Crazy Spatz's Alpha Centauri Mod

If your trying to get a +1 culture for every specialist policy, theres a wonder on the mod list called Platonic Academy (not sure if I spelled it right but im sure you can find it) that does exactly that, perhaps you could disect it and get the desired effect?


Also, ive kept quiet on this but seeing as this is our last chance for sugessting big changes, I was wondering if you could find a way to make the earlyier eras last longer, specifically staying in the classical era which seems to have just been glanced over because as of right now how techs work the real action doesnt start until the medival era, I want to conquer europe with legions not longswordsmen with rome, marathon just makes game last longer and cripples production as opposed to just making you spend longer in each era

Not sure if this is appropriate for this mod
 
Is year number off? Turn 400 - A bit AD - Marathon: Everyone is halfway across the medieval era!?!

Edit: I also wanna brag about fending off a very aggressive Japan at Immortal difficulty with only 3 warriors, while they had like 5+ archers to back them :groucho:
Now said Japan and their neighbor Mongolia is quite crushed, while I'm all fat and happy with like 50 GPT from my trademark single city :trophy:
 
If your trying to get a +1 culture for every specialist policy, theres a wonder on the mod list called Platonic Academy (not sure if I spelled it right but im sure you can find it) that does exactly that, perhaps you could disect it and get the desired effect?

There's a <SpecialistExtraCulture> stub for buildings, but there's nothing comparable for Policies and you can't really connect the two. Also, that stub didn't actually work the last time I checked (but I haven't tried it since the patch), so if that wonder uses that, then was likely completely broken (producing something like 100 times the culture it's supposed to). Now, I'm sure I COULD do something like this through Lua, but I don't really want to go that in-depth for a policy that most players won't take.

I was wondering if you could find a way to make the earlyier eras last longer, specifically staying in the classical era which seems to have just been glanced over

Funny you should bring this up. Part of the reason the year numbers were off so badly before 1.03 was because I'd drastically overestimated how many turns you'd spend in the Ancient, Classical, and Medieval Eras. I was expecting 90-100 turns for each era, and it's more like 50-60 for each in most games for those first few. It doesn't really stabilize at 90-100 per era until you get to the Industrial, and I've been fighting the fact that it then speeds up starting in the Nuclear (see also: Research Lab).

There are a few other specific phases that simply don't last long enough; last night I played a game as America, and I managed to build a grand total of ONE Minuteman before it went obsolete with Riflemen. Which is stupid, because the minuteman has the awesome "all terrain 1 MP" ability, which is fantastic to upgrade to Infantry, so at the very least I should have that particular upgrade path skip over Riflemen.

Now, here's the problem: if I make the early eras last much longer, then I lower the chance that the game is still competitive in the future eras. Take your specific example; if Rome wants to get more use out of Legions instead of being forced into the Longsword tiers, then Rome's enemies are less likely to survive the process.
It's somewhat counterproductive, since the point of my Balance mod is to ensure that people actually get TO the Content mod.
I'm still willing to go a bit in that direction if it fixes major imbalances or if I find some other way to counteract the problem, especially if the eras are going by so fast that you simply don't have time to build the Wonders and such. The main problem, though, is that there just isn't a whole lot I can do about it; in those first couple eras you have no +research buildings other than the Library and some wonders, no Scientist specialist slots, and that's pretty much it. Not a whole lot that I can adjust. So the only way I can make those eras go more slowly is to increase the base costs of the techs in those tiers, and that'll be a pain to balance. But it's something I'm looking into; I figure if I can add ~20 turns to the first three eras, the timing of the rest of the game will work out much better.
 
Sorry I missed this one before.

Is year number off? Turn 400 - A bit AD - Marathon: Everyone is halfway across the medieval era!?!

I'm still adjusting these, but here's the basic idea:

In the vanilla game, if you select a "Classical Era" start, the game starts on turn 50 (on Standard), in the year 2000 BC. Historically, the Classical Era went from ~800 BC to ~600 AD so they're obviously running a bit early, presumably because starting at the Classical Era isn't the same as if you'd started in the Ancient and played through. The idea is that by the end of that era you'd be back on track, more or less.

It's not just about the Classical. The Medieval Era, by that method, starts in 250 AD; Renaissance 1250 AD, Industrial 1700 AD, and Modern 1905 AD in the vanilla game. (The Future Era? 1980.) Like with the Classical example, the numbers are early; the industrial revolution didn't really kick in until the 1780-1830, and the future hasn't happened yet; it's just that an Industrial start requires a certain amount of setup time, so you have to go a bit earlier.

One of the things I've been trying to do with my Head Start bonus is remove the need for that discrepancy; I want games that start in later eras to get on the correct curves more quickly. But I kept those same correlations, so the year issue is now more noticeable; if it takes ~60 turns to reach the Classical Era, then I tried to have turn #60 map to 2000 BC, with a Classical Start starting on turn 60.

What I need to do, now that I have the correct numbers of turns to enter each era, is set those equal to the TRUE values, and then backdate the starts accordingly. It'll just take a bit more work.
For instance, in the Classical example, I'd need turn 60 to occur in 800 BC, while a Classical Era start would be on turn 40, in 2000 BC (or possibly a bit later now that I've got the Head Start in).
 
Ho, I haz name suggestions!

Path to Ascension


Since ... well ... we all travel the path of the tech tree, which in this mod leads to ascension :yup:
 
So how goes unit conversion since you've taken care of most of the balence issues?

I also came up with a name, how does Spears to Spaceships sound? Gets the idea of the mod going from ancient all the way to transendence across
 
Getting bad crashes, one on turn 66, then a few more, I have a feeling the crashes have more to do with the patch than the mods

Funny how user created content is more compatible than what Firaxis makes...
 
Getting bad crashes, one on turn 66, then a few more, I have a feeling the crashes have more to do with the patch than the mods

Could be a little of both. I've noticed that while the situations I crash in are the same ones as before (revealing a lot of terrain very quickly, for instance), they're a lot more likely than before. The key would be to see if any other mods are experiencing the same crashes; I know Thalassicus' mod was comparable, before the patch, but I haven't checked since.

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The latest bit I need balance feedback on are the Policies. Specifically, the following questions:

1> Are all 10 Super-Finisher policies (my custom ones) comparable in power level? Each is designed to be significantly stronger than a normal Policy.

2> Are there any remaining original policies that are just far too weak? I'm looking for the policies that are only really useful as a prerequisite for later policies; it's okay for a policy to be a bit on the weak side, if it still provides a desirable bonus.
Note that some older policies that were a bit weak are stronger once you consider the mod's changes. For instance, the "+25% when attacking in friendly territory" in Order is only okay in the vanilla game, but realize that when dealing with wild psi units, this'll be used ALL THE TIME. Likewise, the base Honor policy (+25% vs. Barbarians, gain culture per barbarian kill) becomes a LOT stronger post-Breakout.

3> Are there any branches that you just never take?
For me this was always Autocracy and Commerce, I'd usually take Liberty over Tradition, and I'd only rarely take Honor. What I'm trying to do is make sure all choices are viable; this goes back to the way I Balance things, where I try to make it so that the AI's somewhat random decision-making process is nearly as effective as the player's more intelligent system.

4> Are any policies must-haves, even just within their own branches? I'm not necessarily looking to reduce their effects (although I did for Professional Army), but I can adjust for this through prerequisite tweaks.
As an example, look at the Liberty branch. In the vanilla game, the one that reduces the city multiplier for policy costs was previously available with your third pick, and I found myself ALWAYS going for that one. So I rearranged the tree, and now it can't be taken until your fifth pick.
 
I cant find this mod in the in-game online mod browser. I have tried searching for Crazy Spatz's Alpha Centauri, crazy spatz's alpha centauri mod, crazy, spatz's; I just can't find it. How do I find it? How do I download it and install it? Is it one combined mod in one single download, or do I need to find three different mods to download?

I hope someone can help me :)
 
It's not in the online mod browser. The mod's files are attached in the first post of this thread.

In general, I won't upload it to the official browser until two things happen:
1> I settle on a permanent name for the mod.
2> I successfully add custom 3D unit models.
Until then it stays here, at CivFanatics. This also avoids the issues the mod browser has with version control, and avoids any arguments about copyright infringement/Fair Use.
 
I've been playing Civ V since it came out. Today, I stumbled upon this thread, and if I'm understanding correctly, I can download and install your files and be able to play all these new features. Is this correct? I don't play online, always at home against the AI. Again, what you have done looks amazing.
 
Today, I stumbled upon this thread, and if I'm understanding correctly, I can download and install your files and be able to play all these new features. Is this correct?

Correct. Over in your user directory (in Win7, that's My Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization V/; other OS's will be in different places, but you get the idea) there'll be a directory named "MODS". Inside that directory will be one subdirectory per mod you've installed. All you need to do is take the .zip files in my original post and uncompress them in that MODS directory; they'll create subdirectories named "Crazy Spatz's Balance Mod (v1)" and "Spatz's Mod for Alpha Centauri (v1)", with all of the necessary files automatically being placed inside those.

The next time you start up the game, you'll see these on the list of installed mods; just check them off and go. As mods, you can't access these from the main menu of Civ5; you MUST go in through the Mods submenu. If you use any other mods, there might be conflicts. But if you're only using my two mods, you should be ready to go at that point.

If you download the Player Pack, which at the moment only includes three custom map scripts, just put those in the "Maps" directory that's right next to the "MODS" directory. They'll be listed the next time you start the game, as "Spatz's Highlands", "Spatz's Lakes", etc. on the list of available maps.

I update the mods periodically (figure every ~2 weeks for now), but the directory names will continue to say "(v1)" until I reach v.2.00, which is still a long ways away. So if/when you upgrade my mod to a newer version, you should delete the old directories entirely before installing the new ones.

And one side note: if you want to start a game using this mod (or any mod, really) after playing a normal game, you should exit the game and come back in, to clear the cache. (Or clear it by hand, if you know where the cache directory is.) The game doesn't do a good job of cleaning up after itself, otherwise.

I don't play online, always at home against the AI.

Mods don't work in online multiplayer, at all, so that's not a problem. Hotseat is a bit different, but my mods aren't compatible with that yet. This mod is designed for a single-player experience. (Although someday, when it's done, I'd like to see someone run a Succession Game using it.) It's not that it wouldn't be balanced for multiplayer, just that there are several UI interface issues to be overcome.
 
I almost never take commerce, its not that the policies are bad, it just has nothing to offer that you cant really cover with wonders and other policies, that and a relativly weak opener(unless your capital has alot of good gold tiles, it's really a case by case senario)

To me, the opener is very important in choosing to invest in a tree, if the opener is weak it better have some amazing benefits later in the tree

Piety has been taken less by me ever since the theocracy change in the patch, and I now almost always get meritocracy, another I get is military caste, on its own it's meh, but when combined with oligarcy it provides essentally 1 happiness 2culture and a free unit for every city, which is quite powerful
 
To me, the opener is very important in choosing to invest in a tree, if the opener is weak it better have some amazing benefits later in the tree

In general I'd agree with you. Liberty is the prime example of this; 1 culture per city just isn't a lot, since even over the course of 500 turns it's unlikely to even give you 1 policy's cost. It's nice as an early-game benefit to ensure that every city gets border expansions, but it's just not a huge amount once you get to the Opera House/Museum level and start accumulating Wonders. This is also why I added back the +2 happiness to the base Piety branch; the culture building cost reduction is nice and all, but it needed something with immediate benefit again.

One thing that I was thinking of doing was having Commerce be less coastal-focused in general. Effects like the trade route increase from Republic (and formerly Planned Economy) would fit well there, but also note the effect of the base Piety policy, where it makes culture buildings 15% cheaper to build. That sort of benefit, making everything cheaper, would fit in there as well; functionally it a lot like Communism's +production for buildings, but it'd also make it cheaper to rush buildings, and I could tweak it by type.

Piety has been taken less by me ever since the theocracy change in the patch,

Do you mean in the vanilla game, or in my mod? One of the things I tried to do was turn Piety back into a half-Happiness half-Culture branch, whereas the vanilla game had removed nearly all of the Happiness from it. I still end up taking it in most games, because Organized Religion is basically an automatic +2 happiness per city and the culture boosts really help with taking other +Happy policies down the road, but some of that might just be inertia on my part.

My worry with Piety is that I don't want Rationalism to be a no-brainer for people who aren't aiming towards a Cultural Victory. All of those +science bonuses start looking VERY attractive to anyone who's in a tech race...

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On a somewhat related non-Policy note, I've been tweaking quite a few other things lately. I'm looking to upgrade some of the weaker late-game Wonders, especially the ones that previously only benefited an individual city (Merchant Exchange, Pholus Mutagen, Network Backbone). For instance, the Network Backbone will still boost the gold within its city, but its main effect will now be adding +1 science to all specialists in all cities (similar to the Statue of Liberty). The hope is that it won't be quite so important to go Rationalism if you want a research boost.

The thing I've been debating now, for quite a while, is whether I want to make either the Ascetic Virtues project or the Virtual World into a pseudo-KGB for policies, where you can "steal" policies from other players. You'd still be limited on the exclusive branches, and I'm not sure what this'd do to the AI, so I've held off. But I'd like a way, in the late game, to gain extra policies through more than just the steady accumulation of culture. (Another thought was to allow the Great Empath to sacrifice for a policy in the same way Great Scientists sacrifice for free techs. But the balance on that would be horrendous, and the AI wouldn't handle it well.)

Also, I think I've found one of the major causes of crashes. Still testing that one.
 
Ok, some feedback on policies:

Tradition
This branch seems to kinda have lost it's small-empire focus:
- It gives much happiness, something I believe is actually in shorter supply in larger empire (But I rarely do large so I wouldn't know...) This is especially bothering for the super-finish: 10 happiness ain't so much, even with boosted empathets...
- Many policies doesn't particularly benefit small empires: Wonder production is always nice, free garrison + harder hitting cities likewise. And the finisher that gives more growth? The only ones that really favor small empires are starter (weak, meh) and Monarchy, both of which only affects your capital.
It might just be me, but I am mostly forced to take the "4 free culture buildings" policy when I have like 2 cities and before temple is unlocked (So I either get like 1 free monument or nothing...) These kind of situational one-shot policies are very weak IMO.

Overall the tradition tree seems a bit underpowered, but it might be that it's a starter tree...
It should contain one or two policies that boosts like your 4 biggest cities, and perhaps make the finisher only affect your SMALLEST cities?



I do, however, find the Commerce opener PERFECT when I play single-city wonder whoring GPT-focused research agreement-based games. For some reason I do really well despite being a noob on Immortal...
Might be that the AI can't really manage the armies needed to take down my 1 lolwtfpwn-strong city though :lol:
(I actually repeatedly repulsed JAPAN attacking with horsehockytons of warriors+archers, with like 3 warriors of my own :confused: )
 
This is especially bothering for the super-finish: 10 happiness ain't so much, even with boosted empathets...

While the exact value is subject to tweaking, the idea was that the SF effect for Eudaimonia should be a flat benefit, the kind of thing that would still be significant for an OCC game. 10 Happiness means 8 more population in your city, and in a one-city challenge you won't have many luxuries. It's not just for one-city games; small empires won't have many luxuries, and won't have enough to trade for more, which seriously inhibits their growth. And don't underestimate the benefit a flat +10 Happiness gives to a larger empire; that's Wonder-level effects right there, even without the doubled Empath part.
I'm not saying that I can't boost it a bit more; it was set to +10 back when most Wonders were +5 to +8. So I might bump it to +12 now. The thing to remember is that nearly all Happiness is capped by population, so it's a bit more powerful than just building a few Colosseums.

Don't underestimate the Empath bit; you'll have up to 3 per city by the end of the game, except that cities with local Omnicytes have 2 more through the Centauri Preserve, and the city with the Empath Guild will have 2 slots. So it does help a sprawling empire quite a bit, but only large cities will really have the food to spare for specialists in the first place so it's still mostly the vertical emphasis I wanted for Tradition. You'll only see huge empire-wide benefits once you get to the Nanotech Era, but before then you'd still have a few of these.

If I boost Eudaimonia further, it needs to be another Happiness (or maybe food) bonus, preferably something that benefits vertical development (OCC, specialists, etc.) more than sprawl. Even if it's as simple as "+10 food per turn in your capital" (which I can do).

- Many policies doesn't particularly benefit small empires:

Just to be clear, I didn't change ANY of the policies within this branch. This is all the same as in the vanilla game; any shift in emphasis was on their part, not mine.
To me, Tradition wasn't really so much "small empire" as "all-around useful no matter how big your empire is"; the Liberty branch is sort of a trap, in that it basically forces you to expand quickly without giving you much Happiness support to do so, which then basically forces you to go Piety. So I've found myself going Tradition fairly often lately, especially on maps where you don't have a huge amount of room to expand.

Take the Wonder production bonus, for instance; that actually does favor vertical development, because the ICS-style sprawl of Liberty doesn't tend to leave you with enough production to win any Wonder races. In the early game, that bonus allows you to use your large capital city to grab a couple early Wonders, instead of only using it to spit out more Settlers. Adding extra Wonder production to a bunch of small cities isn't going to do anything, since none of them would ever win a Wonder race, so that one does fit the pattern.

And I do have to say, Tradition's Finisher is one of the stronger ones out there; it's just strange that they'd use it for Tradition. In fact, I'd say that Tradition and Liberty should just switch Finishers; Tradition get a Great Person (good for a small empire that could use another GP improvement or an early Great General), Liberty get the food bonus in each city.

It might just be me, but I am mostly forced to take the "4 free culture buildings" policy when I have like 2 cities and before temple is unlocked (So I either get like 1 free monument or nothing...) These kind of situational one-shot policies are very weak IMO.

That one I'll give you. The 4 free building thing is just weak, and I'll be looking into ways to boost it. Also, remember that in my mod the Temple isn't in the Culture chain any more; it goes straight from Monument to Opera House.
Now, if they'd said "the Monument is free in EVERY city you make from here on out", that'd be something. But that might overlap a bit too much with the Liberty opener. I'd prefer something like "Cultural buildings are always free within your capital"; that would have some real potential. (Can't actually do that, but still, there ARE some things I can do.)

Overall the tradition tree seems a bit underpowered, but it might be that it's a starter tree...

That might be part of it, too. I know that this is part of why they tried changing Honor to be a bit more well-rounded; I think the idea was that Tradition, Liberty, and Honor were all supposed to be a bit weak, with some real clunkers along the way, but that each would favor a different development strategy (vertical, sprawl, conquest). Each of those strategies also ties to one of the late-game trees (Honor -> Autocracy, Tradition -> Freedom, Liberty -> Order), so I guess the idea is that it encourages the AIs to pick one of these three basic paths and stick with it. This is why it's so strange that Commerce is underwhelming; those middle 4 are supposed to be how you really distinguish yourself.
 
A couple ideas about what we were talking about earlyer

I tested the platonic academy mod and it does work, giving +1 culture per specialist, so it is possible, my guess would be to add the effect to the palace (the only wonder every civ is gaurenteed to have) with a policy if you wanted to do that

Another idea I had about the early eras not lasting long enough is to change how the game pace works, epic and marathon having the same tech progression but with the same production as standard
 
Dezuman, you just reminded me of something ive been meaning to bring up, AI stratagy

A little different than what you've been saying but the AI has very poor consideration of choke points etc.

I've probably seen alot more of this than normal due to me playing on my map. Most of the time I play as Rome, Italy is easly defened due to the alps having 3 chokepoints, I plop cites on 2 and put units on the rest, so the only way to get to me is by way of sea, which I have 1 or 2 triremes that tear apart their invasion, it woulden't be hard to get to me if the AI actually used sea units for more than scouting and an extra ranged attack for a city, but instead of taking out my ships for safe passage they always decide to zerg rush and try to get across before all their units are picked off, its like watching baby sea turtles trying to get to the ocean before the seaguls get them

So is there a way to make the AI use naval units more, maybe up the flavors? Would make naval combat more interesting at least.
 
I tested the platonic academy mod and it does work, giving +1 culture per specialist, so it is possible, my guess would be to add the effect to the palace (the only wonder every civ is gaurenteed to have) with a policy if you wanted to do that

I just downloaded that mod, and yes, it only uses the <SpecialistExtraCulture> tab I'd mentioned previously. This tab had been bugged for a long time (I wrote the bug report on it way back when, when I used it for the first version of the Ascetic Virtues), so if they've fixed it then great. I haven't tried it out lately, though.

But even so, you can't tie that to a policy. There's just no way to do that, at least without going into Lua; just because something is available in the Buildings table doesn't mean it can translate to the Policies table, and there's no way for a policy to give a free building. At least not directly; it CAN give a massive production bonus to a building type, and if that building requires the Palace then it'd only be buildable in your capital, but this wouldn't stop anyone from building it without the policy either.

Another idea I had about the early eras not lasting long enough is to change how the game pace works, epic and marathon having the same tech progression but with the same production as standard

If you want to adjust the rates of those speeds, then feel free to make a mod that does that; while the year numbers will be way off, it should be perfectly compatible with my mod. But I'm going to keep the same basic scaling (x2/3 for quick, x3/2 for epic, x3 for Marathon) as in the vanilla game.

If the early eras are going by too quickly, then I'd rather fix the actual balance issues that lead to that problem. Maybe it's a function of tech costs, maybe it's the base research amounts being too large. Those are all easy enough to tweak.

For instance, I think the Classical Era techs (T3) are just too cheap. They're not even 3 times the cost of the T1 techs, despite the fact that you'll generate considerably more than 3 times the science at that point. And the T4 techs cost more than 3 times as much as the T3s. So if the T2 and T3 techs were raised in cost a bit, to where it'd take you a bit longer to get to the mid-Medieval, that might fix it. The pacing seems to be fine once you get to that point.

So is there a way to make the AI use naval units more, maybe up the flavors? Would make naval combat more interesting at least.

The problem isn't so much the AI not building enough naval units, it's more that he's not very good at using the ones he makes. Especially for escorting amphibious assaults; it's very easy to use fast naval vessels to pick off potential invaders.

Naval vessels also have a major problem with strength; they get ripped apart by land-based artillery, because their combat strengths are just extremely low and they rely on vs-naval penalties that other units get. They really just need an across-the-board 50% power increase and a removal of those penalties, but that's a little more balance work then I want to jump into.
 
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