Having Braved the Brave New World I AM READY to Enter MOD Territory: suggestions?

[danaphanous]

Hey all! I am interested in the mod experience after playing through most of BNW's features and levels. Here is the story of my experience with civ: OR, you can skip to the list at the bottom, and just answer the mod questions directly

Spoiler :

I am fairly new to Civ V and the forums, but an old player. Having been born in the 90's, I was not old enough to be aware of civ until the release of Civ III and this is the version that hooked me. I remember playing hours and hours on that game, and independently getting good enough to take on Deity, before moving to Civ IV. I seemed to have a knack for the game (I like to think ) and loved the detail, management, and especially settling and war aspects. Civ is an amazing game.

After going to college and then grad school (I've put a few beakers into America's research on Ocular Mechanics and Regeneration as a university specialist ) and taking a break from the civ series, I have recently purchased civ V on a whim of nostalgia. I was lucky enough to get it right after BNW release, starting right of the bat with the more balanced G&K and then upgrading to BNW this January. It had been out long enough I got all the dlc together in one cheap package. Loving this game! The new changes threw me for a loop, but after acclimating, I am very much enjoying Civ V.

After purchase, the game was similar enough I started on King and trounced it pretty easy. Took a game or two to develop some intuition for the combat system and I stayed away from help while I was learning, since I like figuring things out. Same with Emperor: a bit too easy to get wonders and stuff. Immortal was where I struggled for a couple games learning the new mechanics but eventually got so that I regularly win here as well. January I took on the Deity challenge, a while or so after finding and joining the forums after googling some questions. Thanks for the posts. I stayed away from detailed Deity guides as I have no interest in doing someone else's strategy. I don't think I'd feel like I really beat it. However, some independent questions I asked and some fellow fan's answers here really helped.

Things I learned here that I did not fully understand were:

• the ideology and tourism mechanics and nuances (shot myself in the foot one game with ideologies and was in revolutionary wave all through the end of one game)
• learning about the growth counter order and so need to lock tiles 1 turn before growth (minor improvement to early-game production)
• the new cliquish nature of international relations (being too friendly I kept getting hated)

Everything else was similar enough I was able to figure it out with the exception of odd trivia. Once I got over needing to have many friends and started joining cliques and denouncing things have gone a lot smoother (and have been more interesting!)

I beat that first Deity game and was pretty proud, posting about it here, but didn't really enjoy it as much as immortal. It was more for the symbol I guess. It could have been my imagination, but immortal actually felt better. The AI teched better, they built much larger armies, and seemed even a bit smarter than emperor in the way they prioritized wonders and backstabbed, etc. I found Deity to be mainly immortal + catch-up which forced me to be more formulaic and optimal but really didn't add any new things to enjoy. In fact, there was less relaxation and role-playing which is my preference. How the AI work and their flaws were also magnified for me with inflated starting conditions. I had always idolized Deity and thought the AI would be as smart as me but they ended up the same dumb idiots just with tons of troops and more initial cities/workers/techs. In fact I saw more ludicrous AI decisions than on immortal. So my same strategies from immortal worked and I only needed to be a bit more streamlined and aggressive. (I actually DOWed and crippled Sejong to secure my tech lead) Never would have needed to do that in immortal. I got some hate, but putting the continent to war and liberating Sejong after some fool wiped him out fixed that and I won with a large margin in 1898 by science victory. (slow I've since learned, but I was not going streamlined) I beelined cannons and cavalry to flatten Sejong since he was beelining on the top before I even got public schools, so very, very suboptimal from a science standpoint. I was only 9 turns from winning diplomatically too and only hadn't won upon the first vote bc enemies had wiped out too many CS allies in an early war.

Since then I've dropped back down to Immortal and tested out role-playing, new civs, and alternative playstyles such as hyper-religious, and super-wide. My favorite feature is tailoring a religion as it's never exactly the same due to AI choices and terrain so I have to adapt a bit each game. I'm very fond of Piety and found mixing piety/liberty to work very well on immortal. This is my favorite playstyle, as I've gotten pretty bored with small empires. Each game is too similar, and my wide games tend to differ more drastically and make me think on my feet and do more ad-hoc balancing. This has been far more fun for me and I can often find myself struggling to win using an unfamiliar civ or bad start. I've played about 40% of them but am now getting bored again with the AI. I can change their behavior with random personalities and changing map settings, but in the end, the same manipulations work every time. Immortal stays challenging but mainly bc of the random map generator. Even playing unfamiliar map settings I find myself learning them too quickly and can't seem to get defeated unless I play with personal handicaps or limits--though my close wins are always the sweetest. I am also getting bored with the default mapscript.

Anyway, I've tried just about everything Firaxis has to offer, and still love the game, but I am ready for mods. I have never used them but there seem to be some high-quality ones out there, and especially some nice balance added in "Ninkaru's"? stuff. So suggestions? Also, role-playing ideas are fun. I just discovered independently the whole barbarian Germany playstyle if any of you guys saw that excited post. was kinda awesome!

I want mods that do the following:

• Make the AI better tacticians at war. I know this is a common gripe. Specifically, I think I would be happier if I could just get one where they could at least: move AND bombard on the same turn like a normal player, balanced their troop composition a bit better, and had something to improve naval combat/composition.
• A prettier and more diverse mapscript. I've heard tectonics and communitas mentioned. Which would you guys suggest as a start? I looked up communitas but it seemed to be a lot more than a mapscript so I was unsure. I specifically love late-game settling so a script that left unpopulated and unreachable small continents or islands would be ideal. I used to see these all the time in Civ IV and III but lately have had trouble finding anything interesting other than a few small islands in Civ V unless I play huge.
• I might be interested in alternate scenarios, I loved the Fall of Rome and Conquest of the New World ones. Are there player-made scenarios modeled after this sort of thing?

You can suggest other mods you have found fun, though I'm not sure I want the infoaddict tooltip unless I can be sold on it. I just feel knowing all the numbers would encourage me to calculate and manipulate more rather than immerse myself--I kinda like not knowing and having to guess what is going on--feels very real. I would be interested in something that added more beliefs or religious options just cuz I love the system...but I like it as is.

 

[danaphanous]

No suggestions? I tried to be pretty specific. I've seen a couple that seem to be similar to what I'm asking but I'm still sorta apprehensive about mods and wanted experienced feedback before deciding to alter my game. thanks in advance!

 

[Loucypher]

There's a Smarter AI Mod out there. Not sure who the artist is, but a quick sweep should help you find it.
Tectonics is pretty good, but Small Continents, with LOW Sea level on a huge map tends to do wonders for me personally.
There are two mod(packs) I'd also suggest picking up:
- Krajzen's Buff Collection. It's a nice balance pack and allows you to mix and match if you find some of his tweaks OP. I myself am on the edge about his Byzantium buff, but other than that, it allows for some fun buffs. He also made an Aggressive And Expansive AI mod, which I wouldn't recommend if you play smaller maps, but on bigger maps it really shines.
- Game Balance [BNW] by Ninakoru. You'll find it in the Civ Workshop on Steam. It makes sieges a lot more interesting, nerfs Archers, rebalances policy trees a bit and makes Science less easy to get by NC Rush, making for some interesting scenarios.

While you're at it, be sure to pick up the Quick Turns mod by Krzyzyk - it really helps cutting down turn times especially on larger maps.

 

[Gamewizard]

Similar thread that got pushed back a couple of pages:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=524925

 

[danaphanous]

Thanks guys! That other thread is very helpful too. I'll check them out then!

 

[Acken]

Ninakoru has a smart AI mod on steam workshop. It was a good start but he isn't active on it anymore (maybe later I don't know) which is very sad. And moding the AI isn't for everybody so it may take a while before someone gets into it or he comes back to improve it.

I haven't give it a try yet, share your experience.