Acken's Minimalistic Balance for singleplayer (and AI improvements)

adcarrymaokai said:

By SQL you mean the documents from your folder? I opened Aesthetics.sql with Textpad, is this what I should be correcting:

?

If so, I can do it some time during the week.

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Yes. All SQL commands that have the syntax
UPDATE Language_en_US SET Text='' WHERE Tag='';
are tooltip changes. There are a few of them scattered through the files usually in their logical files.
There are also a couple of the following type
INSERT INTO Language_en_US
('Tag', 'Text') VALUES
('', '');
you can also rectify those if you think it's necessary. The difference between the two types if you want to know is that the first one is me changing an already existing text while the second is me creating new texts.

90% of the work is in the Policies directory.

Ok. I will poke around that "code."

Though I am getting really busy with the mod when I get home after work. Tried playing Liberty+Piety ICS, but for some reason social policy acquisition feels slow. I have monuments, shrines, temples, mosques and pagodas in 11 cities, 1 cultural CS ally and 1 cultural CS friend, and yet I haven't finished both trees by t140. Suleiman got upset and oneshot my 2 7 city with a Janissary. Okay...

I still don't buy the whole "get a pantheon of second most popular religion" in the finisher. It leaves you to the randomness of the AI, and unlike Liberty, Tradition, or Honor finishers feels very arbitrary and weak. Maybe let players choose a pantheon? Or even an extra founder belief? Even with those bonuses Piety would hardly be better than other trees.

The finisher also gives follower beliefs of other religions, so extra faith buildings etc. It's true that there is still some amount of unpredactibility to it though but the finisher gives you a free prophet for our predictability needs which is a pretty decent bonus in itself.

Not having guilds is the likely cause of slow policies. Cities still increase policy cost as much as they used to and while the exponent for policy costs was decreased it shouldn't really feel it before policy 9-10.

adcarrymaokai said:

I mean that Honor policy gives a Hoplite, which is stronger than the usual Spearman, and then Greek UA makes it really easy to bully CS and get away without any penalty. No other civ can abuse Honor like that.

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I actually randomed the Germans and picked honor and I think they are the ones that can use it very well. Two extra barbarian hunters to recruit the brutes even faster than before.

Btw great mod Acken I like the ranged troop nerfs alot especially seemed silly that the ones that don't need the special resources were so strong. Btw the barracks only show happiness from military caste and not culture, unless the fact that I used infoaddict with your mod and it suddenly not being there anymore somehow did it. I still got the culture though but it didn't show.

civawesome said:

I still got the culture though but it didn't show.

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Extra culture from shrines and temples also doesn't show, but it's there.

I restarted my Arabia map, and Suleiman has a casus belli against me upon meeting him for the first time? Bug?

Wow, AI can really be a threat now. Suleiman took my cap with 6 warriors and 4 archers. I had to reload and build some warriors. But then I took back my conquered expo, razed a city of his and picked up Istanbul with CB's/Spearman. Now I am warring with Bouddica. I think melee units are a little too strong right now.

But I think I will restart again. I wanted to play peaceful Piety. It still, however, has the problem of total lack of hammers, and that really delays absolutely everything.

One thing I did was fun: I picked a belief to buy pre-industrial land units, and every turn I could buy a warrior for 80 faith and upgrade him into a swordsman because I had tons of money. I very rapidly got a big army of strong melee units. Horsemen can also be purchased with faith and upgraded into camel archers. Fun!

If anything certain Civs remain insanely aggressive while others are rather passive. Case in point, Assyria is big on early rush but given their UU this makes sense.

I posted this on Steam but with more room here, I'd like to expand on it. The raze city system is broken. I can understand in early ages when city populations are low that city razing might happen more often. But too often the AI will torch a city after being gifted it.

Puppeted Cities are not as useful (IMHO) as Civ IV's vassal states. Given the AI's moronic desire to see the weakest player as "the most dangerous threat to peace" I often while at war gift cities I take to weaker players to keep them from being wiped out by an AI civ I'm not ready to deal with. Worse is cities taken by Venice or Austria do not have an ability to make them revert to being a City State.

My suggestion something like this.

Razing cities gets a huge diplomatic penalty which gets worse as the game continues to the point of razing a city in the Industrial Age pretty much acts like nuking someone.

Instead of a city automatically taking a hit when conquered, the player/AI should have an option whether to raze the city, sack the city, annex or puppet the city or "free" it. Sacking would gain more gold and "kill" more population (slaves) but it would leave the city owned by it's original owner *but* it would remain in a state of disorder for the duration of the war. Freeing the city would cause it become a city-state aligned to the conquering Civ.

As mentioned above, cities taken via marriage or Venitian Merchant should be allowed to revert to becoming a city-state when captured.
Puppeted cities taken in conquest earlier in the game should, like in Civ IV, have a way to be released so that they become city-states.
Bread & Circuses: During times of unrest, there should be a mechanism where you can spend gold to increase happiness. This cost would go up every 5 turns.


Also, don't know if it's a bug or what but I had an irritating thing happen in my current game. Russian used 3 great generals to claim land near a city I took from them. I later took the city that land was owned by and then had my workers replace the citadels with forest using the Reforestation Mod. Yet when I gave the city back to Russia (because my unhappiness was high) the game acted like those citadels were still there!

In regard to "Free Cities" from the above.

Civ IV and I think a few Civ V mods like the Revolution Mod seem to do a better job of having cities convert due to culture. It seems to me that especially in the early game before the concept of Nation States, you should be able to force a city to become neutral for the duration of the war.

As mentioned above, the city would be in disorder but still nominally owned by the original player. It could then be gifted in tribute or would revert back to the owner's control with peace. However, if possible, it would be nice if during the peace process, you could demand a city go neutral and become a city-state AND the owning player couldn't attack it for like 20 turns or so. It could, however, have a better chance of converting back to the original owner depending on the culture and how large the city was.

A smaller city would probably want to go back to being in the original empire for safety. A bigger city might want to begin it's own culture.

Historically countries have often created buffer states to create a wall between enemies. The Eastern Bloc countries are a good example but a lot of cities back in the early ages would be lopped off one empire but not taken in by the new empire because they didn't want the expense of defending it.

The Barbarian City mod allows barbarian camps to become Barbarian cities. Perhaps there could be a default "Free City Civ" which could become a mechanism to move cities out of an empire into a neutral state. Of course there would have to be some mechanism to keep the AI players from attacking these cities given how again, the AI seems to attack the weakest Civs like they are the most dangerous thing on the planet.

civawesome said:

I actually randomed the Germans and picked honor and I think they are the ones that can use it very well. Two extra barbarian hunters to recruit the brutes even faster than before.

Btw great mod Acken I like the ranged troop nerfs alot especially seemed silly that the ones that don't need the special resources were so strong. Btw the barracks only show happiness from military caste and not culture, unless the fact that I used infoaddict with your mod and it suddenly not being there anymore somehow did it. I still got the culture though but it didn't show.

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All +culture from buildings doesn't show on the buildings but show in the city's culture details in the line "+X from policies".

It's not on my urgent list to fix this though.

adcarrymaokai said:

I restarted my Arabia map, and Suleiman has a casus belli against me upon meeting him for the first time? Bug?

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Weird. Will look into it. The CB system may be a little bugged right now.

arkham4269 said:

If anything certain Civs remain insanely aggressive while others are rather passive. Case in point, Assyria is big on early rush but given their UU this makes sense.

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The version 1 has some bugs regarding the AI not behaving exactly how it should.

I truly appreciate your suggestions regarding adding city options on capture and the bread and circus mechanics. But my goal with the mod is to change the mechanic as little as I can so that the game is close to the original version but better balanced and more streamlined.
Some sort of an unofficial patch if you will rather than an unofficial expansion.

Regarding AIs being to "burn" happy this is due to the AI making an evaluation of its happiness and burning if it cannot sustain it. Somewhat like a player would. I will look into the code to see if it needs some adjustments and if the logic is faulty. But I have a feeling you want this more for historical accuracy than AI's game logic so I can't promise much change.

I'm also only a one man team and these features are more suited for overhaul mods with multiple experienced codders.

Also, don't know if it's a bug or what but I had an irritating thing happen in my current game. Russian used 3 great generals to claim land near a city I took from them. I later took the city that land was owned by and then had my workers replace the citadels with forest using the Reforestation Mod. Yet when I gave the city back to Russia (because my unhappiness was high) the game acted like those citadels were still there!

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This has nothing to do with the mod. The game doesn't affect terrains to the citadel but to the relevant cities.
In other words the citadel expand the city borders, giving some tiles a new city owner. Removing the citadel has no effect on this.
There could maybe be a way to fix this by saving which tiles are created by which fortress but this is a coding nightmare for a situation that I don't think happen very often are is even a big deal.

The one you sent me for testing (which I again apologise for having to abandon my testing of) worked like a charm, but this Beta causes my game to crash and has a lot of bugs. I suspect I am doing something wrong. You say earlier in this thread that it doesn't work on Macs. Is that due to something you added since the last time?

No it should never have worked on a Mac (well I guess you can load the data change but the DLL won't work so you'd end up with a ton of stuff not working).

This version will render your previous saves from the test version I sent you incompatible. Have you tried to load a new game ?

It is about historical accuracy but also I don't like how I tell other Civs NOT to send prophets into my territory and when they break that agreement and I go to war, I'm the one who gets the warmongering penalty and yet when AI Civs level ENTIRE cities, everyone just yawns.

To me that's a unintended penalty to the human player.

@Acken: OK, well it worked fine before.

Too bad, I guess. I love your mod but I'm not gonna flirt with Ballmer just to play it. I've been Windoze-frei since 2005 and wouldn't go back for anything.

arkham4269 said:

It is about historical accuracy but also I don't like how I tell other Civs NOT to send prophets into my territory and when they break that agreement and I go to war, I'm the one who gets the warmongering penalty and yet when AI Civs level ENTIRE cities, everyone just yawns.

To me that's a unintended penalty to the human player.

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That kind of stuff is more what I'm interested in fixing. Although not in a close version so I'll put this in the todo list.

On a side note, everybody gets a penalty for warmongering. There are no extra penalties for razing though.

consentient said:

@Acken: OK, well it worked fine before.

Too bad, I guess. I love your mod but I'm not gonna flirt with Ballmer just to play it. I've been Windoze-frei since 2005 and wouldn't go back for anything.

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I'm sorry to hear that, sadly DLL modding is not possible for Macs so this is out of my control and XML/Lua modding is too restrictive. The Piety tree I sent you probably wasn't working correctly either.

As you have not yet gotten to religious beliefs let me suggest a slightly updated version of religious beliefs. The are balanced so that the weaker and rarer terrains/resources/improvements get better pantheon beliefs. The followers/founders/enhancers/reformations have gotten less of an overhaul than a quick jab at the top and bottom. Getting an early religion should still be important but it will hopefully not be as obvious as tithe and pagodas were. As usual, feel free to use or ignore all of it as it suits you.

Pantheons (complete list):
DANCE OF THE AURORA: +1 Faith from Tundra tiles
DESERT FOLKLORE: +1 Faith from Desert tiles (except floodplain).
SACRED PATH: +1 Culture from Jungle tiles.
SACRED WATERS: +1 Culture from Floodplains.

CEREMONIAL ROBES: + 2 Culture for each Silk, Dye and Cotton
GODDESS OF FESTIVALS: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense
OFFERINGS TO THE GODS: +1 Food +1 Faith from Sugar, Spice and Truffles
ONE WITH NATURE: +4 Faith from Natural Wonders
RELIGIOUS IDOLS: +1 Faith +1 Gold for each Gold, Silver and Copper
TEAR OF THE GODS: +2 Faith for each Gems or Pearls resource

GODDESS OF THE HUNT: +1 Food from Camps
GOD OF THE OPEN SKY: +1 Culture from Pastures
GOD OF THE SEA: +1 Production from Fishing Boats
ORAL TRADITION: +1 Faith from Plantations
STONE CIRCLES: +2 Faith from Quarries

ANCESTOR WORSHIP: +2 Culture from Shrines
GOD OF CRAFTSMEN: +1 Production in each city
GODDESS OF LOVE: +1 Happiness with Population 4+
RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENTS: +25% Border Expansion and +1 Gold per city
FERTILITY RITES: +10% Growth
MESSENGER OF THE GODS: +2 Science in cities with a City Connection
GOD-KING: Palace provides +1 Culture, Faith, Food, Gold, Happiness, Production, and Science

GODDESS OF PROTECTION: +50% City Ranged Combat Strength. 1 Faith from walls.
FAITH HEALERS: All units produced in cities with this pantheon start with medic 1.
GOD OF WAR: Faith (equal to unit strength) from kills within 5 tiles of city.
MONUMENT TO THE GODS: +20% Production towards ancient and classical wonders

Others (just the changes)
Followers:
FEED THE WORLD: 1 food from shrines, 2 food from temples
CHORAL MUSIC: 2 culture from temples, monastaries and cathedrals
LITURGICAL DRAMA: 2 faith from amphitheaters and operas
CATHEDRALS now give 3 culture.
ASCETICISM no longer requires 3 pop.
PAGODAS gives 1 culture

Founders:
PEACE LOVING: is one global happiness for every 6 followers in non-enemy foreign cities.
TITHE: 1 Gold per 5 followers

Enhancers:
RELIGIOUS UNITY: religion spreads to all city states at double rate
MISSIONARY ZEAL: missionaries are 40% stronger
RELIQUARY: gain 75 faith when a great person is expended

Reformation:
UNDERGROUND SECT: Spies exert twice as much religious pressure

You probably missed my current proposals for Pantheons:

God of Craftmen no longer need 3 population and gives also +2gold
God of War now gives more faith (100% victim strength) and at 6 tiles away
Ancestor Worship now gives 2 culture
God King now also gives +1 food
Religious Settlement now reduce border culture cost by 25% and boosts settler production by 20%
Dance of Aurora is no longer restricted to non-forest tundra
Goddess of Protection now gives +5 strength to all cities
Monuments of the gods now gives 20% production and up to Medieval wonders

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My idea is to try to keep the pantheon focused. For example NQMod also gives faith for walls in the goddess of protection pantheon but I think a raw strength boost would be more appropriate in my mod considering city weakness. This Pantheon is as good as an early wall in every city at the cost of having no long term bonus.
Same idea with Religious Settlement, short term quick expansion bonus.

Do you feel adding gold to God of Craftsmen is too much and removing the pop would be enough ?
Adding happiness to god king is a good idea.
I already have the same changes for Ancestor Worship, Dance of Aurora, God of War. I made monument to the god up to Medieval era... fits the theme but wonder if it's not too much.

I think this is a good idea:
ORAL TRADITION: +1 Faith from Plantations
CEREMONIAL ROBES: + 2 Culture for each Silk, Dye and Cotton
OFFERINGS TO THE GODS: +1 Food +1 Faith from Sugar, Spice and Truffles
RELIGIOUS IDOLS: +1 Faith +1 Gold for each Gold, Silver and Copper
GODDESS OF LOVE: +1 Happiness with Population 4+

Interesting, will think about it:
DESERT FOLKLORE: +1 Faith from Desert tiles (except floodplain).
SACRED WATERS: +1 Culture from Floodplains.

I like your idea for faith healers. Requires a bit of coding though so I'll have to see if it is worth it.

Did you remove Earth Mother ?

FEED THE WORLD: 1 food from shrines, 2 food from temples
I actually think feed the world is well balanced compared to Swords into Plowshares, especially for wide empires. Swords need 13+ food to compete and never be at war. Considering AI agressiveness I think Feed the Worlds is pretty well balanced
CHORAL MUSIC: 2 culture from temples, monastaries and cathedrals
It's an interesting idea to boost monasteries and cathedrals but I do not know if it's a good idea to add a single synergy like this among the beliefs.
LITURGICAL DRAMA: 2 faith from amphitheaters and operas
Ok
CATHEDRALS now give 3 culture.
Ok
ASCETICISM no longer requires 3 pop.
Ok
PAGODAS gives 1 culture
Ok

Religious Art will be boosted to match culture changes too.

Founders:
PEACE LOVING: is one global happiness for every 6 followers in non-enemy foreign cities.
TITHE: 1 Gold per 5 followers
Ok

I think World Church and Peace Loving also need some love.

Enhancers:
RELIGIOUS UNITY: religion spreads to all city states at double rate
Ok
MISSIONARY ZEAL: missionaries are 40% stronger
Ok
RELIQUARY: gain 75 faith when a great person is expended
Ok

Reformation:
UNDERGROUND SECT: Spies exert twice as much religious pressure
Considering the thread on this belief in general, the spy actually exert 5 times the worth of a city pressure. I personally still think it's crap though and I'd boost spy steal speed instead, maybe by an amount proportional to how many followers you have in the city.

Hey Acken,

Nice work - good to see others are also working on blanket-balance (though "Minimalistic") mods .

Just my 2 cents:
- the power differential of naval ranged units against their terrestrial counterparts is a little..... overbearing at times (e.g. several frigates/battleships are enough to mow down an entire side of the continent with minimal effort, if an adequate defense fleet is not present.).
- certain natural wonders could use yield/happiness balancing (e.g. barringer crater, Fountain of Youth)
- Atolls could be a bit less sparse (FeatureGenerator.lua)

Map balance is not on schedule for a long while. I'm using the NQMapScripts as a proxy for now.

I may look into rebalancing land vs naval coastal combats.
Natural wonders is on schedule for v3 with world wonders.

v2 focuses on beliefs