Realism Invictus mod for Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword

2 comments by WalterHawkwood on Dec 27th, 2011

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to proudly announce the release of Realism: Invictus 3.1! After almost a full year of development, 3.1 version is built upon hours and hours of playtesting, tons of user feedback and a lot of effort on our side to create the most polished, balanced and overall flawless experience. Bugs were solved, features were added, gameplay was tweaked, looks were improved...

So, what to expect from 3.1?

• New major scenario: the Crusades Era. A whole bunch of content added specifically for that scenario, including lots of flavor units, a whole new flavor religion only available there, even whole new civilizations.
• New (very old, actually) major scenario: smaller World Map. For those who find the huge World Map running too slow. This is the map we used back in Total Realism mod of Warlords era.
• Numerous tweaks to huge World Map scenario.
• Minor civilizations significantly overhauled, with different bonuses depending on their civilization level.

• New playable civilization: Dravida, the southern part of India, complete with its own leaders, NUs, UBs, flavor units and basically everything. Old Indian civilization also redesigned to reflect that it is now a Hindi civilization, representing the northern part of India.
• New playable civilization: Armenia, complete with its own leaders, NUs, UBs, flavor units and basically everything. Great to play on the World Map!
• New playable civilization: Ethiopia, complete with its own leaders, NUs, UBs, flavor units and basically everything.
• New playable civilization: South China, mostly complete with its own leaders, NUs, UBs. At the moment it shares most pre-modern flavor units with North China.
• More leaders added to some civilizations (most of new leaders are used in the scenarios).

• All playable civilizations now have 2 different National Units (in many cases there will also be unique units these NUs upgrade to as well).
• Added ranged bombardment ability to cannon-like siege units. These units are now able to bombard adjacent enemy units causing damage instead of attacking head-on.
• New unit type, heavy emplaced artillery: immobile artillery pieces, generally more powerful than contemporary mobile cannons. Several upgrade levels. Can only be constructed in cities with fortifications.
• Recon unit line now better integrated into the big strategic picture: other unit types have more bonuses and weaknesses against recon units.
• New unit class in recon line: explorers now upgrade to light infantry, corresponding to XVIII-XIX century sharpshooter/skirmisher/jaeger regiments.
• Added and remade/rebalanced lots of flavor units for many existing civilizations.
• Some anachronistic units will now change their looks when a civilization enters Medieval era. No longer will ancient Egyptian archers fight side by side with Mamluk cavalry and Roman velites won’t coexist with Milanese knights.
• Changed upgrade paths for several units. Many NUs now have their own unique upgrades, sometimes radically changing the nature of the unit (for instance, you can now upgrade Immortals to heavy cavalry).
• Nerfed light cavalry. The time of all light cavalry armies is now gone.
• Raised city defense bonus from culture, increased city defense for some units. In general, the tactical balance should now be shifted somewhat to defensive side.
• Workboats cannot reveal map now. Early naval exploration requires real ships!
• All promotions are now kept when a unit is upgraded.
• Taught AI how to use certain unit types better.
• Taught AI how to use Great Generals much better. AI will properly found Doctrines and Traditions, and choose suitable troops to lead.

• Several civics rebalanced, renamed and even moved to different categories. Organized religion split into Civil Religion and Monasticism, Theocracy split into Theocracy proper (moved to Government category) and Militancy. City States civic removed.
• Default number of civs increased for all map sizes, for added fun and helping AI to better survive early barbarians.
• Number of cities now hurts your economy more – somewhat slower expansion.
• Coal, sulfur and aluminum will spawn more consistently on random maps.
• New terrain feature: scrubland. Spawns on deserts.
• To develop your own nuclear program, you will be required to expend a Great Scientist; one now has to put more effort in getting nuclear power plants and weapons!
• Holy city migration can now be turned on and off when starting a custom game.
• AI can now play to win (consciously pursuing a chosen victory type). This can be set when starting a custom game.
• When capturing a city, you will get much more progress on a tech unknown to you (depending on city size, up to learning the whole tech).
• Tech transfer system overhauled to not generate overflow; it can no longer be abused by tax rate manipulation.
• AI leaders will ask to trade maps, join wars and stop trading with their enemies far less often now.

• Fixed many broken triggers in events and quests. Note: quests will still demand absurdly high amount of stuff in scenarios; this is directly tied to the way events are scaled to map size, and it will probably be fixed later.
• Apostolic Palace fixed and working.
• Numerous performance-enhancing tweaks to the code. Everything runs smoother and more stable.
• Fixed several code bugs that have been causing random CTDs.
• Added a lot of Great Person splashes, especially for newly added civs.
• Major cleanup of models, animations and textures used in RI.A ton of small improvements here and there.
• MIP filtering for unit and building textures standardized (for the first time in a Civ 4 mod to my knowing); there should be no texture “shimmering” now on any model.

Get the full version here

Or the light version here

Both new and veteran players are encouraged to consult the manual before playing (you can get it here quickly, while you are waiting for the installer to download). Returning players will find, as usual, the special "What's new" sections for their convenience.