Acken's Minimalistic Balance for singleplayer (and AI improvements)
- Thread starter Acken
- Start date
Hello, I just DL'd this mod.
My game freezes up during the first Barbarian turn after founding a city. My game is up to date, this is the only mod I use, along with Enhanced User Interface. I have tried 3 different games, it happens every time. I am using the Steam workshop version.
My game freezes up during the first Barbarian turn after founding a city. My game is up to date, this is the only mod I use, along with Enhanced User Interface. I have tried 3 different games, it happens every time. I am using the Steam workshop version.
Acken
Deity
Please post a save so that I can look into it. I cannot replicate this issue.
Last edited:
Hi, thanks for the quick response.
In trying to recreate the environment, I can't seem to replicate it either. The only thing I did differently this time was deleting my mod database file before installing the mod. No idea if that helped, or if it was just a fluke. Anyway, I'm excited to try it out!
Acken
Deity
Hello, no it doesnt affect Game speeds. This mode is mostly balanced for standard speed though as Im not sure how things would go at other speeds.
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2004
- Messages
- 1,281
Hello Acken!
Your mod is the only thing that keeps me playing civ
(civ vi AI is such a disapointment)
The "Community Patch Project" claims to have the best AI, but since I much prefer the way you have balanced the game, do you know if it's possible, and would there be any benefit to use their DLL with your mod ?
Cheers
Your mod is the only thing that keeps me playing civ
(civ vi AI is such a disapointment)The "Community Patch Project" claims to have the best AI, but since I much prefer the way you have balanced the game, do you know if it's possible, and would there be any benefit to use their DLL with your mod ?
Cheers
Acken
Deity
Hello Acken!
Your mod is the only thing that keeps me playing civ
The "Community Patch Project" claims to have the best AI, but since I much prefer the way you have balanced the game, do you know if it's possible, and would there be any benefit to use their DLL with your mod ?
Cheers
Its simply not possible because both mods use a custom dll.
Ideally, Id have to use some of their dll modifications into my own first. Or rather bring my modifications into CPP to also allow more compatibility with mods relying on CPP. Right now such a project is on hold to see if Civ6 ever gets anywhere but in the future I may look at it.
The biggest issue is that as much effort as they did to make CPP modifications on/off its still some work to merge 2 DLL codes with both touching some of the same area of the C++. My mod also mods the AI to a lesser extent to fit my mod specifically so I cannot expect great result by just copy pasting. If there is definetely something that I could take from CPP it may be the whole combat/army movement if its good. Id need (or someone could share) to see how their AI works in the base game (compared to base AI) since my mod is a lot closer to the base game than the VoxPopuli overhaul and then grab what is interesting.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2004
- Messages
- 1,281
The question more clearly stated was: is it possible to replace your DLL in your mod's folder with CPP DLL and change nothing else, I understand from your reply the answer is no
No big deal, I am still struggling on Immortal and getting crushed on Deity (although like many I would like to have the same challenge in a more "intelligent" fashion and rely less on "overwhelming force" AI cheats)
Cheers
No big deal, I am still struggling on Immortal and getting crushed on Deity (although like many I would like to have the same challenge in a more "intelligent" fashion and rely less on "overwhelming force" AI cheats)
Cheers
Acken
Deity
No it wouldnt work. The game would load but a lot of my mod would be broken.
Yes ideally AI improvements would make the challenge more interesting but Im also a believer that you have to make an AI play a specific set of rules to be good at it. The exception is mostly the combat which stays fairly similar from any civ5 version which is why it would likely be the part I'm most interested in. You'd have to try CPP's AI too to see how it compares and if you're truly missing out. My mod doesn't rely on massive bonus (no more than the base game) but more on using the bonuses correctly and changing the rules of the game to make it a bit more AI friendly. This leads to the AI simply having better macro than the base game and then through their bonuses being a threat but the micro still is the same so they need numbers to be threatening.
If / When I resume modding I'd also look at the warlord AI to see how it plays with no bonus (and making it no bonus to begin with).
Yes ideally AI improvements would make the challenge more interesting but Im also a believer that you have to make an AI play a specific set of rules to be good at it. The exception is mostly the combat which stays fairly similar from any civ5 version which is why it would likely be the part I'm most interested in. You'd have to try CPP's AI too to see how it compares and if you're truly missing out. My mod doesn't rely on massive bonus (no more than the base game) but more on using the bonuses correctly and changing the rules of the game to make it a bit more AI friendly. This leads to the AI simply having better macro than the base game and then through their bonuses being a threat but the micro still is the same so they need numbers to be threatening.
If / When I resume modding I'd also look at the warlord AI to see how it plays with no bonus (and making it no bonus to begin with).
Last edited:
I'm always glad to see Acken's name on these forums, and glad to see that people still frequent the Civ 5 area, even if it is rather quiet these days. Civ 6 was a great disappointment to me, and if I play at all these days, I still play Civ 5. And I'm still a terrible player 
And I won't get any better, because I can't multi-task.
Anyway, just an observation on the maps produced by Acken's scripts (I don't play the full mod because I'm on a Mac, unless I decide to boot into Windows, which is a painful experience). I realise this is a bit "niche" or unusual, but I usually play as England, and my experience recently is that the Acken Pangaea map script rarely gives England a coastal start. It not infrequently gives it a start on an inland sea or a lake, but not on a "genuine" coast. I'm not complaining or whinging, and it may be just the RNG getting stuck in a loop, but I thought I'd mention it in case someone has copious time and enthusiasm to investigate this (apparent) peculiarity. Other than that, I like the maps, although I get the impression that they were written with half an eye to Liberty, and do leave quite a lot of space to be filled up. But I assume it would play a bit differently with the whole mod installed.
Best wishes, and thanks for all the many videos, mods, posts with advice.
And I won't get any better, because I can't multi-task. Anyway, just an observation on the maps produced by Acken's scripts (I don't play the full mod because I'm on a Mac, unless I decide to boot into Windows, which is a painful experience). I realise this is a bit "niche" or unusual, but I usually play as England, and my experience recently is that the Acken Pangaea map script rarely gives England a coastal start. It not infrequently gives it a start on an inland sea or a lake, but not on a "genuine" coast. I'm not complaining or whinging, and it may be just the RNG getting stuck in a loop, but I thought I'd mention it in case someone has copious time and enthusiasm to investigate this (apparent) peculiarity. Other than that, I like the maps, although I get the impression that they were written with half an eye to Liberty, and do leave quite a lot of space to be filled up. But I assume it would play a bit differently with the whole mod installed.
Best wishes, and thanks for all the many videos, mods, posts with advice.
Acken
Deity
It's possible it is due to the script creating more blocky pangeas and therefore diminishing potential coast locations. I'm not exactly sure how starting bias like these are handled. Have you tried increasing the amount of water level ? Also one of the script is Continents and so would probably give better result for England I think.
Thanks for the quick reply -- that is a very plausible explanation -- I don't experience the same thing with the Hellblazer map script, which of course doesn't have the option for making smooth pangaeas. I'll try continents.
One thought -- is tech development likely to be slower on continents because of meeting fewer AI civs? (Or meeting them later.)
Another thing -- I remember the Communitas map script had an ocean rift that guaranteed that you couldn't go from one continent to the other until you had researched navigation(?) and could build caravels. Is there a way I could modify your map script to get the same effect? I find it gives a bit of extra interest to the late game when you have to build a navy.
Thanks again.
One thought -- is tech development likely to be slower on continents because of meeting fewer AI civs? (Or meeting them later.)
Another thing -- I remember the Communitas map script had an ocean rift that guaranteed that you couldn't go from one continent to the other until you had researched navigation(?) and could build caravels. Is there a way I could modify your map script to get the same effect? I find it gives a bit of extra interest to the late game when you have to build a navy.
Thanks again.
Acken
Deity
You can try but Im far from an expert on mapscript, most of my modification are based on HB's map.
Indeed, but as I explained above, I don't use the Acken mod. I only use the map script. I played the Communitas maps a lot, but I don't really like them. I dislike the stringy landforms, and I detest the silly, one-tile islands, not to mention the chain of islands that you always seem to get mid-ocean rift. I've (very ineptly) modified the Communitas script every way I can think of, and I still can't get a result I like. Indeed, one of my major frustration with Civ5 is that I've never really found a way of getting maps that I find satisfying. The Acken and HB maps are the closest to what I like.
Acken
Deity
Not in the short term as Im not working on it but in the future maybe.
