orangecape
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2010
- Messages
- 89
OrangeCape's Global Balance Mod
This is a mod designed to improve gameplay decisions in Civ 5. I tackle all aspects of the game from combat balance to building cost to teching. I try to avoid adding too much in and focus on making small changes to make everything that is already in the game relevant. Much of my inspiration and some of my code comes from Thalassicus' Balance - Combined Mod. If you like carefully choosing city sites for larger cities, making use of all the buildings and units and having many more viable strategies you will probably find this mod to your liking. Because I try to bring many of the extremely imbalanced player techniques into line you will find that this mod is much more challenging than the base game. If you are used to having to play on Immortal for a challenge you may have to drop down to Emperor or King for example. The AI is much more of a challenge *without* resorting to ridiculous numerical bonuses. I expect Diety difficulty to be nearly unbeatable (Archepalego/UN aside), but I do hope people are up to the challenge.
Below I list the problems the game has and the solutions I have used directly under them.
1. Combat: Some units are drastically better than others, primarily due to speed. In particular horse and tank units other than Horsemen are terrible compared to their infantry counterparts. Because of upgrade paths the player usually ends up with highly promoted super units that the AI cannot compete with. The AI then has to have ridiculous numbers of units to pose a threat.
Solutions:
All Horse units have 4 move.
Tanks have 5 move.
Mech Infantry 3 move, lowered Strength.
Archers, Chariot Archers, Minutemen, Paratroopers improved.
Ironclad made much stronger.
All unit upgrades are removed. Things that affect upgrades like The Pentagon and Professional Army are redesigned. This forces both players and AI to continue to replace units as they become obsolete and removes the ability of the player to make an army of super units. This means the AI can be competitive with much smaller bonuses and doesn't have to outnumber the player by 10:1 to be a threat.
2. Food: Terrain has too little impact on cities. Cities also grow very slowly and the buidings that improve growth (Hospital, Med. Lab) come very late.
Solutions:
All Food resources (Wheat, Sheep, Cow, Bananas, Fish, Deer) are improved drastically. They all supply ~9 total resources (Food/Gold/Production) when improved. Cities founded away from these will grow slowly compared to cities that have access to them. Granary now stores 50% of Food on city growth, Hospitals 75%, Med. Lab. 90% so cities can grow reasonably throughout the game. This promotes choosing city sites carefully and paying attention to food resources when doing so.
Added a National Wonder for Granaries - Aqueduct.
3. Buildings: Early game buildings take far too long for small cities to build. Many buildings are absolutely useless. In particular production buildings usually do not ever produce enough hammers to make it worthwhile to build them. Cultural buildings are useless unless going for a cultural victory.
Solutions:
Most early game buildings have their costs reduced 20-50%.
Production buildings have their yields drastically improved - (Windmill, Forge, Arsenal, Workshop, Solar Plant, Nuclear Plant, Longhouse, Stables).
Gold buildings have had their yields increased slightly and the Market now produces a flat 3 Gold.
University has two specialists, Library has 1.
Temple, Museum have 1 Happiness added. Opera House has additional Culture.
A few subpar wonders improved (Colossus, Notre Dame).
Palace improved. (3 Culture, 5 Science, 4 Production)
Armory and Military Academy improved.
National Treasury, National Epic improved.
4. Faction Imbalance: Some factions are much better than others. This is bad.
China, Babylon, French (Obsolescence removed) benefits halved.
German, American, Aztec, Arabia benefits drastically increased. Ottoman given new benefit. (Thanks to Thalassicus!)
5. Science: Techs are too cheap in the endgame. Research Agreements give far too great a return in the mid and late game. Great Scientist free techs are a huge balance issue and Great Scientists completely eclipse other GP in the later stages.
Solutions:
Great Scientist instant tech ability removed. (See Great People/Specialists, trust me)
Tech costs increased slightly in early game and ramp up to double in late game.
Research Agreements ramp up in cost substantially, up to 1000g in Modern Era.
6. Specialists and Great People: Great Person improvements are generally total garbage. Getting 800-1000 production/gold/science instantly is always way better than an improvement that gives 4 net benefit per turn. Specialist returns are unbalanced and hugely favour scientists. Scientist instant tech is completely broken.
Solutions:
Scientists down to 2 science, Artists up to 2 culture, Merchants up to 3 Gold.
GP Improvements (Academy, Customs House, Manufactory, Landmark) hugely improved. Base amounts are 12 and they go up to 20 in the late renaissance (based on tech).
Scientists can no longer instant tech. They can still start golden ages or make Academies which are now very powerful.
7. General: Production values are generally too low. Water tiles are terrible. Too much gold comes from Trade Routes. Other quibbles.
Solutions:
Mines get + 1 production with Engineering. Lumber Mills are always 2 production.
Trade Routes reduced.
Water tiles have 2 gold base.
Iron revealed with Bronze Working.
Settler cost raised.
Due to lower number of cities most policies in Liberty are hugely improved.
Monarchy in Tradition doubled.
Communism reduced to 3 hammers.
Trade Unions in Commerce increased to 50%.
United Front in Order increased to 50%.
Railyard building added, gives railroad production benefit to the Capital.
8. Happiness: It is still too powerful to slap down cities in every possible spot and big cities have too few options to make more happiness for themselves.
Solutions:
Unhappiness per city increased to 4.
Base happiness increased by 4.
Temple, Museum have 1 Happiness.
Meritocracy, Planned Economy changed to 1 Happiness per city.
Forbidden Palace change to .8 Happiness per city.
9. Late Game Buildings: After building Nuclear/Solar plants there is nothing to spend all that production on.
Solutions:
5 new buildings added to very late game techs. All have huge (800-900) costs to build and are very powerful.
Bioengineering Centre (Food), Communications Satellite (Culture), Internet Hub (Gold), VR Training Facility (Unit XP), Command Centre (City Defense)
Credits:
Thalassicus. I used Thal's Balance - Combined Mod liberally and borrowed tons of ideas (and outright chunks of code!) from Thal. Much thanks and mad props. If it is really good, I probably *cough* borrowed *cough* it from Thal.
Alpaca for ideas in his PlayWithMe mod.
Kael for his modding guide.
This is a mod designed to improve gameplay decisions in Civ 5. I tackle all aspects of the game from combat balance to building cost to teching. I try to avoid adding too much in and focus on making small changes to make everything that is already in the game relevant. Much of my inspiration and some of my code comes from Thalassicus' Balance - Combined Mod. If you like carefully choosing city sites for larger cities, making use of all the buildings and units and having many more viable strategies you will probably find this mod to your liking. Because I try to bring many of the extremely imbalanced player techniques into line you will find that this mod is much more challenging than the base game. If you are used to having to play on Immortal for a challenge you may have to drop down to Emperor or King for example. The AI is much more of a challenge *without* resorting to ridiculous numerical bonuses. I expect Diety difficulty to be nearly unbeatable (Archepalego/UN aside), but I do hope people are up to the challenge.
Below I list the problems the game has and the solutions I have used directly under them.
1. Combat: Some units are drastically better than others, primarily due to speed. In particular horse and tank units other than Horsemen are terrible compared to their infantry counterparts. Because of upgrade paths the player usually ends up with highly promoted super units that the AI cannot compete with. The AI then has to have ridiculous numbers of units to pose a threat.
Solutions:
All Horse units have 4 move.
Tanks have 5 move.
Mech Infantry 3 move, lowered Strength.
Archers, Chariot Archers, Minutemen, Paratroopers improved.
Ironclad made much stronger.
All unit upgrades are removed. Things that affect upgrades like The Pentagon and Professional Army are redesigned. This forces both players and AI to continue to replace units as they become obsolete and removes the ability of the player to make an army of super units. This means the AI can be competitive with much smaller bonuses and doesn't have to outnumber the player by 10:1 to be a threat.
2. Food: Terrain has too little impact on cities. Cities also grow very slowly and the buidings that improve growth (Hospital, Med. Lab) come very late.
Solutions:
All Food resources (Wheat, Sheep, Cow, Bananas, Fish, Deer) are improved drastically. They all supply ~9 total resources (Food/Gold/Production) when improved. Cities founded away from these will grow slowly compared to cities that have access to them. Granary now stores 50% of Food on city growth, Hospitals 75%, Med. Lab. 90% so cities can grow reasonably throughout the game. This promotes choosing city sites carefully and paying attention to food resources when doing so.
Added a National Wonder for Granaries - Aqueduct.
3. Buildings: Early game buildings take far too long for small cities to build. Many buildings are absolutely useless. In particular production buildings usually do not ever produce enough hammers to make it worthwhile to build them. Cultural buildings are useless unless going for a cultural victory.
Solutions:
Most early game buildings have their costs reduced 20-50%.
Production buildings have their yields drastically improved - (Windmill, Forge, Arsenal, Workshop, Solar Plant, Nuclear Plant, Longhouse, Stables).
Gold buildings have had their yields increased slightly and the Market now produces a flat 3 Gold.
University has two specialists, Library has 1.
Temple, Museum have 1 Happiness added. Opera House has additional Culture.
A few subpar wonders improved (Colossus, Notre Dame).
Palace improved. (3 Culture, 5 Science, 4 Production)
Armory and Military Academy improved.
National Treasury, National Epic improved.
4. Faction Imbalance: Some factions are much better than others. This is bad.
China, Babylon, French (Obsolescence removed) benefits halved.
German, American, Aztec, Arabia benefits drastically increased. Ottoman given new benefit. (Thanks to Thalassicus!)
5. Science: Techs are too cheap in the endgame. Research Agreements give far too great a return in the mid and late game. Great Scientist free techs are a huge balance issue and Great Scientists completely eclipse other GP in the later stages.
Solutions:
Great Scientist instant tech ability removed. (See Great People/Specialists, trust me)
Tech costs increased slightly in early game and ramp up to double in late game.
Research Agreements ramp up in cost substantially, up to 1000g in Modern Era.
6. Specialists and Great People: Great Person improvements are generally total garbage. Getting 800-1000 production/gold/science instantly is always way better than an improvement that gives 4 net benefit per turn. Specialist returns are unbalanced and hugely favour scientists. Scientist instant tech is completely broken.
Solutions:
Scientists down to 2 science, Artists up to 2 culture, Merchants up to 3 Gold.
GP Improvements (Academy, Customs House, Manufactory, Landmark) hugely improved. Base amounts are 12 and they go up to 20 in the late renaissance (based on tech).
Scientists can no longer instant tech. They can still start golden ages or make Academies which are now very powerful.
7. General: Production values are generally too low. Water tiles are terrible. Too much gold comes from Trade Routes. Other quibbles.
Solutions:
Mines get + 1 production with Engineering. Lumber Mills are always 2 production.
Trade Routes reduced.
Water tiles have 2 gold base.
Iron revealed with Bronze Working.
Settler cost raised.
Due to lower number of cities most policies in Liberty are hugely improved.
Monarchy in Tradition doubled.
Communism reduced to 3 hammers.
Trade Unions in Commerce increased to 50%.
United Front in Order increased to 50%.
Railyard building added, gives railroad production benefit to the Capital.
8. Happiness: It is still too powerful to slap down cities in every possible spot and big cities have too few options to make more happiness for themselves.
Solutions:
Unhappiness per city increased to 4.
Base happiness increased by 4.
Temple, Museum have 1 Happiness.
Meritocracy, Planned Economy changed to 1 Happiness per city.
Forbidden Palace change to .8 Happiness per city.
9. Late Game Buildings: After building Nuclear/Solar plants there is nothing to spend all that production on.
Solutions:
5 new buildings added to very late game techs. All have huge (800-900) costs to build and are very powerful.
Bioengineering Centre (Food), Communications Satellite (Culture), Internet Hub (Gold), VR Training Facility (Unit XP), Command Centre (City Defense)
Credits:
Thalassicus. I used Thal's Balance - Combined Mod liberally and borrowed tons of ideas (and outright chunks of code!) from Thal. Much thanks and mad props. If it is really good, I probably *cough* borrowed *cough* it from Thal.
Alpaca for ideas in his PlayWithMe mod.
Kael for his modding guide.
