Thanks for the comments. That's really the only way I'll find out what's going on so I can balance it. The other thing I need from you is Lua.log, especially for those high turn games.
On AI being wimpy, a couple things:
- It may be a game bug (like the Militerism opening bug [fixed in Hotfix A] or another I don't know yet), that permanently breaks an AI civ. If some AI function is crashing, then that AI will never gain another tech or policy or do anything with GPs. I can tell if this is the case from your Lua.log.
- None of the new game mechanics have been adjusted for difficulty yet. The base Civ5 AI normally plays with a Chieftain/Prince handicap against your King/Emperor/whatever. For all new mechanics, however, you are evenly handicapped. So adding handicaps for the new mechanics is something I need to do.
- There is still some missing AI I need to add. For one, they aren't aware of the last two policy branches I added (Pantheism and Theism) so they are missing out on a big chunk of the game. (Fortunately, the AI system is all there so it won't be that hard to add these.) Also, they don't yet have any urgency in remove Living Terrain if not Pantheistic (which they should).
I'm surprised that the Living Terrain is still so tough. I reduced strength of starting features to 1-3 (random) and newly spawned features to 1. That's the percent chance per turn per feature that it will try to grow to an adjacent plot, or regenerate if it has been removed. But that's still too high I take it? Perhaps I should reduce the newly spawned strength to 0, --then spread will just stop on its own after all features have grown to an adjacent plot. (I assume you are aware of the strength indicator in the map mouse-over and are targeting the high strength features for removal?)
On Knowledge Maintenance, it is good that you are being stopped from infinite tech progression, but bad the way it is happening. It
is based on an asymptotic system, but:
- Because Sage Research is not subject to Knowledge Maintenance, your Sages are blowing through the ceiling and so there is no sense of an asymptotic approach (rather, you just suddenly loose any effect whatsoever from your research infrastructure rather than a slow diminishing returns).
- The current system is a function of population, where you spend x points per tech known per citizen on Knowledge Maintenance (it's calculated as points but then converted and applied as a %modifier because that is easier to mod). The problem here is that your population is growing (probably faster than your research infrastructure) which means that the ceiling is lowering. So then (just like in #1 above) you "blow through the ceiling" and loose the asymptotic effect.
I think the solution to 1 and 2 above is: 1) subject Sage Research to Knowledge Maintenance, and 2) go back to an older system for K.M. that I had developed (and was talked out of by PowelS and others
) that did not reference population at all. The old system went like this: Each city had a Knowledge Maintenance penalty that was simply -10% per tech known. That penalty could be lowered (by Writing-branch techs, Tradition policies) to a minimum of -5% per tech known. Also, you could counteract it locally in a city by research infrastructure. For example, if you had -100% K.M. and a University (+20% research) then you really have a total modifier of -80% in that city. A nice consequence of this system is that your spam cities (in late game) contribute 0 research but your core research-focus cities are still putting out some research (and may continue to do so if you continue to add research infrastructure [though I need to add some more buildings to make this possible]). (Btw, I don't think you will sell off all your libraries because they continue to give you 1c.)
Contributed code is very welcome but a bit tricky because it needs to fit into the existing framework, which is pretty massive. There is already a UnitsPerCivTurn(iPlayer) function (find in EaUnits.lua) so anything checking promotions would go in there. Simpler implementation is always better so I'd prefer using an existing system (core Civ5 or an Ea mechanic that exists) than making a new one, even if that means altering a bonus effect a little. However, there is a lot that Ea code can do. It's very common in the mod to add a hidden policy or tech or building associated with a naming trait (or to add, say, a hidden policy when a tech is gained, or visa versa). I'm assuming the Pantheistic move effects are simple policy->promotion mechanic (there is a promotion tag for this, no?) --so this is just a couple lines added in Policies.sql and UnitPromotions.sql (which will go in v 5 for sure if someone posts for me, --just look in the Changelog to make sure it isn't something I did already). Or, If you wrote a SpawnResourceNearCity(city, resourceID) function, then I could just drop that in EaPlots.lua and then call it from Traits.lua (which can have triggered functions for civ-naming traits -- there are a couple others that also are supposed to add a resource).
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