No players!

The old world manual: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hb4dmDK...2yrz1/view

https://www.thegamer.com/old-world-noble...landowners
https://www.oldworldwiki.org/index.php/Laws

Luckily there is no Canada in this game, else we would be tempted :D

here is a fail for the first game I hosted:

If this game sticks (Bruindane seems to have already connected, not sure if it was succesful there was just a prompt) then we can already analyze the starts.

We are relatively far apart, me on the western border of the map, so our enemies are very likely East of us. Coastal rain basin has typically one map edge fully coastal, it seems it is the southern edge in this case.
CMF will be a bit closer to his mirrored enemy than me, so a quicker scouting to his East might be necessary.

The map script typically has 2 or 3 city sites located on the center line of the map and is otherwise mirrored. There might some unmirrored ressources around the centered city sites.

CMF


Two farm ressources and a coastal start. The farm ressources combine well with a Landowner families start, even thought their bonus today is 20 income instead of doubled yields.
The coastal start could mean more coastal sites so Hunter families might be a good choice, but it remains a gamble to pick for that, so I would go with a Landowner based CIV here.

Landowner starts would be:



Kaiser

For the moment this is mostly a placeholder to get my own thread up and running before I forget.

Usual rules apply. Other players if you open this thread (even by accident), you've just agreed to resign in my favour on turn 42 .

Gameplay thoughts and naming schemes will be revealed when I think of them.

EDIT: I was wrong. If you assign more farmers and thus produce more food, and get more surplus, your money income goes up.
This thread can be locked and removed.

Reasoning for this request is a bit complex. Therefore, first explained by another game, Civilization.

What is to some extent a relevant part of the various Civ games?

Building wonders.

But only the first to build gets the wonder.

On low difficulties, it is possible to build nearly all or all wonders.

What happens with increasing difficulty, or in other words increasing starting bonuses and increasing constant percentage bonus (to production, research, gold, etc.)?

It is more and more difficult to build wonders, because the AI bonuses are more and more likely to ensure, that one cannot finish ANY wonder first, neither the early (cause the AI has simply enough cities for building wonders, and you need 1 per wonder) nor the late (cause AI has a constant tech lead and therefore a head start on any one)

That does mean that with certain starting/percentage bonuses it is not only less likely to succeed in building wonders, but actually trying to build them turns more and more into a WRONG decision.

Hence, with increasing constant and especially starting bonuses, the game play element "building wonders" fades out into irrelevance (at maximum difficulty, you conquer them, if you want them).

On the other hand, the build options "settlers" and "military units" do not fade out. While on low difficulty on a continent with 1 AI, one might end up getting 2/3 of the good spots, and then face the AI with a 1,5 to 1 military advantage, and on high difficulty same map one might end up with just 1/3 of the good spots and face AI outnumbered 1 to 3, you still have to build "settlers" und "military units" and put them to use - it just got more difficult.

So with some game mechanics, both constant and especially starting bonuses can fade out some game play elements. Namely, the ones with "winner takes it all".


On the other hand, if instead of fewer starting and constant bonuses, the Civ AI had an increasing bonus (e.g. (formula[number of turns])% to production, research, etc.) at least in the early game "building wonders" would still be an option, and maybe even in the later game, if you managed to keep up with the improving AI advantage. 

So a bonus scaling with turns has a different effect on "winner takes it all" elements.


In CoM the treasure from lairs, towers, nodes is "winner takes it all".

Hence, there is also in CoM an effect that constant AI bonuses (are there any starting ones?) on higher difficulties at least reduce the relevance of the game play element treasure hunting - cause while one can still use units and settlement decisions to compete with the AI, if AI is nearly guaranteed to have the units necessary to knock out powerful lairs, nodes, towers, one can do not that much (but certainly the issue is far less as in Civ wonder building, as even on highest difficulty you can do some  treasure hunting).


And this is not meant as an instead, but alternatively/additionally.

It could be rather easy to implement, e.g. an option to select a starting difficulty, a maximum difficulty, and an interval after which difficulty goes one up (I think Civ4 mod fall from heaven had that option). Of course, there might also be other options (for new MoM i am currently trying out how AI fares with 2*turn food and 1*turn power bonus from fortress, cause new MoM AI is horrible at defending his settlements).

Also, it could give an alternative game experience with an easy start, which has to be put into good use for the dire end.

(and if you know civ iterations, which on highest difficulty still have wonder building - that is because the AI is designed not to use his advantage to grab all wonders; but making AI not make optimal use of his resources is not CoM design)

See https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...#pid822091

Also, I feel the current effect of these events is all over the place with no overall theme whatsoever.
I actually see no reason why owning a specific type of node should be rewarded by the event as it's pretty random who gets which type of node, the correlation between the player's realm and their nodes is fairly weak. It's a leftover from the original game but we can probably do something better.

Whatever we decide, this change won't be in the next update, it's a discussion for the update after that.

How about this :

Sorcery (conjunction)
Obtaining Casting Skill from power is 2x effective
Fantastic creatures have +2 resistance
Sorcery, Global enchantment spells are 33% cheaper

Nature (conjunction)
Obtaining Mana from power is 2x effective
Fantastic creatures have +2 defense
Nature and Summoning spells are 33% cheaper

Chaos (conjunction)
Obtaining Research from power is 2x effective
Chaos and Combat spells are 33% cheaper
Fantastic creatures have +2 attack

Life (good moon)
Obtaining gold from cities is 2x effective
Normal units have +1 hp
Life and Unit Enchantment spells are 33% cheaper

Death (bad moon)
Obtaining production from cities is 2x effective
Normal units have -2 resistance (and/or) +1 movement
Death and City Enchantment spells are 33% cheaper

This gives Chaos, Nature and Sorcery a theme of "magical" realms - those with nodes - they buff summoned units and improve the usage of magic power. Meanwhile Life and Death are the "mortal" realms - those without nodes - they affect normal units and improve cities instead.

I'm done with the updates for the new version so it's time for testing. (as usual 1-3 weeks of playing a few hours every day, then I'll send the update to the publisher)

Any recommendations what realm, race, score modifiers or strategy to play? Anything that might have balance issues or undiscovered bugs? I can't really think of anything in particular, as far as I remember though I mostly played Chaos before the previous few updates so definitely not that.

Maybe Sorcery and flying boats? That's the only specific thing in the update that's not AI related or generic. Perhaps combined with another realm like Life or Nature?

(the current changelog)

As you can see I just uploaded version 4.0.0 of CtH. I plan this to be the final major release of CtH. Reason is that I have nothing more that I would like to change, which would not explode the scope of the mod. Don't worry I won't run away from the project immediately. I will still stay around for bugfixes, but like I said I don't plan to initiate any discussion about further changes. Of course you can still do so and I will participate in the discussion.

For now I just want to say thank you to everybody who contributed to the mod over the development time and for all the feedback you gave me.

You can download the mod here: Close to Home 4.0.1

CtH on Github

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

Changelog version 4.0.0

Tile Yields and Improvements

• Jungle: does not grow on resources
  
• Lumbermill:
  Available at Metal Casting instead of Replacable Parts
  +1 commerce with Machinery
  +1 commerce with Electricity
  Buildtime decreased to 5 turns from 8
  Always gets +1 commerce next to a river no matter which river tile
  
• Workshop:
  +1 base hammer
  remove +1 hammer from chemistry
  

• Toroidal maps: City maintenance is the same as cylindrical maps.
  
• Fail-gold: No fail-gold awarded if you complete the wonder somewhere else yourself
  
• Spreading religions: Spreading never fails in your own cities
  
• Apostolic Palace Resolutions: Removed the following resolutions:
  Declare War
  Force Peace
  Religious victory
  Assign City
  
• Circumnavigation:
  Can be achieved by everybody
  Optics is additionally required, but code will only trigger the turn after Optics is researched
  Harbor receives +50% additional trade yield instead of +1 movement
  
• Drafting: Rifleman cost 2 pop instead of 1.
  
• Global warming: Removed
  
• Espionage: Active missions removed
  

• In MP games gained WW is halved
  
• Reduces the same way during war as in peace time. Reduction also increased.
  
• Colosseum: -25% war weariness
  
• Statue of Zeus: Obsoletes at Gunpowder
  

• Agriculture: Cost decreased to 40 from 60
  
• Fishing: Cost increased to 50 from 40
  
• Mysticism: Cost increased 60 from 50
  
• Metal Casting: Cost decreased to 300 from 450
  
• Alphabet: Cost decreased to 250 from 300
  

• Aqueduct: Cost decreased to 80 from 100
  
• Castle: Obsoletes at Corporation instead of Economics
  
• Customs House: Cost decreased to 120 from 180
  

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

• Resource modifiers: All production modifiers from resources for wonders reduced to +50% instead of +100%
  
• Great Lighthouse:
  +1 trade route in coastal cities instead of +2
  Obsoletes at Paper
  
• Mausoleum of Mausolos: Obsoletes at Nationalism
  
• Chichen Itza: Cost decreased to 400 from 500
  
• Angkor Wat: Cost decreased to 400 from 500
  
• Hagia Sophia: Cost decreased to 400 from 550
  
• Versailles: Cost decreased to 600 from 800
  
• Space Elevator: No latitude requirements
  

• Never attack your stack if it includes a settler and a unit that is giving military happiness
  
• Never raze a city even on autoraze. On recapturing such a city you too do not trigger an autoraze.
  

• Flank attack: Flank attack strength of all units reduced by 50%
  
• Upgrade: Units do not lose XP when upgrading
  
• Coastal blockade: blockaded cities can still work blocked tiles
  
• Air units Can bombard road networks
  

• Scout:
  No tech requirement, everybody starts with a scout
  +100% vs Animals with Hunting
  
• Swordsman: +25% city attack instead of +10%
  
• War elephant:
  Strength 7 instead of 8
  Requires Ivory or Iron instead of just Ivory
  
• Explorer: Gains Flanking
  
• Airship: Cannot see submarines
  
• Paratroopers: can attack tiles without combat units after the drop
  
• Tactical Nuke:
  Cost increased to 750 from 250
  Blast radius reduced to impact tile itself
  Does not create fallout on strategic resources
  
• ICBM:
  Cost increased to 1500 from 500
  Does not create fallout on strategic resources
  

• Refrigeration: Remove +1 sea movement
  
• Work Boat: No tech requirement (still require Fishing to work water tiles).
  
• Galleon: Requires Paper and Astronomy instead of just Astronomy
  
• Privateer:
  Requires Gunpowder and Astronomy instead of Chemistry and Astronomy
  Remove hidden nationality
  Can still plunder during war time
  

• Executive: Researching the required tech earns you an executive of that corporation for free. To settle the HQ you still need a great person.
  
• Sid's Sushi Co.:
  Available at Refrigeration instead of Medicine
  Food per resource decreased to 0.333 from 0.5
  Culture per resource decreased to 1.5 from 2
  Maintenance costs 3/4 of original,
  
• Cereal Mills: Available at Biology instead of Refrigeration
  
• Mining Inc.:
  Hammers per resource decreased to 0.75 from 1
  Maintenance costs 3/4 of original
  
• Creative Construction: Available at Steam Power instead of Combustion
  

• Serfdom:
  Available at Monarchy instead of Feudalism
  +1 commerce on Farms
  +1 hammer on Watermills and Windmills
  
• Emancipation:
  +2 hammers per specialist
  remove unhappiness effect
  
• Environmentalism:
  Available at Biology instead of Medicine
  Normal Corporation costs like any other civic
  +1 commerce on water tiles
  

• Financial:
  Remove +1 commerce on tiles with 2+ commerce
  +1 commerce on land tiles with 3+ commerce
  +1 commerce on water tiles with 2+ commerce and lighthouse in the city
  +50% production of bank
  
• Expansive:
  +100% production of Aqueduct
  Remove production bonus for Workers
  
• Creative: Remove production bonus for Colosseum
  
• Charismatic:
  +100% production of Monument
  +100% production of Colosseum
  
• Aggressive:
  -50% unit maintenance cost
  Free Barrage I for all siege weapons
  
• Philosophical:
  +150% GPP instead of +100%
  +100% production of monasteries
  
• Protective:
  +100% domestic trade route yield
  +50% production of market
  
• Industrious: +100% production of national wonders instead of 50%
  

• UB: NEW Carnegie Public Library
  Library replacement
  +2 neutral Great People Points
  
• UU: NEW Minuteman
  Musket replacement
  Starts with Guerrilla 1 and Woodsman 1.
  

• UU: Camel Archer starts with March
  

• UU: +25% city attack instead of +10%, just like base unit
  

• UB:
  +10% food storaged on growth
  +2 health
  -25% war weariness, just like base building
  

• UB:
  +1 culture
  Never obsoletes
  
• UU: +25% city attack instead of +10%, just like base unit
  

• UU: max 40% collateral damage instead of max 60%
  

• UU:
  Only requires Astronomy unlike the base unit
  Strength 5 instead of 6
  Cannot enter rival territory without open border
  

• UB: Never obsoletes
  

• UB: Never obsoletes
  

• UB:
  Available at Steam Power instead of Assembly line
  +2 hammer
  
• UU: NEW Riesengarde
  Grenadier replacement
  Available at Chemistry
  Starts with Pinch
  

• UB: -25% war weariness, just like the base building
  
• UU: NEW Phalanx
  Spearman replacement
  Strength 5 instead of 4
  +25% hill defense
  

• UB:
  Makes city act as a source of fresh water
  Cost decreased to 45 from 60
  Remove +2 culture
  

• UU:
  Movement 2 instead of 3
  Start with Mobility
  

• UB: NEW Tatara
  Forge replacement
  Cost 100
  +2 XP to Melee
  +10% hammer bonus with coals
  

• UB: Cost decreased to 80 from 100, just like base building
  
• UU:
  Strength decreased to 7 from 8, just like base unit
  Requires Ivory or Iron instead of just Ivory, just like base unit
  

• UB: -25% war weariness, just like base building
  
• UU: Starts with Woodsman 1
  

• Tech: Fishing/Hunting instead of Fishing/Agriculture
  
• UB:
  Available at Archery instead of Mysticism
  Additional +1 XP for gunpowder and melee units
  Never obsoletes
  

• UB: Cost decreased to 80 from 100, just like base building
  

• UB: NEW Bazaar
  Market replacement
  +50% trade yield
  

• UU: Cost increased to 50 from 45
  

• UB: Cost decreased to 120 from 180, just like base building
  

• UB:
  University replacement instead of Laboratory
  Only +1 free scientist instead of +2 free scientist
  

• UB:
  +2 XP for naval units
  Does not require Walls
  Never obsoletes,
  

• UU: Remove Mobility promotion
  

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