If I start at medieval era (or anytime after ancient), Mother Base will still be at level 0. This puts us at a huge disadvantage compared to other civs. I really don't want to start at Ancient because until you unlock Stealth Operative, the game is a bit boring. What I'm saying is that until Stealth Operative, you have no way to play a stealth/sabotage oriented game and it can be a bit monotonous. Perhaps we could have 1 Stealth Operative in each era, but the one current one is much better than the ones we can build at Ancient? Also it would be nice to have a certain Mother Base level milestone for each era. Like if we start at Classic we'd automatically be level 3 or so? Thanks for taking the time to read this, loving the mod.

Confession time: I actually tend to forget that games can be started in other eras. Never play anything but Ancient Era start myself. But I definitely can agree with the need for MB to start out higher in later eras. I'll add this to the next update.

Thanks! It's sort of like how if you start as a normal civ in a later era, you'll start off with a granary and some other things ( I think)

While I was playing I notice how hard it can be to buy spare units for any new puppet state. Oh also as I side note how do you buy them? Im not quite sure how that works and its not that intuitive for me to figure that out. Though you could have changed it so I don't know. Other than that its a great mod, and is challegeing to work with, and figure out keep up the great work!

Originally posted by orthanx:

While I was playing I notice how hard it can be to buy spare units for any new puppet state. Oh also as I side note how do you buy them? Im not quite sure how that works and its not that intuitive for me to figure that out. Though you could have changed it so I don't know. Other than that its a great mod, and is challegeing to work with, and figure out keep up the great work!

To buy a city state, you have to use the special ability of the Stealth Operative. However, this will consume the unit so you probably should just occupy city states (for the gold) until you're able to produce more Stealth Operatives.

Originally posted by Poirot:

To buy a city state, you have to use the special ability of the Stealth Operative.

Whoa whoa whoa. Is it letting you puppet CSes with Stealth Operatives? That's unintended behavior if so. It must be letting you build the "dummy" unit I created to make the Collective Rule policy work (for which I just copied most of its info from the Stealth Operative, but it has a -1 hammer cost, meaning it should be unbuildable...)

OK, so now that I started testing the code to increase Mother Base's level at later-era starts, I see that it provides Boss with one or more of those dummy units. It would probably be too crippling to him to only start with his one city when his opponents all have three, so I'll keep it in and rename the unit. I just hope there's no way to obtain any more of them that I don't know about.

You still looking for play reports? I was terribly unlucky and started on a barren island in the middle of nowehere, so I had to rush embarking and get units out to the city states as quickly as possible. I managed to capture 1 city but lost horribly when its owned stole all my portected city states out from under me and cost me all my mercenary income. Still had a ton of fun with it, but I noticed 3 issues:

1. I *really* wish there was a way to count protected city states as "allied territory" for the purposes of upgrading units. As it is, I never bothered upgrading them since the money I lost while ferrying back to the base made it not worthwhile.

2. I think you need to tweak the balance on Outer Ops. I either completely ignored them and let the CS do all the work or they steamrolled all my forces and burnt everything. Hell, there were a few times where I just stuck a tireme in the ocean near the CS and did nothing but still collected all the payment. Also, I think you should spawn the invading units further out. They frequently spawned right on top of my troops and displaced and/or killed them immediately.

3. Science generation is pretty slow. You have to rush military tech so you can start taking cities which means you lose-out on Writing and Education until much later. Maybe move the research and development bonus down from 13 to something quicker?

So, yeah, I think there are balance issues but I had a ton of fun with it. Will definitely follow what you have going here!

Always looking for balance suggestions, regardless of whether this is in beta or not.

1. http://www.picknmixmods.com/mods/eec833f0-530e-4478-943b-a199f696c8c0/mod.html

Not something I can add to this mod due to the need to edit the DLL, but this mod can take care of that issue if you want. You may want to wait until after the final release of the fall patch drops to use any DLL-changing mods, though -- they'll need updating.

2. I think I have a way to keep the units from displacing your existing units (making them lose fortification bonus), which I could implement in the next update. However, one thing about Outer Ops is that I do want them to be an actual *threat* rather than an annoyance. I'd recommend stationing more units in fewer CSes instead of spreading them out, so that you'll have a larger force to deal with the enemies. Indeed, you can let the CS handle it if you want, but then you miss out on the influence bonus from killing barbs near a CS (and culture from the Honor opener if you have it -- I highly recommend at least Honor's opener for the MSF).

3. With early war being weak in BNW, even for a Civ like the MSF, you'd probably be better off teching to Pottery/Writing first anyway. Sticking to one city for a bit can help you rush National College, after which you can start picking up the military techs and begin conquering. I will take the idea into consideration, though.

Appreciate the feedback!

I don't know if this would be unbalancing, but I find it annoying to have to move my units all the way back to my borders to upgrade them. I suggest that Mother Base level 10 (Free Policy I think) also allows you to upgrade your units within allied CS borders.

That was already suggested, but I'd need to edit the DLL to make it possible, which I'm avoiding since you can only use one custom DLL at a time. Use this: http://www.picknmixmods.com/mods/eec833f0-530e-4478-943b-a199f696c8c0/mod.html

Hope I'm not too late to the party here but I got a couple cents to throw in here.

First of all, fantastic work on this mod, I had a helluva lotta fun with it. I never had much interest in mods because I didn't feel like they could add anything we hadn't already seen, so I'm super glad I was at least wrong about this one mod.
Of course, it did have a couple quirks I would consider tweaking.

First thing; once, during an Outer Ops mission, one of the invading, gun-toting bags of money and rep points got stuck somewhere. It happened on an island city state, and a musketman who was almost dead retreated to a nearby island, and sat there. My ranged ships and non-ranged, embarked-to-land-combat-capable soldiers were otherwise rather occupied with an endless wave of Huns at the time, so I didn't care much at all until I realized that new Outer Ops missions wouldn't start until I finished that island ♥♥♥♥♥♥ off. So yeah, that can't be right.

Next, Metal Gears. First of all, I had a nuclear missile vanish from one of my metal gears. Which was really upsetting, because I was getting real tired of Japan's ♥♥♥♥ and I was looking forward to liberating all of the captured cities from Japan before delivering a 1300 terajoule assurance of continued peace to Kyoto. No idea where it went. Maybe it vanished when I airlifted it, or when I brought the long-dead Aztecs back from the dead and borders with no established relations were stretched over the Metal Gear. I didn't notice.
Anyway, thankfully I was able to get the liberating thing done with, and I made up for the missed nuke opportunity by manufacturing another nuke for a metal gear I was sending to watch over Russia, and the frigid ♥♥♥♥♥ immediately tried to pick a fight. So I got to use my big stick to shut her up, so that was good, wasn't it?
Also, IMO Metal Gears could use some balancing. They're designed to be BIG THINGS. You don't add a unit with 250 attack power to the game and expect players to mass produce them. That's why they have a production cost worthy of a small wonder. However, none of that is necessary because Modern Armor tanks upgrade into Metal Gears. Modern Armor Gears also don't have the unique names that come with the specially-manufactured ones, so that does a lot to take away from the noteworthiness and potential infamy of each individual unit. Doesn't feel as special, smashing up cities with a metal gear if you have three other faceless ones just like that you just upgraded from tanks (don't care what the cost is, by this stage in the game that City-State Merc paycheck game RIDDIKULUS).

Also, I almost forgot. A little feedback in regards to the stealth status of one's Stealth Operatives would be nice. Functionally, it would only really help nubs (like myself) who were not sure if cities could spot them if they were adjacent or what counts as an "armored" unit, but if your Op made an Alert noise and had the exclamation point pop up above the enemy units' heads would add a valuable "oh no I've been spotted!" feeling that would be great for reinforcing the idea that you're actually sneaking through enemy territory, and help players feel the a bit of the surprise and adrenaline that comes with actual sneaking. Atmosphere stuff, you know?
Course I don't know ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about modding, so there's a good chance what I'm asking for with that is impossible. Heck, I'd ask what the deal is with custom models for units but then I'd risk looking like a damn fool for not Googling it myself (but let's be honest that's just too much work).

So yeah, that's what I've found. Mostly balance issues, few bugs. Still didn't do much to ruin anything though. I had a good time with it. I'd start on what I like about it but as you can see I have a problem with rambling so I'll stop myself now before this post gets any longer. Thanks for reading all of this, maybe, if you did!

Originally posted by Raxas:

First thing; once, during an Outer Ops mission, one of the invading, gun-toting bags of money and rep points got stuck somewhere. It happened on an island city state, and a musketman who was almost dead retreated to a nearby island, and sat there. My ranged ships and non-ranged, embarked-to-land-combat-capable soldiers were otherwise rather occupied with an endless wave of Huns at the time, so I didn't care much at all until I realized that new Outer Ops missions wouldn't start until I finished that island ♥♥♥♥♥♥ off. So yeah, that can't be right.

This actually is by design -- new Outer Ops won't start until all of the enemy units of the existing mission are killed. Otherwise, you might get unlucky and get completely overrun as missions keep popping one after another.

Originally posted by Raxas:

Next, Metal Gears. First of all, I had a nuclear missile vanish from one of my metal gears. Which was really upsetting, because I was getting real tired of Japan's ♥♥♥♥ and I was looking forward to liberating all of the captured cities from Japan before delivering a 1300 terajoule assurance of continued peace to Kyoto. No idea where it went. Maybe it vanished when I airlifted it, or when I brought the long-dead Aztecs back from the dead and borders with no established relations were stretched over the Metal Gear. I didn't notice.
Anyway, thankfully I was able to get the liberating thing done with, and I made up for the missed nuke opportunity by manufacturing another nuke for a metal gear I was sending to watch over Russia, and the frigid ♥♥♥♥♥ immediately tried to pick a fight. So I got to use my big stick to shut her up, so that was good, wasn't it?

I have noticed that I had a nuke vanish when I captured a city with a Metal Gear. This, unfortunately, is probably an issue deep within the game engine that I may not be able to fix.

Originally posted by Raxas:

Also, IMO Metal Gears could use some balancing. They're designed to be BIG THINGS. You don't add a unit with 250 attack power to the game and expect players to mass produce them. That's why they have a production cost worthy of a small wonder. However, none of that is necessary because Modern Armor tanks upgrade into Metal Gears. Modern Armor Gears also don't have the unique names that come with the specially-manufactured ones, so that does a lot to take away from the noteworthiness and potential infamy of each individual unit. Doesn't feel as special, smashing up cities with a metal gear if you have three other faceless ones just like that you just upgraded from tanks (don't care what the cost is, by this stage in the game that City-State Merc paycheck game RIDDIKULUS).

This is going to be rectified in the next update, which is currently in testing. Modern Armors will upgrade into regular Giant Death Robots, but standard GDRs cannot be constructed directly. (Also, the Metal Gear is going to be limited to one at a time for balance.)

Originally posted by Raxas:

Also, I almost forgot. A little feedback in regards to the stealth status of one's Stealth Operatives would be nice. Functionally, it would only really help nubs (like myself) who were not sure if cities could spot them if they were adjacent or what counts as an "armored" unit, but if your Op made an Alert noise and had the exclamation point pop up above the enemy units' heads would add a valuable "oh no I've been spotted!" feeling that would be great for reinforcing the idea that you're actually sneaking through enemy territory, and help players feel the a bit of the surprise and adrenaline that comes with actual sneaking. Atmosphere stuff, you know?
Course I don't know ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about modding, so there's a good chance what I'm asking for with that is impossible. Heck, I'd ask what the deal is with custom models for units but then I'd risk looking like a damn fool for not Googling it myself (but let's be honest that's just too much work).

Adding the "!" to enemy units probably would be very difficult to mod in, unfortunately. Note that Armored units don't have the stealth-viewing capabilities that are present in the non-Subsistence version of the mod. If it mentions that anywhere in this version of the mod, I'll correct it. Unless you've got enemy Destroyers/Missile Cruisers/Subs nearby, the Stealth Operatives are only visible when directly adjacent to an enemy, so you should be relatively safe as long as you are at least one tile away from an enemy. (Though if they move into the adjacent space on your next turn, they can see you and attack you right away.)


Thanks for all the feedback! Posts like this really help me make decisions about what to fix in later updates of the mod.

Originally posted by Vice Virtuoso:

This actually is by design -- new Outer Ops won't start until all of the enemy units of the existing mission are killed. Otherwise, you might get unlucky and get completely overrun as missions keep popping one after another.

All makes sense, but to clarify, my issue was that the island the outer ops barbarian was sitting on for an amount of turns I don't care to count was outside of the city-state territory. His health got low (red low) and he embarked over to the island, which was outside of visible range, and sat there. It wasn't like he was healing up to come back and cause more trouble, he was just... Sitting, with low health. I don't think the point of the OO Barbarians was to live out their endless lives in peace, but to aggressively cause trouble.

If that's a problem with the game's code regarding barbarian behavior, and outside of what you could change without modifying EVERY barbarian, I get that though. It's not like he was being anything more than annoying. I guess a player could potentially exploit that, if their mercs were outdated tech-wise and he didn't want to lose income by recalling them for upgrades, while not wanting to risk them dying to the ever-growing barbarian machines of war. I'd call that player lazy as hell and quite likely a dumb player, but yeah, that's something to consider.

Originally posted by Vice Virtuoso:

I have noticed that I had a nuke vanish when I captured a city with a Metal Gear. This, unfortunately, is probably an issue deep within the game engine that I may not be able to fix.

Really? That's a shame. If it is possible to fix, or even to work around, I would encourage that though. Risking losing your nuclear capabilities in exchange for using the metal gear to capture cities really cuts deep into the power trip that the metal gear is supposed to bring, and this'll be especially bad if the Metal Gear becomes limited to one-at-at-time (which is a decision that's good in every way other than the problem this presents).

I'm not big into telling people how to make their mods, but I would like to encourage you to look for ways around this. Perhaps you could change the way the nuke is stored in the metal gear from the "separate unit stationed in another unit like in a carrier or city" system to... Something else? I don't know how it works and I have no place to tell you how it should, but the point is is that the metal gears are, as we know them, nuclear-armed, unstoppable machines of war. Having to choose between the "nuclear armed" and "machine of war", really would make it feel a lot less like a metal gear.

Originally posted by Vice Virtuoso:

This is going to be rectified in the next update, which is currently in testing. Modern Armors will upgrade into regular Giant Death Robots, but standard GDRs cannot be constructed directly. (Also, the Metal Gear is going to be limited to one at a time for balance.)

Baller. Actually, I just had an idea (I JUST SAID I'm not big into telling people how to make mods and yet here I go again), they could be upgraded to Gekkos. They certainly have no need to be functionally different than GDRs (unless you wanted them to) but if they were called Gekkos they could also moo which wI think would be pretty amusing.

Originally posted by Vice Virtuoso:

Adding the "!" to enemy units probably would be very difficult to mod in, unfortunately. Note that Armored units don't have the stealth-viewing capabilities that are present in the non-Subsistence version of the mod. If it mentions that anywhere in this version of the mod, I'll correct it. Unless you've got enemy Destroyers/Missile Cruisers/Subs nearby, the Stealth Operatives are only visible when directly adjacent to an enemy, so you should be relatively safe as long as you are at least one tile away from an enemy. (Though if they move into the adjacent space on your next turn, they can see you and attack you right away.)


Thanks for all the feedback! Posts like this really help me make decisions about what to fix in later updates of the mod.

I understand, thanks for clarifying for me and my innatentive reading habits. Also, thanks for paying attention to feedback! Also also, thanks for remaining active and continuing to improve your mod! Both of these things don't always happen in the modding community and it always makes me feel good to see good mods that aren't forgotten by their creators, or when modders don't equate criticism and bug reports to attacks on their worth and value as human beings.
I'm looking forward to that next update!

As a suggestion concerning the "!", make the stealth operative make the sound effect when selected.