tad) (under resourcerules); added potential for all rare resources to random map generation (under resourcerules) (and made sure their abilities were ok) (under rules); changed images of newly added random resources; coal timber discount down to 10%
-- made the default mapstyle bonuses/goodies more random; added all preset tileset types to default.xml; made default fish/whales fewer and more randomized; made default rivers minimum length shorter; based all randomly selected mapstyles more on the default (more randomized, including access to all preset tilesets); for himalaya, extended border of trees to edge and in towards center, expanded mountain border out a little further, and made mountain/forest quantity a little less and a little more variable, extended edge for trees/decreased center void; made sw mesa ridge quantity more variable/random; extended the location of sahara central forest clumps to all map; mediterranean given fewer fish; australian outback, nile delta changed to sea map 3; great lakes/african watering hole no fish/oil in water; most mapstyles' max clump sizes reduced
-- nubians rare resource bonus reduced to +25%, market bonus reduced to +/-10
-- porcelain tower rare/market values reduced to +50%
-- many non-military buildings' hp halved
-- artillery boats: reduced combat stats to 1 age behind land artillery unit equivalents; flagged ai to produce fewer of them; higher base cost; returned to default ramping (support) costs
-- empire (civic level 2) requires classical age (also indicated that it does in the descriptions of the tech; if games start after ancient age, this requirement is already met)
-- tidied up warring states maps so main island is (apparently) always completely circumnavigable (tested a bit on standard map size with four players); ai now treats it as a fully naval (level 3) mapstyle
-- reduced default fish
Tested, and to be implemented:
Considered, and to be implemented without testing:
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Testing:
To be tested:
Considerations:
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Considered and rejected without testing:
-- make basic nuke wider splash, less splash damage per area (supposedly, it is over 2 farms out already, but city probably counts for one of those farms)
-- nuke research time up (how?)
-- do tactical missiles need ai enabling? (probably not; the ai builds nukes without any flags)
-- computer player names all changed to "computer" (meh, maybe later)
-- oil production per well down to 30 (and alter all mapstyles' oil resource quantities proportionally to offset this decrease) (other resources are much more compact already; really don't want to take up more space with oil)
-- oil platforms+wells hp/armor down half/to zero (too easy to cripple ai?)
-- economic: see what you can do to fit 3 towns before classical in here (ugh, maybe later)
-- spies detect and don't blow cover on any mission, more expensive cost/support, changed metal costs to food; counterintelligence doesn't blow cover for scouts; ai to build more spies (no restriction (try d flag too if necessary)); i suspect that the ai won't handle this very well, plus i want spy vs spy, not spies exposing spies to everyone around them
-- techrules! (meh, no biggy)
-- change british isles strings (phht, maybe when i've got the time)
-- hp of forbidden city and red fort down? [already done, red fort is down from wonders of its age]
-- starting peasants 11 (not with commerce limits down 30%, no need, civics is ok 2nd tech)
-- switch library with 4th farm (meh, too much work)
-- economic.bhs: research classical age? how to work this??? (maybe later; really, it's fine though; sometimes they do research 2nd civics/commerce techs)
-- tech costs upped generally??? (they're ok generally; couldn't find tower range tech, though)
-- research scripts online (at my leisure)
-- get script editor (phht, maybe later)
Tested and rejected:
-- market income reduced to 7; territory taxation income tech reduced (scholars apparently get displaced by the ai's war production loop too much, resulting in ai lagging an age or two behind me)
-- armageddon clock reduced to 10 + 2(# of nations) + 0(# of teams) (too easy to force a "draw" (or all players to lose, anyways) any time you need to)
-- all aircraft fuel ranges cut in half (uh, avoid if possible: ai sends fighters against wonders just out of attack range endlessly); aircraft hit points/cost/support back to default (except bomber cost); bomber attack halved; bomber/helicopter types with more j/h flags, no d flag carrier cheapened cost/support; h in all bombers/choppers (no effect noticed); bomber hp halved/ pop 2 (nope, prefer what i've got now); bomber population use up (mehj); ai build more bombers/copters! (i give up)
-- fort types atk down to 14; fort hp 45% of original (too weak)
-- carrier plane ranges 66% of land based planes (no, too worried about not enough time for dogfighting)
-- spies sabotage and snipe with industrial (changes not noticed)
-- make warring states islands looser in shape (including main) (i'm not sure i was able to do this)
-- disable stat display (how?)
-- difficulty setting between tough/tougher (solved through multi-player menu +3 skill; tougher is okay in solo quick battles)
-- ai to build more wonders early without reducing cost... (solved through multi-player menu +3 skill, plus, i think it gets into a wonder race more if i am actually the player, and especially if i start to build a wonder; and again, tougher is okay in solo quick battles)
-- get ai to build helicopters? does it already? [yes, rarely]
-- player colors (alternatecolors.xml (program ignores changes to this) (+taunts.txt) (i give up: nothing here (setupwin, interface, rules, et c. et c.), nothing online (even amongst the re-skinners))
-- edit ai diplomacy (can't find em)
-- ally limit rules?!?! (couldn't find any options to change; and game isn't exactly set up to handle it)
-- great lakes remove lakes (ignored;hard coded?)
-- watch for ai issues with great lakes navies(cant figure out build sea yet)
-- mediterranean more islands (ignores changes)
-- expand great lakes lake sizes if required by sea map 2 ai (cant figure out build sea yet)
-- colonial powers edge border up to 4 (crash?!)
-- early wonder costs down 30% (i think computer players take it easy on wonders if a computer plays for me with its own name)
-- plane range reduction [um, they don't have time to do anything at max range except turn around and head back, so no]
-- wonder costs doubled (ai skips them per age too much, plus ramp costs per wonder are in effect)
-- wonder costs up 50% [tis apparently very sensitive about this, even at 25% it is too much... yes, on further testing i will have to concede that it is indeed quite sensitive about this borderline]
-- egyptian wonder cost discount reduced to 10% (unfortunately, ai doesn't seem to want to build in classical age at less than 25% discount)
-- defensive/economic changed to include australian outback/great lakes as sea maps (no workie)
Notes:
-- armageddon clock: small map, 2 players = 20; standard map, 5 players = 38; large map, 2 players = 20, 4 players = 32, 5 players (with or without diplomacy) = 38, 6 players = 44, 7 players = 50; apparently, it is independent of map size and politics, a base of 20, then plus 6 for each player beyond the first two. the formula is: all armageddon factors are doubled and then added together: x(*2) armageddon + y(*2) per nation + z(*2) per team. each player is a nation and a team if there are no actual teams. deathmatch adds to the armageddon clock, too. each eliminated player before the clock begins removes 2 off the base as well as not counting for the player multipliers (i think).
-- the ai tends to prioritize copters and bombers lowly, but with a high enough stockpile, it will consistently build them.
-- yes, bombers are ok relative to fighters
-- tested 45% territory victory with allies (hrrmph, ai is too stupid to handle politics, period)
-- forb city provides no gather bonus
-- new carrier value(s) causing excessive stockpiling resulting in military weakness? wonder problem doing so? neither? (highly unlikely; i think rather i'm getting better)
-- scenario editor's victory timers are off from the normal games' timers
-- did i change my default.xml file on november 20th??? (most likely not; if so, no child elements were added or removed; if it was changed it was probably some kind of localization issue; alternatively, i may have looked into the file, and saved it without changing it)
-- scenario editor accepts changes to mapstyles while in it
-- make a decent random map!!!!!!!!!!!!! (done!!!!)
-- defensive script: third city before classical age, + how good is that if i lower base food/timber rates? depends on how much (remember to account for exchange rate, which helps clasical, and the limited early gold rate, which helps ancient, and the many other factors of research versus non-research that determine the true exchange rate (gold for scholars smaller rate and has more limited max than food/gold/timber, can't exchange research, higher base cost for scholars, higher ramp cost for scholars, lower yield per scholar which effects population cap concern, actual research costs (which seem actually fairly even with non-research costs, in an absolute sense), hard limit of seven per city, more expensive buildings for scholars)
-- increase numbers of peasants (by 2 at least) ai builds in each defensive script early game step.
-- place old mod playtest scenarios in separate folder
-- as I’m finding among RTS games now, there is a tendency for the AI engine to compete for CPU cycles, including with graphics engines (especially when your video RAM is shared) and amongst AI players... |
| Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
|---|
keithn
File Author |
Posted on 08/04/08 @ 11:53 AM
Edit: Okay, I've updated this submission to reflect this.[Edited on 08/06/08 @ 08:42 PM]
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| crazyroman29 |
Posted on 01/14/13 @ 03:00 PM |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
| Statistics |
| Downloads: | 785 |
| Favorites: [] | 0 |
| Size: | 239.79 KB |
| Added: | 08/02/08 |
| Updated: | 08/31/08 |
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