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Announcing the Vanilla Improvement Project

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3 years ago
Dec 4, 2021, 3:36:13 PM

Greetings! I just released the first version of a very ambitious mod project. If you don't want to read everything and jump straight to the mod page, you can find it at https://humankind.mod.io/vanilla-improvement-project


So, what is this project? it is intended to overhaul most of the vanilla game by combining several other mods. It is intended to have a "vanilla" feel, so no extra content such as new cultures, new districts or new technologies will be added. I'll be updating this thread as the project releases new versions, so your suggestions and comments are very much welcome, either down here or as a commenter directly on the patchnotes file. 


For full patch notes, check https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ls0o3E2Z5ePMvEH52GtPjPfHh8GTxD4P1Kg-jv1U8Ws/edit?usp=sharing


Our future plans include:

V0.1 - Initial Release
V0.3 - Culture Rebalance (we are here)
V0.5 - Civics Rework
V0.7 - Techtree deepdive
V0.9 - Unit Retooling
V1.0 - Finishing touches and Full release

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Dec 4, 2021, 6:03:29 PM

Ladies and Gentleman, here's the full scope of the Culture changes intended for v0.3 of the Vanilla Improvement Project. I've listed them all here to collect feedback before I implement them, so if you have a little time to spare could you take a look and tear it apart comment?


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1et5n7c88C9bJEtKAJQY8_w-9ENOY3hVy5Ny6FnD1pzE/edit?usp=sharing

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Dec 5, 2021, 4:19:07 AM

Hello, I found that in both your mod and SmileyDA one. Aksumite +5 money/tile (in his mod), and +4 money/tile in your.

After playtest, I think it's too much. But of course I playtest with BuyThis, so, it's a bit different.

About balance, this game is like a TCG (magic the gathering), some effects can snowball or react out of control.

Here, any bonus on large scale. 

Flat bonus on a district < synergy bonus on a district < large scale bonus.

The flat simple bonus is easy to set. Any other become difficult to balance.

In my next BuyThis release, I will have to nerf also the Tenet giving +5 money/tile. I don't know how many, +3 ,+2 or even just +1. Science one too.

There is probably lot of insane bonus like that in the game. The Tenet giving +2 food on water. Already a lot so strong.

We can see how just a +1 is so powerfull. Take Egyptian, just +1 industry on tile. Harrapean +1 on food (+river one!).

More manageable bonus: Tenet +5 money on resource luxury. This one is better balanced, because there is less targets.

I can see more now how this make problems in the game, because I have to balance my DeepSea mod.

And each time, I have to think twice: this feature, is the unbalance come from my mod or from something else ?

At start of the game, I check for example my "Fishing village", and it's quite well balanced. 

It's only when some large scale bonus come in action that it become unfair. So in this example, the problem don't come from my mod.

I just need to nerf part of the game that really unbalance. 


EDIT: 

I'm in late game and anyway, there is so many global bonus everywhere than the game can only snowball. So my comment is maybe useless. 



Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Dec 5, 2021, 1:47:05 PM

Thats why I'm creating a modpack, Enchanteur. To have things internally balanced. Of course, balance is a WIP and I'll be sure to adjust the numbers as needed.

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3 years ago
Dec 10, 2021, 12:16:55 AM

Great work! All changes seem reasonable and a whole lot better. I like it, I'm re-installing the game to test. Please keep updating!

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3 years ago
Dec 10, 2021, 10:59:00 AM

There is too much content for being agree with everything.


I note some very good ideas, here with this:

Factory Farming: +2 Farmer slots -> +8 Food per Farmer, -50% Farmer Slots 

It change a lot the gameplay, not very "vanilla feel", and could disapoint some players. I find that great.


But here:

Apothecary and Hospital: + Stability per Researcher -> + Stability per Trader 

I don't see what Traders come in this. Par researcher is the thematic of this. At least for Hospital. And if it's a problem to get X2 the same thing, Farmers would be more thematics for Apothecary.


Here, I'm neutral:

Public Fountain/Aqueduct/Sewage System: +15/+20/+25 Stability -> +10%/+15%/+20% growth gain, -5%/-10%/-15% growth loss 

It's a good idea, and I would definitely see that in game for a new content. But it's also a too big change for Vanilla feeling.
The choice to report stability bonus on military stuff (walls) look logical.


To help a bit: I posted some AI tests. Might interest you because I found the way AI don't spam the Commons quarter.

As your idea to give a base stability bonus is still good, I used that.

I added what I was dreaming (but had a lot of difficulties to do), another synergy that only apply on NON farmer/maker/market/research districts.

It make sure:

- AI need a economic district for building Commons. AI never build 7 commons with a common in the center. And AI build far less Commons.

- When AI build Commons next to the wrong district, it still get the alternative Synergy.

- As player, I also like to get the alternative synergy. This district was so boring that I never used it after weeks of gameplay, always using Garrison instead.

This alternative synergy is a bit tricky because the UI don't wan't to show this. The reason is it use more than one Validation parameter. So, it need to make it twice the thing. One only for UI (using a new tag that no district have). Then set a mapper for this new tag, so the UI show it.

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Dec 10, 2021, 11:11:13 AM

Thank you. Now, while I work on v0.5, can you help me with data collection to help future work on v0.7? I want to know what are your GLOBAL POLLUTION values by the last turn. To do so, please upload a small screenshot of your pollution and player counts to this form https://forms.gle/pHEVnMpcSdZDFh9KA either by sending the file or by sending a imgur (or other image hosting site) link to it. Thanks in advance for your help!

Example screenshot:






I'll take a look at the AI tests, @Enchanteur . Thanks for working on the modscene, you're always an inspiration. As for the Apothecary/Hospital thing, the idea behind moving those to Traders is to buff whats (arguably) one of the weakest specialists in the game. Having max Researchers is already a no-brainer, as techs grant you a great advantage, so by moving them to Traders you present the player an actual decision to make. I didn't want to move them to Farmers because of how automation (represented by Factory Farming and Automated Factories) reduce the number of Farmers (and Workers) you use, so that would be another hit to stability. As for the Fountain line, I decided to give stability to the Walls infra, so it needed a new bonus to go with it, and growth felt thematically appropriate. Not to mention it sorta allows for more than 100% growth per turn (in normal speed) which is something that irks a lot of players.
 

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3 years ago
Dec 10, 2021, 12:15:29 PM

I have to find a way to test your infrastructures change.

I use only infrastructure component, OR, I use the whole pack but load it first.

I will loose some features but could get many more stuff from this than expected.

Thanks for this work. What you do and SmileyDA do is sooo a titan work. Too many isolated features to change. Time consuming. Difficulties to track all because the game use code number instead of names. And difficulties to test that all also.

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3 years ago
Dec 15, 2021, 8:54:12 PM

It seems this mod breaks civics for me, though it didn't before, so my guess is something in your latest update(from 12/13) broke civics, or one of the two past small updates to the game itself(12/13, and 12/15) made your mod incompatible now. By "broke it", I mean the first civic never can get discovered anymore. I went into 1000 influence and a few dozen turns with a few cities without any civic ever being unlocked, though I'm uncertain for sure what unlocks them, I suspect it's reaching a certain amount of influence while being past neolithic. Besides, under those conditions I mentioned, in regular vanilla the first civic would have happened long before I got to this point. 

And this is from me testing VIP with no other mods enabled. Though, when I did have other mods, the first civic did trigger but the images of civics on the screen were gone and after the first choice, no others could be chosen(as there was nothing to click on). This led me to investigate which mod was doing it, and it appears to be this one since the above happened with VIP only enabled. 

Great mod btw! I do hope you can get it to work with vanilla again soon though :) it would be a shame if it can't. 

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Dec 15, 2021, 9:06:45 PM

Danisloth, there are a few possible culprits for this mod. First, it may be the very common UIMAPPER issue. It happens with any mods if you change your mod loadout during the same game session. To avoid that bug, open up the game, select all mods you want, choose apply, play. If you go back to the mod screen and apply another mod loadout the game UI and civics will break.

If you want to play with different mods, close the game, reopen it, then select your mods. This works to avoid the MISSING UIMAPPER bug on any and all mods you choose. MISSING UIMAPPER can ALSO show if you open the game, try to load your last modded game by clicking "continue", fail, go to the mod screen and apply the correct mods, then load the game. Always always always make sure you open the game and select the mods as the first thing you do.

If this does not solves it, then it is probably something in the new Amplitude patch (v1.06) that broke the mod. I'd ask you to submit your diagnostics file so I can try do debug it. You can send it here on g2g by adding it to the post as an attachment. The diagnostics file should be in your "/documents/Humankind/temporary files" folder or something like that, and look like this:

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3 years ago
Dec 15, 2021, 9:42:51 PM

Yeah, I am aware of the game being finicky like that for mods lol. I did try that, possibly again, in case I forgot the first time. The issue seems to still persist unless I am mistaken on what triggers the first civic to appear.

For sharing the file, I would just copy and paste my local directory, as it appears in a web browser, to it then right?

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Dec 15, 2021, 10:57:46 PM

Hi danisloth, you somehow just made a link to a local file, which obviously does not work. Use the upload file button from the reply box.

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3 years ago
Dec 16, 2021, 11:15:26 AM

Ok, I think I found the problem. Its asking for files which I haven't included in the mod or even had the intention of altering somehow. I think it is related to the new patch and the new mod tools update. I'll try to come up with a fix and update the mod once I have a sliver of free time... I'm absolutely swamped by my job right now.

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3 years ago
Dec 16, 2021, 5:49:16 PM
docktorkain wrote:

Ok, I think I found the problem. Its asking for files which I haven't included in the mod or even had the intention of altering somehow. I think it is related to the new patch and the new mod tools update. I'll try to come up with a fix and update the mod once I have a sliver of free time... I'm absolutely swamped by my job right now.

No worries, take your time, I mean this would have happened literally yesterday or something, so I wouldn't expect that quick of an update. At least you were able to find the issue quickly. I hope all goes well with your job ?

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3 years ago
Dec 17, 2021, 11:33:47 AM

Hey! I've enjoyed the majority of the changes when I was testing the mod with a discord group. However, when I picked the Mongols I lost 2 movement points instead of gaining them. Could you look into that?

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3 years ago
Dec 17, 2021, 4:29:39 PM
Eudaimania wrote:

Hey! I've enjoyed the majority of the changes when I was testing the mod with a discord group. However, when I picked the Mongols I lost 2 movement points instead of gaining them. Could you look into that?

Strange... the file clearly says "add 2 land movement". I'll change the descriptor target and publish a hotfix.




EDIT: Pushed a hotfix to try to ensure the Mongol LT is working properly. Also changed the naval CS bugfix to a better version so both Norse LT and Lighthouse of Alexandria should properly buff transports without touching disembarked land units.  

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Dec 20, 2021, 8:24:06 PM

I'm very happy to announce release of v0.5! Now we have hit the Civics rework! For vhe v0.7 update, I want to tackle technology costs and effects, pollution and stability, alongside other general effects before we dive into final unit pass. We're nearing 1.0, so what you want to see for the tech overhaul?

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3 years ago
Dec 21, 2021, 2:15:13 AM
shakee wrote:

Unsure if this works, all other apply the naval or land speed to the units.

Thats way I changed from armies to units. It was directly to armies BEFORE the hotfix

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3 years ago
Dec 30, 2021, 4:02:18 PM

I'm happy to announce we've hit v0.7! only two more milestones to reach before the mod is complete. Hope you enjoy.

And if you ARE enjoying it, feel free to hit us with your feedback! Many of the changes in the mod come from community feedback and requests. 


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3 years ago
Jan 4, 2022, 7:41:23 PM

We've now reach v0.9 with the Unit rebalance! Now we move on to the finishing touches. Is there anything else you want me to add/rebalance in the mod?

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3 years ago
Jan 8, 2022, 12:04:30 PM

Thanks for the mod, I'm enjoying playing it. I have a small question.

What is the reason you give charcoal kiln and food market/plaza farmer's quarter adjacency bonus? Maker's quarter and market quarter gain bonus when they're adjacent to the same type, you left it unchanged. What's your intention when you changed infrastructures?

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3 years ago
Jan 8, 2022, 1:57:41 PM

Charcoal kiln, food plaza line and university were granted cross-type synergies to encourage different city builds. The biggest adjacencies remain in-type, but I hope those changes can spark a little more diversity 

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3 years ago
Jan 10, 2022, 4:27:50 PM
docktorkain wrote:

Charcoal kiln, food plaza line and university were granted cross-type synergies to encourage different city builds. The biggest adjacencies remain in-type, but I hope those changes can spark a little more diversity 

Cool. I haven't preferred building farmers quarter but maybe I should try if it works.

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3 years ago
Jan 14, 2022, 3:07:50 PM

Thanks Dongliz! You may be interested in knowing that I just published v1.0 and the mod is now on feature freeze waiting for the DLC to be released next week. If you have something you want to suggest or a bug you want to report, feel free to do it and I'll go back to working on it after the 20th.

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3 years ago
Jan 15, 2022, 9:21:18 PM

Hey, so I've noticed that influence and money stars are very difficult to get with this mod - the numbers seem very high? Not sure if you've adjusted that in the last couple of iterations, I was on a slightly older version of the patch. 


The games all go great until the lead AI overextends and collapses, but that's not anything to do with this mod. 


I'll have a look at v1.0 once the DLC lands, thanks for all your hard work on this.



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3 years ago
Jan 30, 2022, 2:56:51 PM

Hey I just found that Edo Japan's Tera cannot be freely placed. Please check.

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3 years ago
Jan 30, 2022, 11:33:13 PM

Yeah, I ended up not implementing it but I sorta like how it turns out, to be honest. I changed the patch notes accordingly. 

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3 years ago
Jan 31, 2022, 2:43:47 PM

Hey!  Thanks for the mod, it's great.


I had my first full game today and was wondering what the most helpful way of providing a bug report is?  So, I'll tell the story and await your questions :)


- Humankind v1.0.08.1793-S10 (64-bit Standalone, build: 192622)

- Launched from XBox App in Win10 (game pass)

- Vanilla Improvement Project v1.03 (installed through in game system)


- Humankind Difficulty, with me + 5 expert personas from G2G

- Normal size, normal speed, etc


- Get through era 4 (Zhou, Persians, Norsemen, Spanish)

- Do a LOT of save scumming as I misclick a lot, and I like the fake sense of accomplishment when I win

- This MAY be part of the problem, as when I load "too many" times, the game crashes

- Claim the entire new world with two big cities, and start spamming Makers Quarters

- Notice that my Industry Output isn't going up, including when I plant forests (Multiple quarters showing no exploitation, etc)

- Quit and reload the save game, and now I can see the increased industry (and that one city is heading towards 29 stability now!  Oops)

- Now three cities are showing as idle, and I set them all to build a wonder, but they still show as idle (no matter what I queue to build)

- Save and reload again (including closing the whole game)

- Now I can press EndTurn, but the turn never completes, it just hangs


I did just read about the debug files, though I didn;t know about them at the time.  So, here are a bunch, but I don't know which occurred at what point, sorry :-/

- Immediately after I had Makers Quarters Problems

- Immediately after I had the Infinitly Idle Cities

- Immediately after filling the queue and saving (in absense oc end-turn button)

- A whole bunch of diagnostics files
Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Jan 31, 2022, 2:55:30 PM

Thanks for the report! I'll try to take a look at it. However, I need help with two extra things:

1st) are you sure you've been using v1.03? there's no v1.03 listed in the changelogs, and the latest versions are 1.3.x. The version may be the source of the problem - all versions BEFORE 1.3.0 are having the Turn Pending bug (the one where the turn never completes) after the 1.07 Alan Newell base game update. This bug also happened circa E.Modern in my games, so it may be that and it may be already solved. A quick way to check if you're playing pre-1.3 is to see the Taxation Office infrastructure tooltip (you can check it on Centralized Power in the tech tree). If it shows +1 money per pop instead of +5 money on main plaza, then it is a pre-1.3.0 version and I advice you to update the mod to the latest version.

To update the mod, enter the in-game mod browser and wait until there's a small blue popup saying that the mod was downloaded and installed in the bottom part of the screen. To force-update it, in case you're not sure, unsubscribe then resubscribe to the mod.

2nd) I could not see your diagnostics. The zip file says that they're corrupted. If you could send them again (I don't need all diagnostics, just one of the latest ones) I would be glad.


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3 years ago
Jan 31, 2022, 3:06:59 PM
docktorkain wrote:

Thanks for the report! I'll try to take a look at it. However, I need help with two extra things:

1st) are you sure you've been using v1.03? there's no v1.03 listed in the changelogs, and the latest versions are 1.3.x. The version may be the source of the problem - all versions BEFORE 1.3.0 are having the Turn Pending bug (the one where the turn never completes) after the 1.07 Alan Newell base game update. This bug also happened circa E.Modern in my games, so it may be that and it may be already solved. A quick way to check if you're playing pre-1.3 is to see the Taxation Office infrastructure tooltip (you can check it on Centralized Power in the tech tree). If it shows +1 money per pop instead of +5 money on main plaza, then it is a pre-1.3.0 version and I advice you to update the mod to the latest version.

To update the mod, enter the in-game mod browser and wait until there's a small blue popup saying that the mod was downloaded and installed in the bottom part of the screen. To force-update it, in case you're not sure, unsubscribe then resubscribe to the mod.

Mod says 1.03 on the page where I "apply" it.  Downloaded yesterday evening, and again just now (as per your directions, no change)


Tool Tip says +5 Main Plaza and +3 on Luxury



docktorkain wrote:

2nd) I could not see your diagnostics. The zip file says that they're corrupted. If you could send them again (I don't need all diagnostics, just one of the latest ones) I would be glad.

Here's the spam!

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''').html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p2.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p3.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p4.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p5.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p6.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p7.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p8.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p9.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p10.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p11.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p12.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1325'13''862''')p13.html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1329'45''752''').html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1339'17''078''').html

Diagnostics (2022'01'31 @1342'26''677''').html



Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Jan 31, 2022, 3:16:10 PM

Ok, thats a new bug :D Now that I can see the diagnostics, I'm sure it is not the bug I had squashed before. I'm not at home now but once I get there I'll start the debugging. Thanks for your report, I'll keep you updated whenever I get to fix it.

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3 years ago
Feb 1, 2022, 12:10:42 PM

@MatBailie , I have bad news. I am not able to reproduce that bug. In my test games, the game runs its course normally until beyond intended turn count without any hiccups. I released a new version of the mod (1.4) and that may or may not fix it for you. If you experience it again don't shy from sending me the save file and diagnostics so I can try again to locate that pesky bug, but for now I'm not finding it anywhere.

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3 years ago
Feb 2, 2022, 8:53:36 PM

Here's another then :)

- mod v1.41


- Won at around turn 250 (Vassal the remaining three)

- Carried on playing to see if I could complete the tech tree before pollution killed me

- Noticed that pollution wasn't going down (or up) no matter what I built

- Also noticed that Madrid's stability wasn't changing not matter how many Games I built

- Closed the application, relaunched, applied mod, resumed from auto-save

- Game locks up with turn pending


Diagnostics (2022'02'02 @2005'39''174''').html

Diagnostics (2022'02'02 @2005'39''174''')p2.html

Diagnostics (2022'02'02 @2005'39''174''')p3.html

Diagnostics (2022'02'02 @2005'39''174''')p4.html


auto-save 8259.ctr



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3 years ago
Feb 3, 2022, 1:03:06 AM

Thats a completely new bug, never seen something like that before. I downloaded the save and its also having turn pending on my end, so it is not a xbox gamepass problem, but a general problem in the game. I'll foward this post to the devs, maybe it can help them debug some problem thats more fundamental. At least this happened in the "post game" and you could win your game.

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