Recommend me some balance mods

[oPunchDrunko]

Can somebody suggest me the best balance mods?

 

[Morlark]

Thalasicus's Combined Balance Mod is the only one I've really looked at, but it seems to be pretty comprehensive, so I doubt you'd need any other one. You might also try Valkrionn's Economy Mod, but that's not so much a balance mod as it is a complete economic overhaul.

 

[jahsoldier]

Yep, Valk's Economy mod. What it does, iirc -

Buildings & units take fewer hammers to build
Tile improvements give better bonuses
All research projects takes twice as long
Building maintenance reduced by quite a bit
Adds in Workshop tile improvement, gives +1 production

There might be a few other bits I've forgotten. Overall it just improves gameplay and fun 100%. Tile improvements that aren't trading posts and mines actually become useful, simple buildings don't take 20+ turns to make and cripple your economy, and it also paces the game a lot better so you're not routinely hitting renaissance at 800AD.

If you miss the faster pace of Civ IV, this mod is a step in the right direction. Totally recommended

 

[oPunchDrunko]

I'd download Valk's mod but I don't want the research taking twice as long because I only play marathon

 

[Pazyryk]

Are there any balance mods that specifically target ICS? I don't really want cheaper units and cheaper buildings because (it seems to me) that will just result in more units (I don't want that) and every city being able to build every building (as in civ4... I don't want that either). Tech does seem a little fast to me but slowing that down is essentially the same as speeding up unit/building production (I found the ratio about right... so I just shifted to a slower game speed). I'm not trying to pooh-pooh Thal and Valk's mods. I see some really good ideas and I'll have to try them before passing judgement (it's always pointless to judge based on single changes in isolation; it's how all the changes act in combination that matters). But at first glance they seem to change a lot but not the single thing that (to me) appears to be the biggest problem.

Some of us would want to see a mod that very specifically tries to gimp ICS, which is currently a runaway strategy. The hard thing is to gimp ICS without hurting REX or conquest too much (these should be viable strategies). Currently, it seems that a focussed city approach (small number of carefully developed, large cities) is not viable in civ5 (keeping a constant difficulty level). I thought perhaps that I just didn't know how to do it in civ5, but I'm about convinced now that it is not at all possible because there are just no breaks at all on ICS (I don't necessarily mean "pure" ICS; the AI does well by pursuing a sort of ICS-lite strategy, but the player can always do better by having a strategy that is closer to, if not exactly, ICS).