Legendary Journeys

IMPORTANT: Due to issues with both Game Speeds and Handicaps having certain aspects that could not be altered via mods, I was forced to create custom versions of both while leaving the defaults untouched (except for changing the text as warnings). This means to launch the mod properly, you will need to select placeholders in the initial Game Setup then proceed to Advanced Setup and use the drop down menus to select appropriate speeds and handicaps for the mod.
If any of the drop down menus in Advanced Setup begin as blank (usually caused if config.ini stored previous settings that were added by mods), there can be an issue of not being able to select an item for it, so you will have to back out to the initial Setup (just one screen) and make sure nothing there is empty (this is the issue which prevented me from simply bypassing the initial screen and going straight to Advanced).


Now it is time for me to give credit where credit is due.
First, I'd like to thank Thalassacus and his fellow modders at Communitas
-For: Making CIVUP/VEM which first introduced me to modding (wonderful work) that both

• inspired ideas for my mod (Deserts and Snow requiring 2 Move for one) and
• gave me something to study to further my understanding of modding (yes, I brutally dissected your wonderful mod to examine its innards )

Secondly, I'd like to thank William Howard
-For: His wonderful Pick N Mix Mods to which I was recently introduced (and also dissected to improve my understanding of SQL & LUA ) and especially his "DLL - Various Mod Components", which made some of the aspects of my mod so much easier than the shoddy workarounds I did on my own.

Thirdly, I'd like to thank the wonderful community here at CFC
-For: Providing great mods (yes, I dissected a few - honestly, it was for research and not some deep seated desire to rip things apart! ), inspiration and even helpful suggestions in response to my various queries.


With that out of the way, on towards Legendary Journeys.
I've been working on this mod pretty much since Civ V was released because I never liked the pace of the base game, everything seem rushed with units going obsolete before you could really enjoy them. The implementation of Epic and Marathon speeds also left a lot to be desired for me as it slowed everything (including worker rates and construction times) leading to long periods of nothing much for me to do but click End Turn if I wasn't involved in a war.

Balancing the game (and especially the AI) to handle a much slower pace was a difficult task met with many hurdles and frustration often left the unfinished work on the wayside for long periods. When I almost had it working to my satisfaction, a new Expansion was released that completely altered the mechanics and introduced new issues to balancing and after a long period working to retool my mod for Gods & Kings, I suffered a hard drive corruption and lost all my data (yep, forgot to back up ) and once again set my project aside.

Since I got Brave New World, I found it much easier to balance to my satisfaction. Although I still hesitated to release it because certain workarounds I made for mechanics (like moving through terrains like Ice or Mountains) seemed crude. Then I discovered William Howard's DLL which fixed many of the issues I was having. While I was looking at all the features of his DLL, I decided to expand the ideas for my mod and incorporate quite a few. While still not quite polished, I believe my mod is ready for an Alpha release, because if left to just me playing it looking for errors (mainly missed text entries or other things I have overlooked) or checking balance on various map sizes, handicaps and game speeds it'll probably take a few more years since I can spend a month or more on one game.

REQUIREMENTS:
Legendary Journeys requires both Gods & Kings as well as Brave New World.

I have no intentions of making backdated versions because the changes in previous versions (losing Trade Routes, getting gold from water tiles, less happiness without religion and extra luxuries, etc.) severely impact game play at a slower pace. It wasn't until now I was able to balance it to my liking and re-tweaking the Months per Turn increment (which isn't quite set, yet ) is a just one of the chores I do not wish to revisit for various versions. Anyone wants to they can have it on their own, dissecting my mod to see how I altered the pace!

It also currently requires the Ancient Wonders DLC because I referenced some art from the scenario (Sumerian Phalanx) although if I find a better unit model, I might relent on that requirement. It should not require any other DLC (apart from Mongolia which everyone should have for free now anyway).

You will need William Howard's DLL - Various Mod Components.
I kept this file separate for two reasons:

• So it will retain its unique ID which is required by several of WHoward's other mods.
• It makes it easier to update when not unceremoniously stuffed into a huge mod with other components.

You will also need the Pick N Mix Compendium I compiled from several of his various mods which I chose to implement into mine.
I kept this file separate for the following reasons:

• It contains no original work by me (just combined several files to keep from having to click 20+ little check boxes before launching)
• Since the files are basically unaltered from their original mods by William Howard (just a few things for convenience like moving all text modifications to one area and combining mods that did one or two changes to CustomModOptions into one file) it could be used without my mod as a prerequisite for another mod or just for convenience.
• I had to run several tests to make sure I didn't completely bork the system while combining the mods and since I already had it as a separate package (and stupidly forgot to put a root directory separate from the bazillion child directories I created for his mod ) the lazy part of me decided it would be easier to just keep them separate (and not have to redo a bazillion lines of UpdateDatabase after moving all the child folders into a parent to keep it separate from my mod's child folders ).

The Pick N Mix Compendium contains the following (and blocks anything it contains which added LUA or new items - such as improvements or units - to avoid multiple mods attempting to add the same thing):


And finally we reach Legendary Journeys!
(Well, almost... there's the file but I'll address what it contains in detail next post).

This file will block the following of William Howard's Mods because they interfere with changes I made:


I'd highly recommend bc1's Enhanced User Interface
as I use it myself (so it should have few compatibility issues - although some of William Howard's UI alterations replace functionality of bc1's, namely CityView and UnitPanel which I will look into creating a combined version for my mod... eventually ).

Update: Pick N Mix Compendium (v3) & Legendary Journeys (v3) uploaded (17 Jan 14)
Version History can be viewed in Readme.txt.

What Legendary Journeys entails:
It is a very slow research game while maintain Standard speed construction and build times.

It currently has three game speeds:

• Quick - 180 Turns Per Era
• Standard - 240 Turns Per Era
• Epic - 300 Turns Per Era

Despite your initial impressions this does not lead to a lot of clicking Next Turn (at least not for me, I always have something to do).

Your mileage may vary depending on how you manage your empire, map size and conditions, civilization choice, policies, goody huts, etc. It is balanced around my play style (I'll address this later) and Large Maps.

Turns per Era will also vary slightly based on Era (it's an approximation and the Ancient era will likely take a significant bit longer as you are just getting established - should stabilize by Medieval/Renaissance).

There are five Handicaps:

• Chieftan - No AI bonuses. Plays like regular Settler except the AI WILL declare war. Bonus vs Barbarians is moderate.
• Warlord - Slight AI Bonuses. Equivalent to Prince in regular game for dominating AI. Bonus vs Barbarians is minor.
• Prince - Minor AI Bonuses. Balanced difficulty, you might out tech AI early but they will catch up and even outpace you. No Barbarian bonus.
• King - Moderate AI Bonuses. Slightly challenging to remain dominant. Minor penalty vs Barbarians.
• Emperor - AI Bonuses. Challenging to remain dominant. AI will often remain ahead. Moderate penalty vs Barbarians.

The AI gets NO free techs.

Regardless of difficulty level player bonuses (apart from vs Barbarians) are fixed. Same Happiness level, same reduction in unit/building maintenance rates, same research/construction speeds - the only thing that varies is AI bonuses, diplomacy difficulty, barbarian strength and goody huts available (lower gold in higher settings and - if they are functioning properly - worse "bad" goodies).

Several Adjustments were necessary to balance the pace of the game:

• Most Free Tech had to be eliminated (Free Tech is utterly crippling in a slow paced research game especially at the early parts where you'll be 50-150 turns behind)
• Reworked Goodies - Free Tech, Unit Upgrades, Settlers or Population could be unbalancing early in the game.
• Limited World Wonders to 2 per City (National Wonders unaffected) - So plan accordingly, yes I know this severely impacts Venice and I'm looking at fixing that, but it was necessary to cut down on runaways (AI and player).
• Gated several World Wonders to require entire Policy Trees (so there's a further reason to fully complete a Policy tree).
• Most Great People have had their "missions" reduced in effect to make settling them more appealing (Scientists will likely only give you 1/3 to 2/3 reduction in current research so creating Academies is more useful in the long term).
• Reduced Population loss on sacking a city from 50% to 40% (as a balance for the slower growth rate to slightly reduce the impact of city flipping)
• Reduced Experience Needed Per Level from 10 to 5 - This helps AI tremendously in combat allowing them to spam their favored "Insta Heal" more often, despite this human players can still easily dominate the game since the slower pace puts even more emphasis on combat over other factor.
• Doubled influence needed for culture levels - with the slow pace of game it was necessary to avoid Culture Victory being the easiest to achieve (usually by the time you got a few Hotels).
• Reduced City State Influence decay by 20%.
• Added more versions of World's Fair and International Games for later eras unlocked by tech.
• Moved Process Wealth to Agriculture so you didn't have to churn out units and sell them for several hundred turns and increased Flavor so the AI will rely more on it to stabilize their economy (AI still runs deficits frequently before Renaissance).
• Maintenance had to be slightly tweaked and most civilian units (Workers, Herdsmen without Rustled Resources, Great People, Missionaries - but not Inquisitors, etc.) are now maintenance free. This helps the AI, which tends to spam more workers, avoid completely crippling their economy (I tended to treat workers as disposable, disbanding them when there was nothing to do, but the AI seldom disbands them).
• Improved the effectiveness of Espionage (so spies didn't take 5x or more the time to steal a tech as it did to research it)
• Added an extra Spy for entering Renaissance (so the tech leader can keep one on defense and still do something else) and an additional one for entering Modern (giving a grand total of 8 or 9 if you're England).
• Defensive Embarkation can be earned with Sailing (allowing early embarking units and a promotion that remains useful - except maybe for Songhai)
• Enhanced Barbarians - they get a +200% bonus when attacking cities and they can cross ice, mountains and embark from the start of the game. Their archers and Spearmen are no longer weaker than regular ones. And beware late game Barbarian units that require no resources... like the no Uranium Barbarian GDR replacement Land Leviathan.
• Increased Experience from Barbarians to 50 - Equal to a fresh unit churned out of a city with Brandenburg Gate and all buildings/policies available to every civilization that grant experience (also allows units to get 4 promotions before Barbarians give no experience).
• Reduced dominance of Archer units compared to Siege and greatly increased Siege defensive strength.
• Reduced City Range Attack - still hits hard in defense when attacked by melee, but reduced impact of bombard since City Strength grows faster than unit upgrades become available. This makes units the primary means to thin out attackers.
• Increased the cost of Pantheons slightly and Prophets greatly. This means religion is slower to gain so you'll be stuck with just a pantheon for longer.
• Reworked most Turns_Between and Turns_Until to be multiples of 12, since the base time unit is months and in later eras turns can be one month long I planned things to be 1 to 5 years based on that (this includes how long you are war locked and how many turns you have to prepare if an ally asks you to go to war (even though UI might say 'Give us 10 turns to prepare' it is 12)
• Reduced Science Yield of Natural Wonders by 1-2 (for early game balance)
• Made Horses visible from the start of the game - even before you poop your first city.
• Made Aluminum visible at Scientific Theory (instead of Electricity).

Specific Adjustments by Category (some entries may appear in multiple categories)

GENERAL:

POLICIES:

TERRAIN: (includes Features and Improvements)

BUILDINGS: (Includes Wonders)

PROMOTIONS:

UNITS:

CIVILIZATION SPECIFIC:

DISCLAIMER: This is still an early Alpha. I haven't finished my first test game with current build but I've played several with MOST of the above changes - I did a modder no-no and included several last minute untested additions when packaging release but as my intent was to release an alpha, I believe this is acceptable (I will refrain from this in beta or later releases and only release changes I have tested).

If you choose to play it, understand there might be bugs (one of the reasons I decided to release it was help finding missed text entries and other broken sections from those who are willing, but you are under no obligation to be an alpha tester, just don't complain about it being broken if you don't help me find what's broken!)

A bit of a warning... load times (and eventually turn times) can get extremely long late game on Huge maps (why I dropped to Large for balance, but they can still get a bit long once AI gets flight unless you turn on Quick Move/Quick Combat).

This isn't merely a "game speed" mod intended to be launched with other major mods. When I was retooling the game speed, I noticed several areas that required rebalancing to keep the game playable at such a slow research pace and due to this I decided to make it a "stand-alone" mod, which means it will not be fully compatible with other major overhaul mods (such as CIVUP/BEM) but can be used with ones that do minor changes (like replacing a Civ's UU with a UB). I might incorporate features from specific overhaul mods, if I believe they'll improve my game.

Also does not seem to function with IGE. Not sure if this is a compatibility issue with changes in my mod or the Enhanced DLL (will test in next few days).

KNOWN ISSUES:

Plans for the future:

• Finding better models/icons than using orphans. I've been looking at some of Danrell's but have made no decisions yet.
• Been debating adding in more units - a Tank Destroyer line for AT upgrades, for one, a late game tank that carries missiles akin to Steve Jackson's O.G.R.E. (was thinking of calling it T.R.O.L.L. Thermonuclear Rocket Ordanance Launching Leviathan) and more late game units... maybe a Future Era.
• I'd like to see if I could have civilian units earn experience somehow (either by work or just being garrisoned in a city with a University like VEM did with Barracks)
• Adding in VEMs system for granting terrain-based promotions to barbarians/CS based on surrounding terrain.
• Filling in lonely Techs (Steam Power currently only has Ironclad... was going to put Balloon there but Scientific Theory made more sense)
• Seeing about improving AI behavior (lofty goal and probably beyond my reach)
• Checking possibility of allowing Venice to request Puppets to build wonders (by Purchasing a building that allows the Puppet to attempt to construct a wonder) akin to a CS giving quests to build one - probably remove Venice's OCC restriction as a workaround.
• Add in more support for other mods (CSD comes to mind, especially since William Howard added support on his DLL)
• I have more ideas... will update as I remember them...

This mod is primarily for my style of play, so I won't be making adjustments contradictory to that.

A bit about how I play (subject to alteration/clarification as I feel necessary):

I'm a very patient person (so the long load times don't annoy me greatly) and I like to plod along slowly, planning well in advance yet my plans are subject to change.

I'm a Passive-Aggressive warmonger. I have no qualms about exterminating every AI in the game, but for the most part I'll keep to myself and "play nice" all the time planning out how I'm going to map my empire across the entire globe and which AI cities need to be razed. Once an AI "gets in my way" (Large Diplo Hit), I will let slip the dogs of war...

I believe I have some form of OCD because I feel the urge to micromanage greatly and be in constant control of the every aspect of my empire:

• I almost never Puppet cities - I will either Raze or Annex (so I can fully control them)
• I always lock my population, never allow the governor to move them. They seldom change after being set, I like my cities to have a mix of production, food and gold but will alter if situation demands only to return to my original settings after the crisis is averted or my goal is achieved.
• I'm rabid about theming Great People - it greatly annoys me when I capture an enemy city and it has Wonders that grant different GP points (like Stonehenge and Colossus) and I usually respond by razing the city out of spite. I feel each city should be dedicated to one (and ONLY one) GP and theme my wonders and specialists accordingly.
• I don't feel "Science is king", I'm going to beat the AI because I can manage my empire better and actually use something called "tactics" in battle so I feel no need to race through techs to gain even more advantage over them (actually have more fun if I'm NOT tech leader because tech advantage gives AI a bit of an equalizer)
• I seldom "bulb" my Great People, preferring to settle them on non-Fresh Water Grassland/Tundra or Desert/Snow.
• I never automate workers. I like to keep most of surroundings of my city resplendent in their natural beauty until such time as it is needed. I will only add improvements as necessary (this doesn't mean just one per pop and one queue for next growth, sometimes I might have multiple extras if varied... like a few mines and a few farms to swap between production and growth if I need).
• I dislike chopping forests/jungle unless it's really necessary (resource underneath) and prefer to preserve them for later in the game where I can put lumbermills and trading posts.
• I seldom set distant waypoints or automate explorers - I have no problems moving a unit every turn because where he is going might change if a barbarian camp pops up or some AI starts mobilizing an army.
• I like to field a large army - half defensive, half offensive
• Each city maintains a "National Guard" based on the population size and whether it is coastal, inland or island - yes, you could say I actually have charts on how to do that and I start producing the next unit either when the city reaches a threshold or early enough so it will complete by then.
• My "Standing Army" is comprised of 4 unit "divisions" and also based on population of cities in the empire (every city with a pop of 4 grants one free slot for an army unit as does pop 8.... 12 and 16 are navy slots... etc.)
• I dislike losing units... especially experienced ones - I get quite attached to them and they all have unit designations (like "NG 2D-1 Sentry" for National Guard, 2nd Division - meaning my 2nd City - 1st Sentry or perhaps 1st Recon for my "standing army" - and this is usually the first scout I ever built too!), so I will be slow, methodical machine during war and might spend 20+ sieging a city while rotating out units, pulling back when the AI pushes, pillaging tiles, etc. until I finally capture it (all the while I am unlikely to accept a peace treaty unless failure to do so would cost "lives" of my cherished men).
• I don't follow a specific formula for victory every time... I play theme games where I decide Policies, attitude towards neighbors, tech order, Ideology, victory conditions, etc. all based on the Civilization I am playing altered by how my starting location looks and how the game is flowing but sticking WITHIN my pre-defined theme (like when I played Ottomans, I decided to do a "naval jihad" theme so I opened Piety, after finishing it, I went Honor and then Exploration... I ended up choosing Order over Autocracy due to what I needed at the time but either fit the theme for me - Freedom would have been outside it - I also concentrated on settling coasts/islands and in late game when I had 30 cities only 2 were landlocked)
• While winning is nice, it's the actual creation of a world spanning empire from just a settler that I enjoy most (which is why I created this game pace so I could enjoy the JOURNEY and not just race to the destination...)

This might explain why few of my turns involve simply clicking "Next Turn" since I've always got something to do... if not moving a unit, then directing a worker to improve a newly tile, setting production on several cities, assigning population, keeping a paranoid eye on my rabid AI neighbors or gazing lustfully at where my empire will expand next. This game pace prevents me from being overwhelmed by too much micromanagement every turn while allowing me just enough so that every turn offers me something to do.

The actual mod (in its current state) changes more than I myself would like, but I am eager to try it, and particularly interested in the balancing necessary to make this sort of mod work.

I definitely think CIV 6 should include the option for slower research without slower build speeds, and balance accordingly.

I tend to play CIV 5 at epic speed, having played at marathon alot and gotten sick of the long build times.

I enjoy reading about how people play. In some ways you're like me, in other ways my polar opposite. We have in common a preference for some decisions that are purely esthetic, or idiosyncratic, or obsessive, that power-gamers would find pointless.

For CIV 4, I created a set of simple mods that halted technological progress -- one mod per era, plus a few intermediate ones. For example, my "Classical PLUS" mod included all of that era's techs, plus a few more to allow a full range of world religions. In each case, I made a few changes to balance the experience of being stuck in, say, the ancient era; however, these changes were minimal. They made the modded games playable, not balanced, I'd say ... I didn't ever fully grasp the extent of the havoc the mods could wreak, since I was the only playtester, and not very systematic at that. (These mods were never shared with the community.) I made careful notes about which civs would be wholly or partly handicapped by my tech-freezing mods, although I made very few tweaks in response: my main strategy was to KNOW which civs were harmed or helped, not fix every civ for every era's mod(s).

When CIV 5 came out, I considered repeating the whole task, but it finally occurred to me that I could just slow down research, or slow it down after a given era. Then, of course, I started to realize all the issues that would arise, that account for many (not all) of Barghaest's changes ...

Dunno if I'll make the mod(s), but Barghaest's work and comments have certainly raised my interest and enthusiasm for such projects.

Espartafilardo said:

The actual mod (in its current state) changes more than I myself would like, but I am eager to try it, and particularly interested in the balancing necessary to make this sort of mod work.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I figured that might be the case for some... I went a little overboard including some "optional" stuff when I discovered William Howard's mods (Herdsmen and Prospectors are prime examples; however they can be ignored entirely since the AI does not really make use of them), but as I said I originally did this for my own benefit.

As for the balance changes, most of them are documented in the various .xml or .sql files (tried to be vigorous with my comments as to why I did things not just what I did).

Some of the changes were to help the AI handle slow research (the first attempt at doing this pre-G&K left the AI stagnant - they actually REFUSED to research and would often remain in Ancient Era when I was in Modern) while others were to give something to do while waiting for research to come along (like moving Process Wealth to Agriculture, for one).

When you work for free, it's definitely excusable to include stuff that's for your own benefit

What's interesting (or vexing) is how much COULD or SHOULD be done, balance-wise, in response to a few "simple" changes involving Civ 5 research speed, for ex.

When I made my simple Civ 4 progress-stopping mods, I decided that all I could do was apply a few band-aids to the most glaring problems (that I perceived).

Other problems could be avoided: I knew there was no point starting a non-pangaea type map when the lowest-tech mods were enabled, for example. If I had shared my work, that issue (among many others) would have required a disclaimer, or further work.

Hi, Barghaest.
What game speed do you recommend to play your mod?

I've been using Legendary Standard while testing... I'd probably recommend Legendary Quick for first time users since it's significantly longer than Marathon; however, my friend who was helping in early alpha testing uses Legendary Epic and tells me he loves the pace of it.

This mod seems to suit my playing style ! Maybe dumb question : Does it include Communitas pack or is it compatible with it ?

Shoryn said:

This mod seems to suit my playing style ! Maybe dumb question : Does it include Communitas pack or is it compatible with it ?

Click to expand...

It doesn't include the complete Communitas pack, I did include a few things (snow/desert taking 2 move for one) and I was inspired heavily by VEM when I started making it. I will probably include more eventually but it is not compatible with it.

After reading everything in detail, I think this modification is just suited for me and will definitely try it Another question : did you try playing it with City-State Diplomacy mod ? I think it should be compatible (at least with the no-DLL version) ? Same question for Civ4 Diplomatic Features ? Maybe with this one, since your mod use the Various Mod Components package as well ?
Sorry to bother you with compatibility questions but I think a combination of these plus your mod would be really epic

Hi Barghaest !
Well I tried yesterday, they don't seem to get along very well - I get the "entire list of tech" bug from Civ4 DF, and didn't have the chance to test CSD yet. I'm eager to try to merge them myself as well as adding CEP features, but since my modding experience come only from Civ4 I'll probably need some training
A lot of work is awaiting, I guess

Strange, I have CSD and the Diplo mod activated alongside this (using the various mod components stuff), 500+ turns in a game, and everything's fine. Are you sure you installed everything correctly?
By the way, awesome mod Barghaest, I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. My only complaint is that the AI seems very passive, even Shaka rarely wages war in my game... Though I've been using Communitas up until now, so maybe I just got used to that.

Malinov said:

Strange, I have CSD and the Diplo mod activated alongside this (using the various mod components stuff), 500+ turns in a game, and everything's fine. Are you sure you installed everything correctly?
By the way, awesome mod Barghaest, I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. My only complaint is that the AI seems very passive, even Shaka rarely wages war in my game... Though I've been using Communitas up until now, so maybe I just got used to that.

Click to expand...

Interesting news ! Could you tell me your exact setup of mods please (with versions) ? I shall have something along the rest causing issues.
I thing it would be perfect to get this working with these mods plus adding more interesting features from Communitas. I've been waiting for a long-research-short-production pace like I used to have in Civ4

Alrighty, here's a pic of my mods folder. I use everything in my current game, except Communitas, and the custom civs. The game is patched up to the latest version.

Thank you ! I'll try with that setup.

Edit: Unfortunately, Civ4 Diplo features doesn't seem to work for me.
I have almost the same setup as you, but with less mods.
That's what I get when I go on diplomacy with a civ I just met. Basically, the Civ4 diplomacy features are useless and do nothing plus I get a complete list of technology which I can't trade (well I can, but nothing happens)

Glad to help, lemme know if it works.

Just tried, doesn't seem to work, at least for Civ4 Diplomacy. I still need to encounter a city-state to try CSD ! I've attached screencaps in my above post.

Edit : Oh wait, I'm dumb. Definitely dumb. I didn't properly install the Various Mod Comps. That's what I get when I want to get everything too fast !

Shoryn said:

Another question : did you try playing it with City-State Diplomacy mod ? I think it should be compatible (at least with the no-DLL version) ? Same question for Civ4 Diplomatic Features ?

Click to expand...

I was planning on adding full compatibility with those mods a bit later... been playing Civ 5 pretty heavily for past two months, so taking a short break from my test game this week (Borderlands 2), but I did plan to test with those two a bit later (I did like what I read of CSD).

Malinov said:

By the way, awesome mod Barghaest, I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. My only complaint is that the AI seems very passive, even Shaka rarely wages war in my game... Though I've been using Communitas up until now, so maybe I just got used to that.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's always been a bit of an issue with my mod, while the AI may DoW me several times during Ancient when my army is small, it tends to be passive towards me later in the game (although I've had no issues with the AI battling amongst themselves). Now that the core functions seem to be working properly (still haven't thoroughly tested late game mechanics apart from a few advanced starts) I plan on seeing what I can do with AI and checking more features of Communitas to add in.

The AI was far more aggressive before I altered the difficulty settings; however, they also tended to seriously outperform the player on lower difficulties because their bonuses have tremendous impact on their research capabilities.

Shoryn said:

Edit : I didn't properly install the Various Mod Comps. That's what I get when I want to get everything too fast !

Click to expand...

Yes, my Pick N Mix Compendium doesn't activate those Custom Mod Options, so you would need William Howard's mod to do so when using CSD versions that require DLL enhancement.