OOC: Oh man, this will be quite a ride I feel. Getting to see things from a bird's eye view instead of being in the thick of things will be an interesting development.
IC: Desert folklore and Elder Council certainly seems like it's going for the tried and tested desert floodplains theocracy build (AKA Egypt). I wonder if the RNG will work in our favor to facilitate this
IC: Desert folklore and Elder Council certainly seems like it's going for the tried and tested desert floodplains theocracy build (AKA Egypt). I wonder if the RNG will work in our favor to facilitate this
You haven't met anyone to trade with who can't be considered part of internal trade! Be patient, the trade system was another one of those things that was eternally vexing for the devs because it was both a core feature and something the players often screwed up because it worked so differently from other 4X games.
Ah, poor Anut Studios, tragic is their tale. They should have known that Paradox kept all their games limited to specific historical time periods for a reason, and more recently Humankind kept their 'emergent civilization' mechanics as a bunch of preexisting civilizations where you just pick one per Era basically at will with no logical evolution mechanisms within. And then on top of that they went straight for the unique and often uniquely frustrating civilization collapse mechanics.
Basically this game flipped the bird to all its competitors while jumping off a ramp through a flaming hoop on a motorized unicycle, then fell and broke its neck on landing. The fact it was at any point a mix of playable, true to design vision, and reasonably fun (with the caveat that you had to be willing to go with it rather than fight against it and its mechanics) is a testament to the madlads who worked on it, for all that their noble attempt was doomed from the start.
Looking forward to seeing how the LP goes, because LPs of this game are usually hilarious, what with all the exploding you do. Of others and yourself.
Hey, I remember this! Classic game, honestly super underrated, watched a bunch of lets plays when it came out iirc.
there is magic in this game right? Because I've heard about weird events triggering, and it has to be magic or is it more like CK where it plays at it but never effects anything big? anybody hoping for some like, Witch King stuff?
I actually do, but as mentioned I am running the Community Rebalance Mod. This incorporates the DLC, but adjusts the balance factors back towards the original intent. I can already hear complaining, but the mod has actual input from the devs now that Paths is no longer receiving active development.
Welcome back Students for another episode in Let's Play Paths of Civilization.
When we last left off, our first settlement was in the middle of a desert floodplains and producing food, production, faith, and a little bit of culture. I had also placed a worker off in some desert hills to the north. It didn't exactly seem like the most sensible place to put it, however, come Turn 3...
Bam! Resource discovered! As you can see, we've now discovered an ochre deposit. I had been hoping for something like jade or lapis lazuli, or even something really nice like obsidian or copper, but ochre gives +1 Culture and there is a chance that it will transform into an iron deposit once we have the Iron Smelting tech. More importantly, if you look at the build list you can now see that we can now build mines as a city improvement. If you actually poke around in the fluff notes, the game assumes that at this era of the game people can already do basic mining, they just need a reason first to actually build proper infrastructure for it. As soon as you have a resource that can be mined you gain access to the 'Mine' project and can start building more of them... and if you actually have experience with the game, you will know that within the first five turns you are guaranteed to discover a resource on a tile you are working. That's why I stuck a worker there even though there were better options.
I'm going to finish off the farm district first, but the mine is next on my list to build. You will also notice that I have stuck my second Pop on the grasslands marsh to the north-west of the settlement, effectively doubling the resource extraction there. We are pulling in a lot of food right now, but we're going to start sucking a bunch of it up with infrastructure real soon. I'll just skip ahead another few turns...
And now we've got the farming district up and running, and the mine going. I know the symbols are a bit small, but as you can see the mine is now producing an extra Production as well as Science. Yay Science! Down at the farming district, you can see two things. The first is that the district isn't "filled in". That is because it is still a part of our frontier and needs to be integrated to become part of the core. Integration takes Culture, which I diverted from Astrology (which is now boosted by Faith from the desert floodplains we are now collecting from) for the past few turns, which is why the region is partially filled in. The second thing you will notice is that the 1 Production from the plains tile the farming district sits on has been suppressed. This is part of the trade-off for the power of the various districts, in that they suppress outputs other than what they are specialized in. As you grow your cities and gain new technology, you will also be able to construct powerful buildings within them that enhance their specialty.
This turn I have picked up Astrology as well as finished off the mine, so I am now devoting production towards building a Holy Site to the south-east of my settlement, adjacent to the new farm district. All Faith Production is going towards Herbalism (the Disease mechanic hasn't come up yet, but the number of floodplains and marshes in my territory is going to cause problems here pretty soon), while the Science from the mine is going into Pottery... which produces the pretty neat little narrative flourish that the ochre from the new mine is probably going into various art projects or the like and helping these people work with clay and work towards basic ceramics. It's always fun when things work out like that. Once the farm district finishes integrating I will send the Culture into Pottery, since I really want to start construction on granaries.
Or the RNG could strike! That works too!
So I was supposed to get my third Pop to spawn on Turn 8, but instead the people decided that they didn't like how cramped the settlement was getting (the Disease mechanic strikes, but in a way it doesn't usually do) and left to found a new settlement along the coast. If I had picked the 'Big Man' policy card I would have had a pool of Authority and would probably have been able to forbid this action, but I am pursuing early Culture for this build, so I had no Authority to stop the splinter group from leaving. This has spawned a new AI controlled settlement in the river delta. Right now they are a 'Mirror', which means that they have all the same Technology as I do and their policy cards are set the same. It also means that I don't receive any warmonger penalties for attacking or annexing them, as they are basically the same culture and thus it's more of a unification than a conquest. As can also be seen we basically have overlapping Spheres of Influence. Right now that doesn't really matter, but if I want to start making a play against them I need to isolate my core territories from their influence. Fortunately my Holy Site will finish construction and I will finish integrating the farm district next turn.
Unfortunately that means that I will have to rework my strategy more than a little bit.
This sort of thing is exactly why this game can be both so fun, and so frustrating. I was expecting another Pop to be able to start working the Holy Site once it finishes, and instead I now have a rival for control of the river. I know a lot of newbies who would flip out when this happened to them back when this was all new and fresh, but this is the game giving one heck of an opportunity. With just a bit of effort I'll be able to integrate in this new settlement, hopefully peacefully. This will also let me show off the Trade and Diplomacy systems a bit earlier, as well as demonstrate how the military works in Paths.
Stay tuned!
AN: These are fun, but the turns take a bit to iterate and the images some time to make, even if the word count is relatively low. Then again, if an image is worth a thousand works this is a 4k update!
Man this is great, and while it is unlikely and will take a long time to do once I get started, in a few months I might be able to start development on a baby version of this. If I can convince my friends I'll let you know if we can start making a real game inspired by this, it will be a long while before I get the opportunity to actually start though so don't expect it to be soon.
One of the things I liked least about the hyperstability build was how it tended to strongly discourage engaging in diplomacy. Diplomacy was how you found out about the world, but hyperstability builds tended to just stay at home and be profoundly incurious about the world around them.
Man this is great, and while it is unlikely and will take a long time to do once I get started, in a few months I might be able to start development on a baby version of this. If I can convince my friends I'll let you know if we can start making a real game inspired by this, it will be a long while before I get the opportunity to actually start though so don't expect it to be soon.
Damn, Paths of Civilization, I remember that from my childhood. What a wild game, I spent so long giving bugfix advice on the forums the developers and users made a meme about me. Incredible.
ooc: you fuck academia nut writing this bullshit like i wouldnt find out
Damn, Paths of Civilization, I remember that from my childhood. What a wild game, I spent so long giving bugfix advice on the forums the developers and users made a meme about me. Incredible.
ooc: you fuck academia nut writing this bullshit like i wouldnt find out
Damn, it's Chehr! Everybody who's new here, let me introduce you to Chehr. Big name in the community, and I heard that the devs even tapped her for some contract work on the DLC!
Damn, Paths of Civilization, I remember that from my childhood. What a wild game, I spent so long giving bugfix advice on the forums the developers and users made a meme about me. Incredible.
ooc: you fuck academia nut writing this bullshit like i wouldnt find out
Ah yes, this mechanic, it's one that really ground my gears when I first encountered it. I mean, why the heck should these people be splitting off? "Getting cramped"? Bull, they could have easily just built more huts in the same area! And heck, with the pick of "Elder Council", I don't really see how this could play out as a separate faction in the first place- the new pop has no elders. So why would they not defer to their elders in the home-city? ARGH.
Did they finally get rid of those stupid comet events? I hated being forced to sacrifice to stop my stupid people from tearing their own civilization apart in a panic.
