Realisation

I had epiphany:

CIV 5 has terrible balance (buildings, social policies, game settings, etc), and everybody complain about that more or less.

But this game is not supposed to be balanced by developers! It is soo easy (and fun) to mod it! Stop complaining about developers not doing their job - make your own balance!
It is way easier to learn basic modding (XML), than learning "proper" strategies with every move cataloqued

Current one is probably good for multiplayer games (never played multiplayer CIV match, but I suppose roles there are different).
This is probably one of the first "snadbox" strategy games

People don't buy games to learn xml
But yeah other people know xml and they can mod the game.

Yeah I'm grateful that there are supremely talented people out there willing to improve the game for my benefit, but they shouldn't be relied on the do things that the developers and designers should have done.

Wojciech_R said:

I had epiphany:

CIV 5 has terrible balance (buildings, social policies, game settings, etc), and everybody complain about that more or less.

But this game is not supposed to be balanced by developers! It is soo easy (and fun) to mod it! Stop complaining about developers not doing their job - make your own balance!
It is way easier to learn basic modding (XML), than learning "proper" strategies with every move cataloqued

Current one is probably good for multiplayer games (never played multiplayer CIV match, but I suppose roles there are different).
This is probably one of the first "snadbox" strategy games

Click to expand...

Too much balance = oatmeal.

Hooray for battleships, nukes, stealth, gdr, and those x-com paratroopers. At least there is some payoff at the end game...if you last that long.

I actually thing the developers did a terrific job with game balance.

There are a number of WTF head scratchers, not the least of which is the archer line losing range when upgraded, but everything all together works remarkably well.

I actually thing the developers did a terrific job with game balance.

There are a number of WTF head scratchers, not the least of which is the archer line losing range when upgraded, but everything all together works remarkably well.

Click to expand...

Then you can further reinforce game balance by adding few more bonuses to tradition and removing range attack from machinegunngers after upgrade.

beetle said:

I actually thing the developers did a terrific job with game balance.

There are a number of WTF head scratchers, not the least of which is the archer line losing range when upgraded, but everything all together works remarkably well.

Click to expand...

I actually think the developers did an absolutely horrible job at balancing. Just a few cases:

Tradition vs. Liberty (vs. Honor and Piety )
Rationalism vs. anything else
Archers vs. melee units and mounted units
Salt vs. any other resource
Interciv balancing (poor Marocco to name one)
Religious beliefs (Jesuit Education vs. Underground Sect )

I know that the perfect balance is unachievable and that players will always find the loopholes, and I understand that some of these might even be intended (beliefs for instance can reward first founder) but some of these are just huge differences that really destroys variation in game (I can't understand how people can stand playing unmodded game and picking Tradition + Rationalism in every single game one after another after another) - and the sad thing is, like OP says, it would be a relatively small patch needed to fix some of these.

I am sure we can agree to disagree. Sure, lots is not perfect, but (1) I think they got 90%+ right; and (2) it is better than what we got with III and IV.

Plus, the two balance patches I have looked into, CBT and Acken’s, all change the game too much for my tastes. Which makes me think that balancing is harder than it looks! So it is pretty easy to spot, for example, that Salt is a little bit better than other resources, but to correct that -- too much else ends up out of whack.

compared with other games i've played civ 5 has pretty good balance. there are some things i'd complain about but that's present in any game. some things that are (seemingly) random shouldn't be. but for the most part i'm content with the way the game flows unmodded

beetle said:

I am sure we can agree to disagree. Sure, lots is not perfect, but (1) I think they got 90%+ right; and (2) it is better than what we got with III and IV.

Plus, the two balance patches I have looked into, CBT and Acken’s, all change the game too much for my tastes. Which makes me think that balancing is harder than it looks! So it is pretty easy to spot, for example, that Salt is a little bit better than other resources, but to correct that -- too much else ends up out of whack.

Click to expand...

I would strongly recommend giving Acken's mod a real honest chance, as in, play a few games with it. If for some odd reason that mod completely disappeared from cyberspace and I no longer had access to it, I would literally uninstall Civ 5. After playing with it (and a couple other mods), I can't play the unmodded game anymore.

I play a lot of Dota, and because Dota is an esport it is CONSTANTLY being patched for balance. Those of you who play are chuckling right now because the game is never perfectly balance, but at least they try. Whereas with Civ, the product is dead to the developer, never to be balanced again. I just can't stand that in a game. Without balance patches, a game dies very quickly for me because the game play gets too boring and stale.

If you think Acken's mod changes the game too much, that's probably because in his mod you can't just always go 4 city tradition, rationalism, win. Haven't you ever wanted to play a game where you actually go Piety? Or Patronage? I mean... do you really enjoy playing the game the exact same way every time?

noto2 said:

I mean... do you really enjoy playing the game the exact same way every time?

Click to expand...

That's quite an assumption.

I played a few games with Acken's mod but didn't get on with how aggressive it made the AI towards CS. It seemed pointless having them in the game when the majority of them were assimilate by the AI by the halfway point in the game.

A lot of the other changes that were made were good but that one just turned me off. I don't think that equates to wanting to play the same way every time.

if you play the unmodded game at high difficulty, you have to take tradition and you have to go rationalism. There are no other options. You're also limited in the tech path you choose. At lower difficulty you can do whatever you want, but then that's not fun either because it's no challenge. That's what I meant about playing the same way every time.

As for aggression vs city states... idk, that happened to me all the time in the unmodded game as well, but in any case, it offers you an opportunity. go to war and liberate the CS... boom, instant ally, and you don't get any warmongering penalties either.

noto2 said:

if you play the unmodded game at high difficulty, you have to take tradition and you have to go rationalism.

Click to expand...

I am hardly the best player, but I can often make Liberty work. I cannot make Piety work at all, but then I hit the same wall with Honor, and I well understand HCA to be viable. Yes, the Rationalism tree is OP, but the opener and one pick is really all you need. So even at Deity there is enough room to fill out a whole “extra” tree of your choice, and all three Ideologies work. Between that and 43 different civs, I feel plenty of variability!

noto2 said:

if you play the unmodded game at high difficulty, you have to take tradition and you have to go rationalism. There are no other options. You're also limited in the tech path you choose. At lower difficulty you can do whatever you want, but then that's not fun either because it's no challenge. That's what I meant about playing the same way every time.

As for aggression vs city states... idk, that happened to me all the time in the unmodded game as well, but in any case, it offers you an opportunity. go to war and liberate the CS... boom, instant ally, and you don't get any warmongering penalties either.

Click to expand...

But isn't that still forcing you to play a certain (albeit different) way? I know that's one of the main points of Acken's mod, to make the game more aggressive. It just seems that way direction Acken's mod pushes the player is something that suits you whereas it might not suit others. What you see as an opportunity to do something different could be seen by someone else as a tiring requirement (just as tiring as you see the policy path in the unmodded game).

This shouldn't be a for vs against Acken's mod discussion, because apart from a couple of noticeable differences (which may be more noticeable/bothersome to me due to my differing playing style) it's really good, but suggesting that just because someone doesn't like the mod that they are therefore unimaginative and enjoy playing the same way every time isn't fair.

noto2 said:

if you play the unmodded game at high difficulty, you have to take tradition and you have to go rationalism. There are no other options. You're also limited in the tech path you choose.

Click to expand...

That's not even true at all. You should look at various deity games posted in the DCL or CDG series. I don't think I've gone tradition in at least a month. Liberty can be made to work for both peaceful and dom games, and certainly HCA can be done for domination games.

I've also won Liberty games on Immortal. Also I've had games where I might have opened rationalism but didn't complete it on Immortal and won (why get +1 gold from libraries when you get six free foreign legions that let you conquor three civs?)

If you want a real challenge go Piety starting on Immortal.

noto2 said:

if you play the unmodded game at high difficulty, you have to take tradition and you have to go rationalism. There are no other options. You're also limited in the tech path you choose. At lower difficulty you can do whatever you want, but then that's not fun either because it's no challenge. That's what I meant about playing the same way every time.

As for aggression vs city states... idk, that happened to me all the time in the unmodded game as well, but in any case, it offers you an opportunity. go to war and liberate the CS... boom, instant ally, and you don't get any warmongering penalties either.

Click to expand...

Whoa there, I play immortal or deity and I usually go for Liberty and Patronage, works very well usually (Alexander can be annoying for this so if I find him I make it a point to take him out before he can steal my city states).

Agree with you on liberating city states, though it is annoying when they take one you are already allies with especially if you aren't in a position to quickly take it back.

I don't find Acken's mod AI to be overly aggressive, but then maybe that's because I'm comparing it to not just BNW, but GandK and Civ 4 AI. Let's be honest, unmodded BNW AI is really passive compared to other iterations of the series.

Anyway my post was in agreement with kaspergm. The balance in the unmodded game is atrocious. A game like Civ really needs on going patches.

kaspergm said:

Tradition vs. Liberty (vs. Honor and Piety )

Click to expand...

Piety is actually fine imo being a weaker tree.
It was originally intended to be a support tree for helping spread religion and acquiring extra faith with the reformation as a useful support to your victory condition.
The problem was in moving it to the ancient era so now everybody wants it to be able to stand against Tradition or Liberty. Particularly because the AI often takes it and ends up hamstrung because it is weaker.

That wasn't its original intention. Forcing all the early policy trees to be equal in providing happiness, gold, culture etc just ruins game balance. That is my gripe with many of the 'balance patches' out there... It provides balance but it sorta removes the initial purpose of the social policy tree.

It should be moved back to the Classical era (forcing civs to open Honor, liberty or Piety first) and the policy Religious Tolerance should be removed and added to the opener as a bonus for starting the tree (i.e. everybody starts worshipping every god & idol....). Thus the tree should have a maximum of 5 policies (including the opener).

That would compensate for Piety being a support tree and allow you to finish the tree off in a more appropriate amount of time so you can focus on other policies.


Honor might need a bit of a lift but not too much. Some Civs are already dangerous enough for early conquest. Some Diety domination games can be won faster than using Liberty. Part of the issue with early conquest is how good Tradition is, (i.e. you can try early domination but the Tradition runaway on another continent outpaces everybody....). Then there is also the poor AI which means the AI can't use the Honor tree to full effect anyway...

Redaxe said:

Piety is actually fine imo being a weaker tree.
It was originally intended to be a support tree for helping spread religion and acquiring extra faith with the reformation as a useful support to your victory condition.
The problem was in moving it to the ancient era so now everybody wants it to be able to stand against Tradition or Liberty. Particularly because the AI often takes it and ends up hamstrung because it is weaker.

Click to expand...

I completely agree, Piety should be weaker if taken as starting tree, my gripe is with Tradition. I actually don't mind Piety opening in Ancient era, I regularly open Piety after the first couple of policies in Tradition/Liberty to get the production bonus to Shrines at the time I actually start building Shrines. Rather, one could argue that the AI should be programmed to not max out Piety straight away.

But then again, that's one of the dilemmas of which role the AI should play: Should it always play optimally, and should it sometimes play sub-optimally in order to challenge the player in a specific area? For instance, the fact that 1-2 AI players almost always max out Piety directly puts some pressure on the player if you want to target specific beliefs - for instance, getting Jesuit Education is rather rare because the AI will almost always get to it before you while you're busy filling out Tradition/Liberty, and I think that's fine. So basically those AIs sacrifice themselves to spice up gameplay for the human player, and I guess that's fine (as long as some of the other AI players play optimally).