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

Any ETA on a new patch/update?

No eta. Maybe 2-3 weeks. A part of a new update is already done but more is scheduled.

Regarding National Wonders. I feel that they are unsatisfactory in their current form as they require you to build similar buildings in every city with little specialisation between roles. Do you see the same problem? If so, would it be possible to implement the rule form civ 4 about max 2 national wonders per city? National wonders works beautifully in that game as a way to encourage city specialisation, something which is lacking in civ 5.

With that rule and a change to building pre-requisites, like requiring the right building in only half of your cites or only in the city building it, you could have significantly more specialisation between cities. You could even boost their strength a bit without it leading to über capitals.

Changed:
National Epic: +50% GPP, writing slot, 1 culture.
Ironworks: +20% production, engineer slot.
National Treasury: +35% gold, merchant slot.
National College: +30% science, scientist slot, 1 culture.
Circus Maximus: 8 local happiness.
East India Company: 4/2 from trade routes + 1 trade route (pre-req harbor/caravansery?)
Grand Temple: double religious pressure,+40% faith.

Unchanged:
Hermitage
Heroic Epic
National Intelligence Agency
National Visitor Center
Oxford University

If that is to big of a change, at least consider changing Ironworks and Grand Temple to multipliers instead of flat yields and increasing the multiplier from national epic.

I love all the changes you proposed chumchu. Cannot talk about Civ 4, but City specialization is something I miss very much in Civ 5.

This would also encourage people not to send every single trade route to the cap as food, but divide population more.

Acken said:

Hey thank you for playing and compliments are appreciated.

Is this this mod ?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=528434

Note that the next versions will slowly work on the civs themselves. It's voluntary that they haven't changed yet as I want the "core" game to be as close to finished as possible.

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Yes that is the mod that I'm using in combination with yours. I do hope you release a version with Civ changes soon, although I am aware that it's difficult to mod Civs without angering some people.

There's a person here on the forums, Karadoc, who made a truly excellent mod for Civ4, and he worked on it slowly over a number of years, doing small tweaks one at a time, and was always reluctant to change the civs themselves.

I guess I would recommend that you try to figure out the civs that are universally or near universally accepted as being weak, and tweak them.

I'm probably a bit different from most people in that I mostly think about fun and replay value. The fact that some civs are weaker than others isn't even my main concern, it's that some civs have UA's or UU's/UB's that are just boring to me. Poland is an example of a civ that is incredibly strong, but very bland in my opinion. Another good example would be Babylon vs Korea. I like Korea's design, from a game play perspective, because you have to actually plan and put some effort into using their strength, and if you do it properly, Korea can indeed be very strong. I find Babylon's bonus to be rather bland, it mostly comes down to getting a free academy at the beginning of the game. Is it strong? Absolutely. Is it fun? I don't think so.

As it's named, this mod seems minimalistic. Everything looks the same than before. I should say where is the Mod?
The truth is: your Mod is real big. AI is reworked so well.
I use to rule the world at Emperor level... Not anymore. Not at all.
You make the point Acken. Always AI has been the issue but now you are there and you deal with that. Many thanks

^^Appreciated.

noto2 said:

I'm probably a bit different from most people in that I mostly think about fun and replay value. The fact that some civs are weaker than others isn't even my main concern, it's that some civs have UA's or UU's/UB's that are just boring to me. Poland is an example of a civ that is incredibly strong, but very bland in my opinion. Another good example would be Babylon vs Korea. I like Korea's design, from a game play perspective, because you have to actually plan and put some effort into using their strength, and if you do it properly, Korea can indeed be very strong. I find Babylon's bonus to be rather bland, it mostly comes down to getting a free academy at the beginning of the game. Is it strong? Absolutely. Is it fun? I don't think so.

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Well that's not very different than my perspective. Common mechanics should be balanced but I don't really mind some civ imbalance.
Things would be different if I was aiming for multiplayer competitivity. That may sounds strange for a balance mod but civs is the only area where I think it's not really a problem.

My current purpose is more to keep the civs theme and make them streamlined and fun to play. I want the tools to work and be easy to use. This is why for example Assyria is getting a free writer. This will smooth their playstyle a lot more by offering a culture bonus and an easy use of their Library.

This also has been one of my reasons for not stopping a civ like Greece to obtain tributes easily when playing honor thanks to the free Hoplite. I simply cannot view it as a problem.

It's been, sadly, too long since I've had time to fiddle with this one and I can't remember whether it has been mentioned or not but is there an easy way of changing the city tile output to reflect more closely on which terrain the city is settled and if so, any plans to change that?

It used to be that settling on a hill meant hampered growth while staying on the lowlands gave less production and defence but that's only partly true in Civ5. Now the game heavily favours settling on hills which at least from a (forced) RP gamer's pov doesn't make much sense.
Also, on a related note I'd like to see the game preventing settling on terrain (marsh/jungle) which one hasn't got a tech to clear/make habitable or at least postpone the lux/resource connection until the needed tech is available.

For the balance/difficulty's sake the former doesn't probably do much but at least the latter would solely favour the AI.

Grendeldef said:

It's been, sadly, too long since I've had time to fiddle with this one and I can't remember whether it has been mentioned or not but is there an easy way of changing the city tile output to reflect more closely on which terrain the city is settled and if so, any plans to change that?

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That was something that I wanted to do at the start but it's not that easy in the end because the default way the game does it is through a minimum system. Now that I have more knowledge about the code maybe I'll look into it so that flat gives 3/1 while hills give 2/2 or something like beyond earth where settling just increase the tile output by +1/+1. It's still a good amount of work that isn't a priority right now.

It used to be that settling on a hill meant hampered growth while staying on the lowlands gave less production and defence but that's only partly true in Civ5. Now the game heavily favours settling on hills which at least from a (forced) RP gamer's pov doesn't make much sense.

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That's the case in the base game but not as much in the mod. Right now settling always gives you 2f 2p. Hills provide additional defense only.
That's the shortcut I took to balance the two for now, by making them similar.

Also, on a related note I'd like to see the game preventing settling on terrain (marsh/jungle) which one hasn't got a tech to clear/make habitable or at least postpone the lux/resource connection until the needed tech is available.

Click to expand...

Similar to the first point: yes maybe.

Acken said:

Now that I have more knowledge about the code maybe I'll look into it so that flat gives 3/1 while hills give 2/2 or something like beyond earth where settling just increase the tile output by +1/+1. It's still a good amount of work that isn't a priority right now.

Similar to the first point: yes maybe.

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Fair enough and I'm glad that someone else also sees this as an issue to be fixed so at least there's some hope. Even simple 3/1 for flat & 2/2 for hills would be a huge improvement to the current system.

but if you settle on a hill you don't have the option of building a windmill. I know, I know, many players would argue this is a minor issue, but if we're talking the capital it matters. Windmills are very powerful and useful buildings and come in the mid-game, early enough to have an impact.

noto2 said:

but if you settle on a hill you don't have the option of building a windmill. I know, I know, many players would argue this is a minor issue, but if we're talking the capital it matters. Windmills are very powerful and useful buildings and come in the mid-game, early enough to have an impact.

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Windmills might be fine but the impact is marginal at best compared to whether the city tile gives 3 or 2 food from ~T0 and by the time Windmills would fit in the building queue the game is usually won and the rest is only a matter of execution but I do agree that either way this isn't a do or die issue but since Acken is on an admirable mission to improve the game I don't see a reason not to present possible fixable issues within. The magnitude and ease of correcting these should then decide the order of doing things. As it is now the mod is already a huge improvement.

Hi Acken.

Just had the STRANGEST thing happening in game ever...

In between turns, I suddenly "capture" a city from an opponent AI. I'm not even at war with them, nor have any units near the city at all. So bizar. Could this be something to do with your mod?

Using EUI 1.27a and the new inforaddict (DLC version)

The rar file contains 3 screenies and the savefiles the turn before (Lasse.sav) and the turn after it happened.

A wild guess without checking the files - ideological pressure caused a city to revolt & join your empire?

Grendeldef said:

ideological pressure caused a city to revolt & join your empire?

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That was my guess. It is not uncommon with unmodded BNW at Emperor and below.

Grendeldef said:

A wild guess without checking the files - ideological pressure caused a city to revolt & join your empire?

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I have had the AI gift me a conquered city before

Dahebbie said:

Hi Acken.

Just had the STRANGEST thing happening in game ever...

In between turns, I suddenly "capture" a city from an opponent AI. I'm not even at war with them, nor have any units near the city at all. So bizar. Could this be something to do with your mod?

Using EUI 1.27a and the new inforaddict (DLC version)

The rar file contains 3 screenies and the savefiles the turn before (Lasse.sav) and the turn after it happened.

Click to expand...

I looked at the screenshot and I'm 99% sure it's just ideological pressure flipping the city to your side (different ideologies and you getting an undamaged city). It should be in the messages on the right (maybe the "!" one ?) telling you the people have revolted. This happens if the civilization spends too many turns at -20 happiness or below.

This is not due to the mod and also possible in the base game.

Regarding the city square yield: I don't think windmills should be limited to cities on flat lands. I would support a change to city squares giving +1,1, but I'm fine with the yields staying as they are as well.

Windmill not requiring flat is already in the mod

Whoops, haha, good to know!