This version marks 20 years of the mod's development and support. The year's focus has been on enhancing visuals, UI and UX, on reworking and improving older components, on balancing and of course on fixing everything that needed fixing.
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Balance and Feature Rework
Balance: units and combat
Free barbarian wins are defensive only now
National Units now also have a role cost increase (10%, in line with other regular units)
Upgrades of national units now share the limits with their predecessors; no longer possible to field 6 WW1 marines and 6 WW2 marines and 6 cold war marines simultaneously as the US.
Modern submarines (attack and ballistic) can now travel under ice
Blitzkrieg doctrine promotion line now also available to armoured units that have no collateral damage (such as flak halftracks), as it is potentially useful for them as well
Certain gunpowder-era units can now be made with more advanced resource versions (e.g.: not just black powder, but firearms as well), to address an uncommon issue where you'd lose the earlier resource-producing building after it's already discontinued
Gunpowder siege units now have an ever-increasing number of targets they can damage, up to 8 with the most modern ones
New promotion lines for land siege and air bomber units increasing the number of collateral damage targets
All recon units starting with Explorer ignore terrain movement points
American canoes (flavour galleys) now also carry 2 units; seems like AI struggles a lot to settle over water with capacity 1 transports
Removed the unusable ability to break ice from destroyers
Siege Bombardment no longer requires Land Tactics
Balance: techs
The +20% research rate for every "or" prerequisite to a tech now starts from the second one; this used to be a modifier that applied to almost all techs otherwise, as most techs had one "or" prerequisite (this was a vanilla feature that was in no way explained in the UI)
Invisible +1 research that used to be applied all the time (vanilla feature, for whatever reason, again with no UI indications) no longer applies if at least 1 research is generated naturally (basically almost always, other than barbarians before they get any cities)
Rebalanced early and late game tech costs for better pacing; now mid-classical to mid-industrial takes relatively longer than before
Rebalanced year increments per turn for better pacing with the tech progress
Trade now prerequisite to Weapon Smithing (new pedia text for Weapon Smithing will hopefully illustrate the reasoning behind this decision)
Moved Shipbuilding a bit further in the tech tree, making it require Metal Casting instead of Weapon Smithing (Great Lighthouse will now be a bit less anachronistic)
Sextant now prerequisite for High Seas Warfare
Moved Social Contract and Enlightenment a bit further up the tech tree, Printing Press additional requirement for Social Contract
Relaxed tech prerequisites for Globalisation from Supersonic Flight to Air Superiority
Rearranged late industrial tech tree
Balance: buildings and wonders
Moved Big Ben to Imperialism
Removed Leonardo's Workshop
Removed Magna Carta
Removed Hanseatic League
New wonder: Leaning Tower, and it has a powerful effect that requires some skill to properly utilise; AI should be reasonably good at using it
Rework of Trading Company: instead of providing various resource bonuses, it cuts colonial maintenance (additional maintenance for cities on different landmasses) by 50%. Trading Company now obsoletes later, at Proletarian Dictatorship
New wonder: Royal Greenwich Observatory. Cuts colonial maintenance by additional 50%, for when you want the sun to never set on your empire. Also gives XP to naval units
New Plutocracy-linked Fuggerei wonder: halves the unhealth and epidemic rate from population; never expires; requires Double-Entry Accounting
New wonder: Comintern. A new international organisation for civs running Planned Economy civic, that allows to modify the effects of Planned Economy by adopting new Communist Dogmas. The effect of currently active Dogma is displayed as a part of Planned Economy description; all Dogmas can be seen in their own pedia category.
Himeji Castle elevated to a Monarchy-dependent World Wonder status. Removes upkeep for vassal cities (for those who - due to it not being documented anywhere - don't know the vanilla vassal mechanic, master's number of cities upkeep increases as if half of vassals' cities was theirs), doubles military production for vassals
Reduced Moai Statues cost
Motherland Calls wonder effect no longer takes into account vassal civs
Statue of Liberty now benefits from Copper rather than Bronze, as Bronze Smiths are obsolete by the time it becomes available to build
The Great Lighthouse obsoletes much later, with Mercantilism
The Colossus obsoletes a bit earlier, with Shipyards
Das Kapital is no longer a regular wonder. Instead, it is a part of a series of Great Works on Economy, which can be constructed by Great Merchants and require a specific economic civic (one for each economic civic except for the ancient ones)
National Park now also uses the new epidemic from population modifier tag; switched to -50% unhealth and epidemic from population, same as Fuggerei. Moved to Biology tech, as it was far too early before - even its own pedia stated that!
Moved Enlightened Absolutism (technically a building) to Enlightenment, severely buffed it; now only requires one civic (Autocracy), same as Constitutional Monarchy, for consistency
Added an earlier weaker form of Monarchy, Feudal Monarchy (upgrades to Constitutional); now medieval era shouldn't be so heavy on Republics
Severely buffed Research Laboratory and its flavour version
Made Hydro plant a source of clean power, but made it more expensive
Balance: civics
Switched Democracy from reducing the distance modifier to number of cities modifier
Buffed Civil Service and Representation, as those have stiffer competition now
Base slave capture chance for Slavery civic halved to 10%
Plutocracy now has an upgradeable building chain instead of a flat +20% gold bonus (still all about gold), to keep it more relevant through the ages
Upped Dictatorship's maintenance reduction from the number of cities to -40%
Buffed Forced Labor (now +2 production to mines and quarries, +2 commerce to precious mines), Labor Camp (now +2 production to craftsmen and citizens); buffed hurry from population from 40 to 120 hammers per pop (since it's only available in Industrial era and later, a single pop can be much more productive, so the opportunity cost is much higher than with slavery in vanilla)
Removed -25% GP malus from Dictatorship, buffed unit production
Major rework of Feudal Aristocracy mechanics. Did away with all the pseudo-buildings with miniscule effects. Instead, each civ gets a choice from several (usually 5, out of 10 possible ones) noble family fiefs, which grant major specific bonuses to a particular city. The catch is that you can only build 2 (or 3 with Heraldry) out of those, so there is a lot of choice involved not only in where to place, but which ones as well, as you can't have all.
Three civs (Aztecs, Incas and Mongols) have their separate version where they have only 3 instances of the same (in case of Aztecs) or 4 weaker (in case of Incas and Mongols) buildings without a separate limit (so free to build all 3/4).
All civs except those three additionally have one Great House with vastly improved effects.
Pre-placed noble families in the Deluge scenario (mostly 2 per civ, to leave some leeway to the player still).
Balance: scenarios
Huge world map rebalancing: New World is more realistically reachable through Iceland; nerfed starting island locations (British Isles, Japan, Southeast Asia); removed Huns; added Philippines (playable); all non-tribal civilizations start with a settler rather than a city; tribal civilizations are even harder to vassalize than before; moved Japanese starting spot to actual Edo; harder to reach Australia now, Austronesians hopefully won't casually settle it in the Bronze age; placed some hot springs in Europe
Large World map rebalancing: removed Huns and Nubians, nerfed island starts
Placed lots of hemp in Europe on the Huge Europe Map
Assigned research modifiers to Triassic (slightly faster) and Crusades (significantly faster; let's at least reach gunpowder by 1450) scenarios
Added another EarthEvolution version, based on Huge Earth Map; thanks to arizzi
Balance: other
Routes in rough terrains should now take a bit less effort to build
Severely buffed Nature Conservation Areas (formerly Forest Reserves) and Hotsprings Parks
Hemp will no longer be regionally clustered but spread all over the world
Increased unhealthiness from nuclear winter, so it has a bigger effect on separatism
Restored vanilla Civ 4 costs for civic and (halved) religion change espionage missions
Increased evasion probability for ICBMs to give them any chance for success
Adjusted the prerequisites of the Huns random event to trigger later
Increased decay of war weariness when at peace to prevent sudden unhappiness spikes at war declarations
Progressive trait now provides +10% research
Nerfed Populist drawback from -25% to -20%
All leaders now again vassalize more eagerly (reverted a change from long ago)
All leaders now less eager to renounce peaceful vassalizations
Vassal civs can now build buildings that require a certain number of a prerequisite building (like Universities for a National University) by building in all their cities rather than a set amount. Should help out small vassal civs a bit
If both Unrestricted Leaders and Change Leader Every Era game options are on, civs can choose from all available playable civilization leaders
Trade routes with your own civilization now only have half the epidemic spread compared to foreign ones
Leader trait rebalancing: Karl XIV is now Financial instead of Political, Jefferson is now Seafaring instead of Philosophical, Washington is now Philosophical instead of Humanist
Feature changes: Tech Transfer
Tech transfer now requires both Open Borders and actually being able to trade with the civ in question
Added a separate symbol for active tech transfer to the scoreboard. Those using advanced scoreboard layout may need to insert "G" in their layout formula if they want to see it.
Cut base tech transfer rates by 50%
Two techs now increase tech transfer benefits TO the respective player by +50%, Paper and Scientific Experiment
New effect for the Great Library: x2 tech transfer benefits
If Tech Transfer is off, tech transfer changes on techs and buildings won't be shown
Increased base tech transfer bonus for vassals to 30%
AI can now adequately appraise the tech transfer-improving effects
Civ-specific changes
Severely buffed Aztec Chinampas
Chinese canals now properly retain +1 commerce from river proximity
England now has an improved horseman instead of a medium cavalry
French Carolingean Paladins NU now upgrades to new Gendarmes unit
Unique German hot springs resort buffed in line with the regular one
Greek Gymnasium moved to Mysticism (as Philosophy is now a much later tech)
Unique Nguni and Mongol improvements no longer benefit pigs, as pigs aren't suited for nomadic lifestyle
Buffed Spanish unique improvement
Israeli unique walls should no longer be impervious to pre-gunpowder siege units
Lithuania now has a less generic NU
Feature changes: Separatism
Increased separatism from nonstate religions and nationality, occupying cities will be much harder now
Increased separatism reduction from garrison
Increased separatism from the population, in later eras especially for the cities that are not on the home continent (to encourage scenarios where overseas colonies revolt first)
Increased separatism reduction from espionage
Increased separatism reduction from civics
Increased the number of defenders after an uprising
Last two sovereignty eras have 50% reduced separatism from unhappiness
Increased requirements to activate "Resistance is useless" and "United against external threats" mechanic, now it requires one player to be at least 75% ahead of others instead of 50%
Decreased separatism modifier from war weariness
Decreased unhappiness from war weariness to allow longer wars
Removed war weariness reset after uprising (this might be reverted back if death spirals occur again, but they weren't present during test games)
Separatism revolt will fall back to the old civ so long as at least 25% culture in the leading city is of that civ
If the separatist revolt's scope is the culture that already exists, only cities with at least 5% said culture will join in
AI
AI: Separatism
Added a new logic for AI for choosing production, it will prioritize building cheap defensive units when separatism is dangerously high to get them as fast as possible (so irregulars most of the time)
Added a new mechanic forcing AI to pause current production if the separatism is too high, so it can start building garrison to counter it faster
Improved logic for determining how many garrison units the city should have to fight separatism effectively
AI will treat espionage from specialists and from %rate as temporary for the purpose of wanting more units and culture
AI should now take into account temporary separatism effect buildings properly
Reduced the AI value of espionage-producing buildings when separatism is off
AI should now be less fond of espionage and slightly less fond of culture, unless separatism is on, in which case AI will value those more
AI: Other
Fixed a major issue where AI would try indefinitely to save gold for upgrading irregular units to regulars; AI will now only upgrade irregulars to irregulars (and regulars to regulars)
AI has been taught to better evaluate civics when it comes to buildings and civic-dependent units (units were previously not evaluated at all, so Aristocracy was heavily artificially AI-weighted to compensate; no more); when evaluating building bonuses it doesn't take into account happiness bonus that applies to buildings dependent on another civic AI is not planning to run, and only considers one best "building" if it's limited to the capital (such as different constitutions under Democracy)
While evaluating civics, AI now takes into account separatism effects when applicable, the effect of Comintern dogmas on Planned Economy
AI should value siege units more and include more in a typical stack
AI should now never explore with rams
AI now knows if a tile is an isthmus (a land tile separating two different sea zones or two sea tiles that would otherwise take several turns to reach from one another) and will place major emphasis on founding cities there, both in scenarios and on random maps (in scenarios, there are some tiles designated as isthmuses despite not formally being so, such as Suez, so that there's always an AI city there)
In the world map scenarios, AI should avoid declaring war on hunter-gatherers before Renaissance (and deliberately target them afterwards)
In the world map scenarios, AI should treat Tribal Forts as an insurmountable obstacle before Renaissance
In the world map scenarios, AI Aztecs/Mayans and AI English/Celts are now prohibited from killing each other for the first 500 turns
AI will now only offer/accept peaceful vassalization to someone they share a border with
AI should assign more units to protect cities by default, even if not feeling threatened
AI should no longer be willing to trade, nor ask the player to trade, resources that can be used in resource converters (the sole exception being if AI itself can't use the resource in converters yet, but the buyer can), and will clearly communicate that in a new trade denial type
AI not under immediate cultural threat will now be open to buildings that reduce overall culture (such as Mob Justice)
AI should generally place more emphasis on constructing buildings now
AIs should now have more appreciation for resources needed to build units; should now be more inclined to take them into account when placing cities
AI should now actively avoid founding another religion if it already has running one and has its Holy City
Other changes
UI/UX
Raw production display in the city screen will now display correct production figures from specialists
Miraculous win message (free barbarian win) will now display at the same time as combat victory message
There is now an option in GlobalDefines that enables odds shown in combat messages for all combats, not just defensive (off by default)
Leader change should now result in name change for human players too, unless already using a custom name
Roman-specific (and Venetian-specific) units should now properly show up on their civ's pedia page
Restored WHEOOH indicators in the UI (toggleable) - scoreboard and military advisor
Certain buildings that only make sense under a specific game option (or lack thereof) will now be deactivated when it makes sense (such as all espionage-related buildings if "No Espionage" is selected). All indicated in the pedia and the tooltips.
Better indication for fortification units in-game (indicates that they are immobile and unaffected by land logistics)
Consolidated religious communities in Humanist trait description
When a city is immune to epidemic, the tooltip should show turns of immunity remaining
If a building is inactive without civic prerequisites, it is shown in pedia
Interface alerts can now be shown if a tile changes hands due to culture. By default, set to show only tiles with resources or improvements, but can be configured in GlobalDefines to be either turned off completely or turned on for any tile
Potential net health improvement tooltips for buildings will now take into account health from fresh water if the building is a fresh water source and the city currently has no fresh water
Adjusted farm pedia description to correctly describe where it can be built
If a distinctive unit or building is available to more than one civ, they'll be listed separated by commas rather than separate bullet points, for more compact tooltips and pedia descriptions
Clearer indication which game speeds are slower and faster than the default one
Renamed Armoured Warfare to Mechanized Warfare to avoid confusion with the nearby Armoured Vehicles tech
Unit mouseover info will now correctly list all the bonuses vs unitcombats (such as melee, archery etc.) from promotions and other sources
Orthodoxy will only be displayed in the city screens and the religious advisor if it actually exists in a given game (= in historical scenarios), as it's not accessible during normal gameplay
Likewise, religious pedia section now has filter for regular and scenario only religions ("scenario only" currently being just Orthodoxy)
Bugfixes
Fixed a division by zero error in combat odds calculations which could occur if a scout-class unit was brought to very low health, rounding their combat power down to zero
Fixed missing diplo music for Aztec leaders
Fixed Python error during uprising which caused new civilizations to not have their customized rebellious name and flag
Corrected the unit type mentioned in the Horse Whisperer quest rewards
The check to prevent barbarian settle from any non-barbarian units adjacent to the city now works correctly
Cities under 5 now correctly cannot declare independence by themselves from separatism (still can join others)
Vassals get increased tech transfer from masters, not the other way round
Totestra resource distribution options should now actually do something (didn't test how much of something, but now the code is at least there)
Chinese canals should no longer destroy oasis when built
Fixed a semi-rare bug with unit role processing when a researched tech bumps city production to a better unit that has different roles
Maybe nothing, maybe a very serious bugfix (limited war preparation plans might never actually get cancelled before, no matter what happened, unlike total war preparations - I am not sure whether it impacted anything)
Randomizing scenario leaders should no longer cause OOS
Civs respawned through separatism will no longer cause naming errors
Critical fix for a revolutions component bug that would break the saves if a city defected to its previous owner
Some parameters weren't properly set for civs spawning mid-game (separatism or settling barbarians)
Units unable to attack should now be able to get aid normally, even if the bonuses contain some things that don't apply to them (like withdrawal chances)
Resolved a nasty but seemingly exotic endless AI loop where a ranged-only unit was trying to kill a worker
German Autobahn no longer misleadingly presented in two different techs on the tech tree
Right-clicking resource obsolescence in the tech graph no longer causes an error
Fixed an error in LSystem that made farm graphics much less varied than it should have been and left holes in the layout
Fixed a vanilla event triggering condition that had no actual way of returning "true", causing the event to never fire. Gotta admire the QC on BtS events...
Consistency
All resources can now be traded as soon as they are discovered (or from Trade tech if they are discovered from a very early tech)
Rewrote many pedia entries to ensure consistency both in content and formatting
New and more consistent pedia trait descriptions, thanks to [Y]
New and more consistent civic strategy entries; thank you Alekseyev_
New and more consistent unit strategy entries; thank you AspiringScholar
Eliminated lots of redundant unit and tech prerequisites; thanks to Alekseyev_
Updated hints to be relevant to the current version; thanks to AspiringScholar
All leaders in the map scenarios are now named the same as those leaders in random games
Motorized infantry now represented by their trucks in the pedia, consistently with the buttons
All units capable of both ranged attack and collateral damage have the damage limits for both set to the same values
All conscripts now have the same 16 strength
Players will no longer be shown the news of a Great General killed if they don't know the civ in question
All Solar Cult wonder buildings flavour variants now have splashes; for consistency they are now all static (no movies; maybe one day, when I can ensure they all get those...)
Renamed Chichen Itza (as Chichen Itza is the name of the city; you're not building a whole city as a wonder)
Peace will now treat vassals same as war when it comes to playing sounds (no more overlaying of several sound instances)
Every leader now has one civ associated with them, no more no less (easier to look them up in pedia)
Umlauts and diacritics return to German, Polish and Scandinavian city names
Post-Roman leaders will now use Italian (pre-modern when applicable) city names rather than Latin
Lots of inconsistent music for many leaders switched to more proper for their respective civilization or specific leader
Fixed several typos / outdated spellings for barbarian tribe names leftover since vanilla
Visual/audio
New main menu music
Armenian leaders now have proper era-dependent soundtrack ("Sari Aghjik"; Raffi Chilingirian, Maria Chichian/Shahe Avakian/Garo Moubahiajian, Hovhannes Vardanyan for early, middle and late eras respectively)
Hungarian leaders now have proper era-dependent soundtrack (“Rákóczi March”; János Ensemble/James Kennerley/Rudolf Urbanec for early, middle and late eras respectively)
Transoxianan leaders now have proper era-dependent soundtrack (“Adai”; Hamit Rayimbergenov/Dana Zulpykhar/Asylbek Yensepov for early, middle and late eras respectively)
Berbers now use Gilgamesh musical theme, previously unused in RI
Upscaled all flags. Non-playable civilizations now use the same civic-based flag logic as playable ones
Units can (if art is specified) change art every era, not just every second one; specifically great general now often have more era-specific looks, and lots of European pikemen (and the default one) now get separate looks for Medieval and Renaissance eras
Updated a lot of units with better textures, fixed lots of previously malfunctioning gloss maps, outright remade lots of models
Gandhi is no more! He is replaced as a leader by his close friend and political ally Jawaharlal Nehru, who, unlike Gandhi, actually led the country. Purely aesthetic change, functionally Nehru is exactly the same as Gandhi was. Includes lots of real Nehru quotes used in diplomatic responses
Updated some leaders with better art
Updated some buildings with better art
Updated some terrain improvements with better art
Redid early water improvements so that painted buoys are, as historically, only a thing XIX-XX centuries (wicket baskets early on / in Asia, barrels in Medieval-Renaissance eras are used instead); added a more accurate medieval fishing vessel as the medieval variant
Made irrigated farms stand out more against terrain
Proletarian Dictatorship tech now Totalitarianism, with broader historical applicability
All galleasses now finally animated
Reworked default Solar Cult wonders to better match artwork to names
Grand Arsenal and Petronius will no longer be awkwardly embedded into the shore in pedia
Aztec pagan temple now looks different from Mayan
Jewish fortress now actually looks distinctly rather than just being regular walls
English unique building now Insurance Company (purely flavour, the effects are the same as before; make more sense historically for England than stock exchanges)
All Great Works of Science get unique pedia looks, like Great Works of Art before
When volcano event first triggers, it will now place a visible volcano on the target mountain tile
Made all (and most prominently irrigated) farms stand out more against terrain
Reduced the farm sprawl from the amount of food somewhat, now they won't hit the limit and become a perfect square under 10 food
Technical improvements
Moved a lot of turn-to-turn separatism calculations from python to game core, moved variables to XML (GlobalDefines). Should result in a much improved performance, as well as some minor improvements (such as separatism bonus visible in tooltips)
Removed the cultural decay component that seems to have been malfunctioning for who knows how long now, but could have been responsible for weird culture changes when razing cities
Some performance improvements in turn-to-turn python code
Moved all the text out of python files and into XML; should make translating easier
Removed lots of unused assets to reduce the overall mod size
Moved cultivation code to dll. Should improve performance significantly, better tooltips and Pedia text, and AI can now adequately evaluate the improvements without the need to resort to tricks like fake yields (including picking the right resource to cultivate if it doesn't have one)
Can now finetune tech speed on the fly (useful for map scripts that generate maps that tend to progress slower or quicker); this information is saved in the WorldBuilder files as well. Used to adjust tech speed with certain game options that significantly affect the game progression, such as enabling separatism or barbarian civs
