Beta v4.X - General Discussion

[Thalassicus]

No, what I mean is production... not build time.

The in-all-cities bonus was only for production. Settlers are built with both food and production, and the policy simply gave the city +50% while constructing settlers, like Order gives +25% while building buildings. The food part isn't affected so it can lead to confusing build times.

In other words the tooltip was very poorly worded. In one of the recent betas I changed it to clarify it's a production boost.

 

[Txurce]

Playing 4.25, the only bug I'm still encountering is the known "starving" notification. I didn't play the last two weeks or so, but in general never encountered any of the fun-diminishing bugs.

 

[Sneaks]

Should be a way to fix the starvation notice now

 

[Thalassicus]

Yeah, I'll sit down and see if I can work that out today.

 

[Txurce]

This is the sort of issue where additional voices on the subject would help since the balance of luck vs skill is very subjective. To anyone reading... how much do you like success based on random map generation luck?

• About the same (vanilla Civ V).
• More luck (like Civ IV).
• More strategy (like the beta).

Having not played for a while, I only just discovered this thread, and have reached this point. I am in favor of unbalanced starts - good or bad - including not just starting locations but resource availability. This along with Leader choice is what makes each game different for me, and that difference is most responsible for my enjoying the game. (If this were mainly an MP game, I would feel differently.) It's also why I'm glad you keep working on Leaders to be roughly balanced, but definitely distinct. (And by the way, I hate dice games. It's one reason why I love Diplomacy.)

 

[Txurce]

Okay, now I'm caught up. My current game feels incredibly well balanced with the combination of v4.24 and WWGD v5. I can't say enough about both yours and Sneaks/Alpaca's contributions. Most of specific comments will be on the WWGD mod thread, once I finish.

So about that controversial 4.04 DoF Science buff – does the AI see the value in it? How does it work with the FR mod - side-by-side?

 

[doktorstick]

For reference, I'm a solid Emperor player using TBC. I should really step it up to Immortal now that I'm winning 4/5 games on Emperor. I've only recently started using WWGD (one game with v5), so I can't say how well I'll do with TBC+WWGD, though I expect I'll do better.

Now that the pretext is out of the way, I thoroughly enjoy unbalanced starts. It makes the game more interesting for me in the same way as not having access to "vital" resources makes it more interesting. It forces me to adapt as opposed to following the same recipe for success.

I play to win, but I'm okay with losing. It's how I learn.

 

[Thalassicus]

So about that controversial 4.04 DoF Science buff – does the AI see the value in it? How does it work with the FR mod - side-by-side?

The value AIs see in DoF's is determined on a per-leader basis by each leader's "DoFWillingness" stat. I configured this so peaceful leaders are very willing to become friends, while warlike leaders are more reserved (mainly to try and encourage them to actually conquer their neighbors instead of sitting around doing nothing).

Most of FRB is the change to lightbulbing scientists, with just a small block for altering RAs since they're mostly unmoddable. Since the lightbulbing and DoF parts of the game are separate the two mods are entirely independent.

@doktorstick
I did some work a month ago or so to try and smooth out the transition between difficulty levels, so you should find Immortal reasonably harder without being overly frustrating. One of the problems with difficulty levels in vanilla is the bonuses jump around erratically, so I found vanilla Emperor amazingly easy while Immortal was nearly impossible.



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v4.29 beta

• Added translations in Deutsch for building tooltips (thanks Berkan!)
• Included WWGD as part of the Balance - Leaders component (at Sneaks' request).

v4.30 beta

• Added a temporary partial fix for starvation notices appearing when a city is relying on maritime food to sustain itself. The notification no longer appears, and I'm trying to figure out how to hide the sound effect + glow that occurs on the city. This notification display is coded in the c++ side of things so it's difficult to get rid of or change.

 

[Txurce]

All of the above sounds good, Thal. I'm still getting "trade route broken" notices after RR when I build harbors. Can this be addressed, and are the RR boost and trade-route bonuses both in effect?

 

[doktorstick]

• Included WWGD as part of the Balance - Leaders component (at Sneaks' request).

Thal - Does this mean I should or should not be using WWGD as a separate mod?

 

[Sneaks]

You can still use WWGD as a separate mod with this. Thal incorporated the WWGD changes to diplomacy, but not handicaps.

This means that the AI will react in a saner fashion, but still have the vanilla happiness bonuses. The handicap change is a bit beyond the scope of a balance mod.

 

[Txurce]

Most of FRB is the change to lightbulbing scientists, with just a small block for altering RAs since they're mostly unmoddable. Since the lightbulbing and DoF parts of the game are separate the two mods are entirely independent.

FRB had also raised the price of RA's, but now they're out of reach, except for the DoF mod. I don't have a problem with anything that slows the game down... even if crazy Isabella asked for a DoF early in my present game, then denounced me just after Rome attacked me for being a warmonger.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Txurce
Trade routes "breaking" is a vanilla bug we can't fix. I think nothing's actually happening from a gameplay perspective, it's just changing from one trade route path to another.

It's easy to verify if the bonuses are having effect by looking at the cityview production tooltip.

Actually I just dropped everything from WWGD in there. I don't think changing AI handicaps is all that radical.

 

[Txurce]

Actually I just dropped everything from WWGD in there. I don't think changing AI handicaps is all that radical.

Assuming yoyu mean the Chieftain "bug," thank you for saving me a long editorial on this point. I've been saying it for a long time based on AI Equalizer, and it's absolutely true with WWGDv5. The biggest difference is early on, where the AI expands more slowly. But as you'll see form my upcoming report, it doesn't change all that much otherwise.

 

[Sneaks]

Assuming yoyu mean the Chieftain "bug," thank you for saving me a long editorial on this point. I've been saying it for a long time based on AI Equalizer, and it's absolutely true with WWGDv5. The biggest difference is early on, where the AI expands more slowly. But as you'll see form my upcoming report, it doesn't change all that much otherwise.

That makes me very happy to hear. My goal was to make the AI as powerful as before, but as powerful while working within the mechanic. If the changes have successfully put a damper on blisteringly insane rexxing and early land grab, then one of my goals has been reached.

I always want the player to need to expand relatively early for land, but not make the immediacy so great that early gameplay options are effectively removed.

 

[jacktannery]

v4.21 beta
Aztec sacrificial captives are now sent to the lowest-culture city to be sacrificed (adding to that city's culture).

I just started as Aztek game on 4.28 and this is not working for me. When I kill an enemy I get the c. 8 culture added to my pool, but no culture is added to any city, and without monuments I get no border expansions. Did you remove this, or did I misunderstand how it is supposed to work?

 

[Thalassicus]

@jacktannery
It was working in my last game but I might have broken it on accident, let me check...

I did a test and it's working in the current version. Thinking this over a while, I believe I had a bug in 4.28 preventing some scripts from running. With 4.30 installed everything should be functioning properly.

One thing to note is I excluded razing and puppet cities from the culture boost, it goes to the lowest-culture core city. Puppet cities already have fast border expansion since their expansion rate is reset when captured (a vanilla bug we can't easily fix).

 

[jacktannery]

@jacktannery
It was working in my last game but I might have broken it on accident, let me check...

I did a test and it's working in the current version. Thinking this over a while, I believe I had a bug in 4.28 preventing some scripts from running. With 4.30 installed everything should be functioning properly.

I deleted 4.28 and replaced it with 4.30, then cleared the cache. Luckily I was still able to load up my saved game. It still did not work. I had two cities (both normal cities - no puppets/razed) and whenever I killed a barbarian, my less-cultured city received no free culture either that turn or the next. I did however get +12 culture (in the same way as vanilla) but it did not go into any of my cities.

 

[Seek]

Noticed something odd in v30: NC's 100% is commented out in the BCD - National Wonders xml, it's only yielding 50%.

 

[Thalassicus]

@jacktannery
The culture gain happens when combat ends. Do you have any other mods installed?

If you've only got TBC installed, could you do a few things for me to help figure out what the problem is?

1. Download the attached BL - General file and extract it here, overriding the one you've already got:
   Mods\Thals Balance Mods - Combined (v 4)\TBC - Thals Balance Combined\Leaders\BL - General.lua
2. Open your savegame.
3. Open the tuner. (it's a few easy steps described on the beta download page)
4. Kill a unit.
5. Copy-paste the output from the tuner to a post here.

It should display a bunch of information like this:

... BL - General: DEBUG  attPlayerID         0
... BL - General: DEBUG  attUnitID           24576
... BL - General: DEBUG  attUnitDamage       14
... BL - General: DEBUG  attFinalUnitDamage  3
... BL - General: DEBUG  attMaxHitPoints     10
... BL - General: DEBUG  defPlayerID         63
... BL - General: DEBUG  defUnitID           8192
... BL - General: DEBUG  defUnitDamage       3
... BL - General: DEBUG  defFinalUnitDamage  14
... BL - General: DEBUG  defMaxHitPoints     10
... BL - General: DEBUG  Tenochtitlan +32 culture from killing Musketman

@Seek
I reduced NC science from 100% to 50% when Firaxis added +5 to the NC.