Mod recommendations for a noob?
- Thread starter Playsoneasy
- Start date
Imperator Knoedel
Simperator Knoedel
Hm, I played Realism Invictus, and I don't remember the AI being that good. Sure it's better than the unmodded one, but if that's supposed to be the hyper aggressive rushes you as soon as possible AI from Kmod I'm unimpressed.
Drakarska
Epic Dadness
Agree with you about that IK. However, check RB on in a custom game, and you better be rethinking archery tech real fast
Staler87
Warlord
Realism Invictus has an option to turn on AI plays to win. If un-checked the AI will just be a bit smarter than BTS, if checked it will be comparable in brutality to a multi-player game. It is a very fun mod, (my favorite civ IV mod) and I would highly recommend it. Every civ has a replacement for every unit in the game, the graphics are merged seamlessly with the base game, the devs have kept in mind computer performance, AI performance, and haven't succumbed to feature creep, the barbarians are actually a threat...I could go on. It also removes corporations and replaces tech trading with a tech transfer system, two removals that feel more like additions to the game. I would highly recommend it. I've tried other mods such as DoM and C2C but they're just not as good.
Soviet elf
Chieftain
Speaking about Realism:Invictus...
R:I (K-mod) AI - I agree with Tachy's comment. Starting in Ancient era, AI constantly declares war on me, even on pleased, even if I have 1.5 more power then them, then I defeat their stack in my territory, they pay me for peace, then very soon another AI declares war on me etc... Only wars with other AI distract AI from me. All AIs on my continent, even non-neighbors, declared on me multiple times before Renaissance. K-mod AI also likes to raze, sometimes razes even good cities. All that even without "aggressive AI" or "AI plays to win" and without Monty, Shaka, Alex or Khan.
"Every civ has a replacement for every unit in the game ... haven't succumbed to feature creep" - R:I feature creep is all these endless UUs and UBs. It's my personal opinion, but I would rather have more useful things every civ can potentially build than over 900 unique (mostly cosmetically) units, buildings and NWs. I don't even like UBs in BtS. But yes, if you like as much "unique" stuff per civ as possible, R:I is for you.
Btw, it's also very annoying in warfare - enemy stack enters my territory and it's full of units named like "dao cathay", "yari ashigaru", "doryphoroi" or "druzhina" (regular spears/swords/axes with ethnic flavour), and it's absolutely unclear without civilopedia check what units in enemy SoD exactly are.
And also unique improvements are very unbalanced. For example, USA and Mongols can build special pastures everywhere (with PN civic +2
, +1
, +1
) from early game (when mines and farms produce only +1), while French UI is a special winery (can be constructed only on wines and barely better than regular winery).
I also really dislike their unrealistic religious system - you can build religious buildings (even temples and monasteries) only for your state religion and they stop working completely if you convert (even to NSR/FR). So, according to R:I, there are no churches in USA because of freedom of religion? Not very realistic and not fun either.
I liked some things in R:I, but I don't remember all of them now. For example, separating mounted units into "charge mounted" and "ranged mounted", so spears and pikes don't counter horse archers and cuirrassiers. Or wonders that can be created only by great artists instead of abstract and unrealistic culture bombs of BtS. Or buildings providing +yield to tiles with specific improvements.
Strange claim. On my computer (32-bit OC) R:I has one of the worst performances among mods. Obviously, the worst is C2C, but R:I is the second worst. Even on small map, minimal graphics R:I becomes completely unplayable in Renaissance for me (constant MAFs every turn). I even edited city building graphics to be empty, it helped a little in middle ages, but temporarily. Funny, I remember playing older versions of R:I many years ago on much older, weaker computer, they worked better. I don't understand how somebody can praise R:I for computer performance.
R:I (K-mod) AI - I agree with Tachy's comment. Starting in Ancient era, AI constantly declares war on me, even on pleased, even if I have 1.5 more power then them, then I defeat their stack in my territory, they pay me for peace, then very soon another AI declares war on me etc... Only wars with other AI distract AI from me. All AIs on my continent, even non-neighbors, declared on me multiple times before Renaissance. K-mod AI also likes to raze, sometimes razes even good cities. All that even without "aggressive AI" or "AI plays to win" and without Monty, Shaka, Alex or Khan.
"Every civ has a replacement for every unit in the game ... haven't succumbed to feature creep" - R:I feature creep is all these endless UUs and UBs. It's my personal opinion, but I would rather have more useful things every civ can potentially build than over 900 unique (mostly cosmetically) units, buildings and NWs. I don't even like UBs in BtS. But yes, if you like as much "unique" stuff per civ as possible, R:I is for you.
Btw, it's also very annoying in warfare - enemy stack enters my territory and it's full of units named like "dao cathay", "yari ashigaru", "doryphoroi" or "druzhina" (regular spears/swords/axes with ethnic flavour), and it's absolutely unclear without civilopedia check what units in enemy SoD exactly are.
And also unique improvements are very unbalanced. For example, USA and Mongols can build special pastures everywhere (with PN civic +2
, +1, +1) from early game (when mines and farms produce only +1), while French UI is a special winery (can be constructed only on wines and barely better than regular winery).I also really dislike their unrealistic religious system - you can build religious buildings (even temples and monasteries) only for your state religion and they stop working completely if you convert (even to NSR/FR). So, according to R:I, there are no churches in USA because of freedom of religion? Not very realistic and not fun either.
I liked some things in R:I, but I don't remember all of them now. For example, separating mounted units into "charge mounted" and "ranged mounted", so spears and pikes don't counter horse archers and cuirrassiers. Or wonders that can be created only by great artists instead of abstract and unrealistic culture bombs of BtS. Or buildings providing +yield to tiles with specific improvements.
Staler87
Warlord
Speaking about Realism:Invictus...
Strange claim. On my computer (32-bit OC) R:I has one of the worst performances among mods. Obviously, the worst is C2C, but R:I is the second worst. Even on small map, minimal graphics R:I becomes completely unplayable in Renaissance for me (constant MAFs every turn). I even edited city building graphics to be empty, it helped a little in middle ages, but temporarily. Funny, I remember playing older versions of R:I many years ago on much older, weaker computer, they worked better. I don't understand how somebody can praise R:I for computer performance.
R:I (K-mod) AI - I agree with Tachy's comment. Starting in Ancient era, AI constantly declares war on me, even on pleased, even if I have 1.5 more power then them, then I defeat their stack in my territory, they pay me for peace, then very soon another AI declares war on me etc... Only wars with other AI distract AI from me. All AIs on my continent, even non-neighbors, declared on me multiple times before Renaissance. K-mod AI also likes to raze, sometimes razes even good cities. All that even without "aggressive AI" or "AI plays to win" and without Monty, Shaka, Alex or Khan.
"Every civ has a replacement for every unit in the game ... haven't succumbed to feature creep" - R:I feature creep is all these endless UUs and UBs. It's my personal opinion, but I would rather have more useful things every civ can potentially build than over 900 unique (mostly cosmetically) units, buildings and NWs. I don't even like UBs in BtS. But yes, if you like as much "unique" stuff per civ as possible, R:I is for you.
Btw, it's also very annoying in warfare - enemy stack enters my territory and it's full of units named like "dao cathay", "yari ashigaru", "doryphoroi" or "druzhina" (regular spears/swords/axes with ethnic flavour), and it's absolutely unclear without civilopedia check what units in enemy SoD exactly are.
And also unique improvements are very unbalanced. For example, USA and Mongols can build special pastures everywhere (with PN civic +2
I also really dislike their unrealistic religious system - you can build religious buildings (even temples and monasteries) only for your state religion and they stop working completely if you convert (even to NSR/FR). So, according to R:I, there are no churches in USA because of freedom of religion? Not very realistic and not fun either.
I liked some things in R:I, but I don't remember all of them now. For example, separating mounted units into "charge mounted" and "ranged mounted", so spears and pikes don't counter horse archers and cuirrassiers. Or wonders that can be created only by great artists instead of abstract and unrealistic culture bombs of BtS. Or buildings providing +yield to tiles with specific improvements.
- Are you playing on a huge map? Because for me I see absolutely no difference in performance between RI and the base game. Compared to C2C, DoM, and most other total conversion mods it's pretty light. I mean even the non-animated leader-heads make a difference.
- That AI thing isn't actually silly if you know the AI reasoning. The AI is programmed to play to win, not to accurately role-play. Pleased decreases the likelihood that the AI will declare war but only friendly will really stop it. In your case I'm guessing the AI civ wasn't doing very well so it figured that if it was to have any chance at winning the game it had to somehow make a bold successful move to increase it's standings. Although it may look stupid to you, in reality declaring war on you was likely the AI's best chance at gaining territory and winning. It obviously doesn't know your a player and will likely be a bit smarter.
- I don't see how lots of replacements is feature creep. It does not slow the game down, does not increase complexity too much ( as many of the special units are for cultures rather than specific civs), and the confusion generated is close to nothing. I mean is it really confusing to tell the difference between two things labelled cavalry. If you have even a remote knowledge of the history of warfare it should not be a challenging task to figure out whats what. (You list the eight examples that are a bit confusing and treat it as the rule)
-Speaking of SoD, there are actual logistical problems added to the mod for creating them so they are not as ridiculous.
-They are continuing to balance all of these issues. It's a mod under constant development, there is no reasonable way for them not to have some sort of balance issues in the middle of it. I have not found any of these balance issues to be game-breaking and they are very few for a mod of this size.
-Although the religious temple things are a bit unrealistic if they didn't do it you would be complaining about balance issues right now. In the main game free religion was overpowered for this very reason. Now not everyone will blithely convert to free religion. Technically according to RI, there are churches they just don't have a noticeable affect on the civ. Kinda unrealistic but when you consider the things they have fixed, the mod on a whole is much more historically accurate and 'realistic'.
It's free so anyone who wants to try it can.
Soviet elf
Chieftain
I don't know what DoM is. C2C is super heavy and overfilled and has the worst performance, I said it in my post. Most other mods like HRW, VIP, even RoM:AND work better on my computer than R:I even at heavier save sizes.
I don't know, it seems to me, non-animated leaders don't make that big difference.
I wrote that "AI plays to win" was turned off. And repeatedly throwing armies at stronger opponents and then paying for peace isn't a good strategy. Instead of roleplaying every AI is a rabid Montezuma.
I just described how R:I/K-mod AI works, some people like it, but not me.
I don't know. I suspect, total number of units and buildings (unique or not) slows game and contributes to MAFs. Even Civilopedia in R:I is laggy at units' page.
Actually I listed 4 examples. From 4 different civs. And I can list more, because it's common. For example, some classical/medieval Japanese land units: yari ashigaru, bushi, ju warrior, ronin, yari nomin, yumi ashigaru, heisha, kiba musya, kiba samurai, yabusame. They are spears, axes, swords, longbows, chariots etc, relevant bonuses works against them, but who is who?
But free religion is not "overpowered" in BtS. Not OP at all. Probably, religious civics in BtS are better balanced than other columns. And not everybody converts to FR. Claim that I would complain about balance if non-state temples would be allowed is unfounded and absurd.
I've been trying to improve the K-Mod war/peace AI a bit, and I agree that there are fundamental flaws. One serious issue is with AI war preparations. These can go on for a long time, and the AI is very reluctant to abandon a war plan once preparations are underway. In particular, it doesn't double-check diplo attitude (hence the frequent DoW at Pleased), and doesn't ensure a reasonable power ratio. This part doesn't seem that difficult to fix. The bigger problem is that separate and inconsistent heuristics are used for starting and ending wars: StartWarVal and EndWarVal. A high StartWarVal should imply a low EndWarVal and vice versa, but that's often not the case. The prime offender seems to be war success, which has a strong impact on EndWarVal (and making the AI willing to talk), but no impact on StartWarVal.
These problems haven't been introduced by K-Mod, but they're much more visible in K-Mod than in BtS. For one, the K-Mod AI can start war preparations right after making peace, i.e. doesn't wait until the peace treaty expires. The K-Mod AI is also less worried about unit cost and other expenses, which leads to more units and a greater willingness to begin war preparations.
A short exchange from last year between Walter (Realism Invictus) and karadoc (K-Mod) on the issue:
Spoiler :
plasmacannon
Emperor
I would recommend playing Civ4BTS for several months with a minor change mod like bug/bull if you prefer.
Then after you feel pretty confident that you know what you are doing and are up for more of a challenge, check out the Realism Invictus mod.
The detail is nice. The numerous Leaders bring variety.
The additional Traits and uses for Great People and nice.
The expansion of the Rock-Paper-Scissors norm brings a new challenge.
Tachywaxon "Join Date: Aug 2016" and 1st post? Sounds like you deleted your account.
Then after you feel pretty confident that you know what you are doing and are up for more of a challenge, check out the Realism Invictus mod.
The detail is nice. The numerous Leaders bring variety.
The additional Traits and uses for Great People and nice.
The expansion of the Rock-Paper-Scissors norm brings a new challenge.
Tachywaxon "Join Date: Aug 2016" and 1st post? Sounds like you deleted your account.
Lennier
Emperor
I thought Tachywaxon changed his name to Manco Capec a while back.
Staler87
Warlord
Sorry i didn't realize you weren't playing with AI plays to win. If so I believe the AI changes are minimal so this is more of a base game issue than anything.
Sorry by DoM I meant RoM and from my experience, especially in the late game, it is slower than RI.
I didn't actually count the examples you list, but from my experience eight is a reasonable number as to the amount of units that actually confuses me about whats what and I do not have a large previous knowledge as to ancient units. Plus you could always look at graphics and bonuses in SoD.
I would tend to disagree with the not over-powered thing. Once you get quite a few different religions in your civ it will provide a ton of happiness along with science. Science is extremely important. If the world was at all divided on state religion it was almost always better to be free religion, but if the world was pretty uniform for diplomatic purposes it was often better to remain one religion. It would be especially unbalanced in RI if they did not make this change as when you have a state religion the other religious buildings do not take affect. In the base game they did and this would result in a serious balance issue. I probably should have put probably in that sentence. You obviously didn't like the mod and thus are looking for problems with it.
Realistically for my first couple games I would probably just download a lighter mod than RI. The early game especially is very difficult and its best to learn the base civ IV features.
Sorry by DoM I meant RoM and from my experience, especially in the late game, it is slower than RI.
I didn't actually count the examples you list, but from my experience eight is a reasonable number as to the amount of units that actually confuses me about whats what and I do not have a large previous knowledge as to ancient units. Plus you could always look at graphics and bonuses in SoD.
I would tend to disagree with the not over-powered thing. Once you get quite a few different religions in your civ it will provide a ton of happiness along with science. Science is extremely important. If the world was at all divided on state religion it was almost always better to be free religion, but if the world was pretty uniform for diplomatic purposes it was often better to remain one religion. It would be especially unbalanced in RI if they did not make this change as when you have a state religion the other religious buildings do not take affect. In the base game they did and this would result in a serious balance issue. I probably should have put probably in that sentence. You obviously didn't like the mod and thus are looking for problems with it.
Realistically for my first couple games I would probably just download a lighter mod than RI. The early game especially is very difficult and its best to learn the base civ IV features.
Playsoneasy
Chieftain
Truly a mind-boggling variety of mods to pick from 
- and it really is a shame you can only run one mod at a time (unlike with Civ 5...).
I'll most likely get the BULL mod for now before I consider any others; there's still a lot I need to learn about this game before I start playing with mods that change existing mechanics or introduce new ones.
Thanks again for all your help and suggestions everyone.
- and it really is a shame you can only run one mod at a time (unlike with Civ 5...).I'll most likely get the BULL mod for now before I consider any others; there's still a lot I need to learn about this game before I start playing with mods that change existing mechanics or introduce new ones.
Thanks again for all your help and suggestions everyone.
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