Advanced modpack - tech, units, buildings (2.5)

[Wahazar]

At the beginning I would like to point out, that this modpack is not about just adding new stuff to make game realistic - I'm pretty aware, that civ type games are kind of strategy on the rather high abstraction level, and this game reflect reality only slightly better than a chess game.
Thus any realism added by my proposed features is just a nice side effect, main task was to improve playability or fix some issues.
For example, in civ1 knights were important, but since elephants were introduced, both chariots and knights are skipped,elephants and gunpowder are win-win path of progression. There is also some annoyance with infantry tiers, you start with units specialized for attack/defence, than here goes 3/3 musketeers, and next there is no defence infantry, only attack one. Other inadequacy is whole end-game tech tree - it looks like Microprose urged Sid to finish his project, what for is Fusion Power? On the other hand, quarter century elapsed, it is worth to mention new futuristic ideas.

I tried to bring some balance into the game, thus key technologies such gunpowder or nuclear fision, are harder obtainable, I added also more gradation into units and tech tree.
Because I'm lazy with painting, I'm grateful for all needed graphics which I found on this forum and shamelessly introduced in my project, I reused also some arts from other famous Microprose GPL-based clone, OpenTTD, credits included in .spec files.

Firstly, I would like to introduce shortly new features. I will expand this post later with more detailed descriptions.

New governments:
Thalassocracy
Increased money income from sea, albeit decreased inland productivity, no distane production waste, small empire size, veteran status for new ships.

Fascism
No base production waste, 3 free upkeep and 3 martial law, no civil war if no statue liberty build by player, medium empire size, elite paratroopers

New buildings:
Manufacture
25% city production bonus, trade points from coal mines, obsoleted by Corporation
Textille Mill
50% tile production bonus from forest, trade pts from silk, river req., obsoleted by Plastics
Steel Mill
50% tile production bonus from coal/iron mines, trade pts from iron mine, high pollution, conflicting with Research Lab
Cement Plant
50% tile production bonus from mountain mines, trade pts from coal mine, high pollution, conflicting with Research Lab
Railway Station
Necessary to gain additional bonuses from Railroad tiles. Default shield bonus from railroad decreased to 25%, but railroad together with Railway Station yield additional output from some special resources or from mines (together with Steel Mill or Cement Plant). Instant hp regen of train class units
Oil Refinery
100% tile production bonus from desert oil rigs, req. for oil shore platform, trade pts from oil rigs on oil field
Lazaretto
plague probability 10% less
Hospital
plague probability 10% less, req. for city size above 32

New industries increase production from certain resources, and can have revenue (usually equal upkeep costs, so net value is 0),
for example Steel Mill upkeep is 4, but if there is iron resource with mine, revenue is also 4 (thus upkeep is free). Power plant have 2 pots trade from each coal mine.

Other changes: supermarket is somewhat detached from farmlands, farmlands need Chemical Synthesis advance to allow second irrigation and have (smaller) bonus without supermarket, but supermarket (Refrigeration req.) remove food waste from tiles with farmland.

TODO list:
[*] cement plant, increased shield production from mountains mines;
[*] fusion reactor - no idea how it should look like, it is nice toroid but inside building...

New small or great wonders:
Pasteur Institute
1 immediate tech and plague probability 10% less, together with all water/sewage amenities, Hospital and Cancer Cure, total protection is 95%
Slavery Abolition
Increased min size not causing unhappiness, but penalty on rich tiles trade (gold gives 5, not 6). This small wonder is required for Women's Suffrage.
MIT
1 new tech, 4 bulbs for city, 50% for any research lab
GPS
Map revealed
LHC
2 new techs, convenient method to achieve Great Unification Theory, which is very expensive
Space lift
Required to make Spaceship Structurals
Hollywood
Effects similar to Shakespeare's Theater (which is obsoleted by Nanotechnology). Unlike other wonders, Hollywood have expensive upkeep.
Mobile X-ray
Faster heal of infantry units.
DARPA
Random unit upgrade (like Leonardo Workshop). Prerequisite to Internet wonder.

New units (amplio/trident images, X=lack of image):
/ Halberdiers
/ Riot Police
/ Arquebusiers
/ Grenadiers
/ Stormtroopers
/ Arbalest
/ Marksman
/ Sniper
/ Infantry
/ Modern Rangers
/ Super Soldiers
/ Autonomous War Mech (no unhappy citizens)
/ Ballon (for observation/barrage)
/ Zeppelin
/ Airplane
/ Strike Aircraft
/ Jet fighter
/ Strike Jet
/ Antimatter propelled stealth fighter
/ Antimatter propelled stealth bomber
/ Guided Bomb
/ Atomic Bomb
/ Anti-aircraft mobile gun
/ Suicidal "technical" - powerful but single use, need roads
/ Fusion powered destroyer with railgun
Train (standard graphics enabled), capacity 10.
/ Battering Ram
/ Ballista
/ Bombard
/ Howitzer Gun
/ Self-propelled gun
/ Reactive Armor
/ Cannon Turret
/ Anti-aircraft turret
/ Torpedo
/ Vikings (u)
/ Corsairs (u)
/ Navy Seals (u)
/ Raft
/ Galley
/ x Aak
/ Steam Barge
/ Diesel Barge
/ Monitor
/ Patrol Boat
/ Cog
/ Paddle Steamer
/ Nuclear Submarine

(u): unique units

Other changes - Airplanes movement was changed, increased amount of fuel - fighter have 2 turns between landings, bomber 3, but fighter stops after attack. Bomber can carry bombs.
New unit system, five classes of infantry: attack one (Legions, Arquebusiers, Grenadiers, Stormtroopers, Marines, Supersoldiers), defend one (Phalanx, Pikemen, Musketeers, Riflemen, Infantry, Modern Rangers), recon/hitman (Archers, Arbalests, Marksman, Sniper), pacemakers (Warriors, Halberdiers, Riot Police), spec-ops (Vikings, Corsairs, Navy Seals).
River movement bonus decreased to x2 and applied only to workers/engineers, raft, settlers, merchants etc small units.
Engineers can carry 1 cargo, thus can be used as temporary bridge for big land units.
Trireme class expanded to: Trireme, Galley, Steam Barge, Diesel Barge, Monitor, Patrol Boat, Cog and Steam Paddler added to merchant ship tier.
Artillery turrets and torpedo added as was described here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=90430

Todo list:
[* three branches of infantry, for defend, attack and assault - the latter one (archers, arbalist, marksman, sniper) with Bombard flag;
[*] pictures for trident tileset;
[*] include idea with rivers as obstacle and river boats viewtopic.php?f=13&t=90354 ;
[*] change upkeep parameters: each unit need 2 types of upkeep, some governments have one type of upkeep free;
[*] two kind of artillery: direct fire (catapult - these often were giant crossbows, cannons, artillery, mobile artillery) and indirect fire, with Bombardment flag
- trebuchet, mortar, howitzer, mobile howitzer) - basically Corbeau idea but with revised parameters (currently tested with AI).
Issue: AI have no idea how to use units with Bombarder flag.
[*] Turrets for ship customisation;
[*] Bombs for aircraft;
[*] New governments: ancient republic, ancient democracy (intermediate ones), and republic/democracy shifted to more advanced achievements.
Tech tree picture is here:



Some techs have root_req flag - it is not such restrictive like in case of experimental ruleset, only few key technologies have it, and usually root requirement is deeper than directly required advances.
For example, Republic require Literacy and Currency, but you cannot acquire it, if you don't know Code of Laws already. Gunpowder need Alchemy and Invention, but require also Iron Working and its prerequisites, etc.

TODO: future goal - possibly merge this project with Neolithic tree?
+ idea with special traits for Asian civilisations (dead end branch of tech tree, but supreme units and some wonders)

Download here: http://149.156.194.203/~mczapkie/fc/adv ... anced2.zip
Note: Use advamplio tileset to see new images.
There is also advtrident tileset supplied.

[XYZ]

Glad to see my altered amplio units are being used

I didnt like your Fascism symbol. What about this one that actually contains a fasces:

Edit: Added a rather cheap symbol for thoecracy just in case you could use.

[Wahazar]

Glad to see my altered amplio units are being used

You was reading in my mind while drawing it, thank you

I didnt like your Fascism symbol.

Honestly, me either
I was willing to make universal symbol, arrow from Hungarian nationalist Arrow Cross Party at the background of imperial Japan Hinomaru (or just negative of nazi flag background), but result is ugly and unclear.
On the other side, Italian symbol is not universalistic (I'm not referring exactly to original fascism, only to general type of militaristic totalitarian government) and is utterly complicated from the heraldic point of view - I mean original symbol is complicated, kudos to you for accurate pixel work.

EDIT: new idea of fascism symbol, to commemorate 40 anniversary of second burial of Charlie Chaplin:

gov_fascism_cc.png (423 Bytes) Viewed 2369 times

[Wahazar]

Update.

New units added, now three parallel series of infantry are defined:
[*] attack infantry (legion, arquebusiers, grenadiers, stormtroopers, marines, supersoldiers)
[*] defending infantry (phalanx, halberdiers, pikemens, musketeers, riflemen, infantry, supersoldiers)
[*] sharpshooters/reconnaissance - archers, arbalest, marksman, sniper - these units have bombardment flag, thus can only hurt other units, not kill them.
Side effect is, that you reveal all units in city (if animation speed is slow) - but in my opinion, it is justified - these sniper units have weak defence. Besides this, sacrificing diplomat just for city units information is too expensive (there should be random probability of diplomat loss)

New buildings/wonders added:
Cement Plant, Railway Terminal, Hollywood.

Wonders and buildings have now appropriate version (36x20 size) for advtrident tileset.

[Wahazar]

My modpack is already done, most of its milestones. It is compatible with 2.5.x version.
I'm now testing it in singleplayer mode.

Military units are reworked, there are separate upgrade tiers -
defending infantry: Phalanx, Halberdiers, Pikemen, Musketeers, Riflemen, Line Infantry, Modern Rangers;
attack infantry: Legions, Arquebusiers, Grenadiers, Stormtroopers, Marines, Supersoldiers;
reconnaissance/hitman: Archers, Arbalests, Marksman, Sniper;
indirect fire artillery (bombarding, ignore walls): Arbalests, Catapult, Cannon, Howitzer gun, Self-propelled Howitzer;
siege units/direct fire artillery: Battering Ram, Artillery, Self-propelled Gun;
stationary artillery (can be mounted on ships/train/fortress): Balista, Bombard, Turret Cannon, Anti-aircraft Turret Gun;
fast units: Horsemen, Chariot, Knights, Elephants, Dragoons, Cavalry, Armor, Reactive Armor, Mech. Inf.;
fighters: airplane, fighter, jet fighter, stealth fighter, antimatter propelled stealth fighter;
bombarding units: zeppelin, bomber (can carry bombs), stealth bomber, antimatter propelled stealth bomber (can carry also missile units);
single use units: torpedo, guided bomb, atomic bomb, cruise missile, nuclear missile, suicidal tactical;
river/coastal military units: Trireme, Galley, Monitor, Patrol Boat;
river/coastal transport units: Raft (only rivers/fortress), Aak, Steam Barge, Diesel Barge;
ocean military units: Caravel, Frigate, Ironclad, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battleship, AEGIS Cruiser, Zumwalt Destroyer;
ocean transport units: Longboat (unique), Cog, Galleon, Paddle Steamer, Transport Ship.
Special unique units: vikings, corsairs - can attack other ships from aboard.
Other units: Autonomous War Mech, Drone - doesn't concern citizens when used abroad.

River doesn't increase movement speed and doesn't allow to move big land units in case of rough terrain. For example, if such unit cannot move across jungle, it would be also not able to move across jungle with river, but without road.
There is special unit "Raft", which can carry one unit, thus can be used as temporary bridge or for transport along river.
In later stage of the game, Engineers can also carry one unit (but can be captured easily including carried cargo).

[Corbeau]

I'll say this once again: too many units makes war less sensible because by the time you build a unit and it reaches the front line, it is already obsolete.

[Wahazar]

I'll say this once again: too many units makes war less sensible because by the time you build a unit and it reaches the front line, it is already obsolete.

Of course you are right, in case of one long unit chain with frequently upgrades along tech tree.
But in case of this modpack:
1. there are separate parallel unit chains for different purposes,
2. tech tree is longer, and high-end advances are expensive.

[Wahazar]

Update:
1. new infantry classes:
[*] pacemakers (Warriors, Halberdiers, Riot Police) - weak but cheap units, basically to enforce martial law, besides that, cheap upgrade warriors to musketeers removed
[*] spec-ops (Vikings, Corsairs, Navy Seals) - unique unit, can attack or capture from aboard other ships or land units. Can't occupy city.
2. new airborne class: strike aircraft and strike jet - can carry one bomb and attack like fighter (less mp and A/D than fighter). Bomber can carry 2 bombs. This class converge with stealth fighters, which also can carry bomb.
3. Combustion submarine can carry only torpedoes. Nuclear submarine can carry both torpedoes or missiles.

Trident graphics almost finished (there is lack of Aak for trident).

[Wahazar]

Fixed airborne units.
Strike airplanes and stealth fighters can carry GBU or torpedo.
Bombers can carry GBU, Atomic bomb, Cruiser or Nuclear, but can't launch Nuclear (not counting suicide attack).
Firepower of howitzers decreased to 1, it was overpowered.

[Wahazar]

I need advice: should I update to 3.0 or rather 2.6 ?