Signature changes:
Normal is the only game speed (however research and culture are scaled by a factor of 3 to allow a better ratio compared to normal production).
Noble is the only difficulty (i.e. no handicaps or any hidden values applied differently to players or AI).
Player/AI balancing:
Fail gold is reduced to 25% of production spent (100% in BTS) to mitigate players taking advantage of queue mechanics.
AI won't stop trading technology simply because of trading too much (which only hurts it), but may still stop for other reasons.
Aggressive AI option is enabled by default to make the AI more competent in war (highly recommended to keep enabled).
Early game:
Raging Barbarians option is enabled by default to make the early game more engaging and incentivize more military investment (only recommended if Aggressive AI is enabled to be fair).
Animals only have 1 strength and 1 movement, but spawn twice as much and get a strength bonus in their natural habitat (lion: desert, bear: forest, panther: jungle, wolf: tundra/snow).
Barbarians/animals always have some chance at victory, i.e. no free wins (2 per civ in BTS).
Every civilization starts with 100 gold to allow some early game flexibility, particularly for random events.
Palaces generate 0 (4 in BTS) espionage points to make espionage investment more impactful and avoid the tedium of allocating espionage early on.
On contact, civilizations are bound to a peace treaty to prevent player abuse of initially defenseless cities or unlucky setups.
Goody huts no longer grant free techs (this is already imbalanced in BTS and would be 3 times worse with the slower tech rate).
Geographic balancing:
All resources are guaranteed to appear at least once and ivory placement is prioritized as much as copper.
Chopping jungle produces 10 hammers (0 in BTS) and chopping forest produces 20 hammers (30 in BTS).
Lakes are max 20 tiles (9 in BTS) which means oceans are min 21 (10 in BTS).
Naval units and buildings require an adjacent body of water of any size (at least 10 in BTS) for city production.
Workboats are basically workers on water, i.e. both cost 60 production/food (30 production for workboat in BTS) and their improvements take time but don't destroy the unit (useful for exploration too).
Frustration reduction:
Units and building can stay in production queue without decay (units decay after 10 turns and buildings after 50 in BTS).
Experience gain is unlimited, i.e. defeating barbs/animals always grants xp (10/5 xp max in BTS) and upgrading a unit retains all its xp (only 10 xp without a general in BTS).
Each unit costs 1 gold per turn, unless supported by 1 population, e.g. 6 units minus 4 population will cost 2 gold per turn.
Units outside cultural borders cost the same as units inside.
Apostolic Palace and United Nations can optionally be enabled with no diplomatic victory.
Misc:
All civilian units can be captured and convert to the same class, e.g. a captured settler converts to a settler (worker in BTS).
Team tech cost is proportional to the number of civs in a team (half of one more than the number of civs in a team in BTS).
Free tech popup cannot be exploited (Oracle/Liberalism popup is exploitable to get extra techs in BTS).
Note:
Making a pleasant multiplayer experience is one of the primary motivations for this mod, yet it is equally suitable for singleplayer.
Comparisons to unaltered BTS 3.19 gameplay are made above as "X is new value (old value in BTS)".
(For the modders) every file in this mod has a purpose, modular xml loading is used where possible, and no changes to the DLL are made to encourage merging.
Normable is not only a portmanteau (Normal+Noble) but is also a real word meaning capable of being adjusted to a norm (i.e. a theoretical balance).
Normal is the only game speed (however research and culture are scaled by a factor of 3 to allow a better ratio compared to normal production).
Noble is the only difficulty (i.e. no handicaps or any hidden values applied differently to players or AI).
Player/AI balancing:
Fail gold is reduced to 25% of production spent (100% in BTS) to mitigate players taking advantage of queue mechanics.
AI won't stop trading technology simply because of trading too much (which only hurts it), but may still stop for other reasons.
Aggressive AI option is enabled by default to make the AI more competent in war (highly recommended to keep enabled).
Early game:
Raging Barbarians option is enabled by default to make the early game more engaging and incentivize more military investment (only recommended if Aggressive AI is enabled to be fair).
Animals only have 1 strength and 1 movement, but spawn twice as much and get a strength bonus in their natural habitat (lion: desert, bear: forest, panther: jungle, wolf: tundra/snow).
Barbarians/animals always have some chance at victory, i.e. no free wins (2 per civ in BTS).
Every civilization starts with 100 gold to allow some early game flexibility, particularly for random events.
Palaces generate 0 (4 in BTS) espionage points to make espionage investment more impactful and avoid the tedium of allocating espionage early on.
On contact, civilizations are bound to a peace treaty to prevent player abuse of initially defenseless cities or unlucky setups.
Goody huts no longer grant free techs (this is already imbalanced in BTS and would be 3 times worse with the slower tech rate).
Geographic balancing:
All resources are guaranteed to appear at least once and ivory placement is prioritized as much as copper.
Chopping jungle produces 10 hammers (0 in BTS) and chopping forest produces 20 hammers (30 in BTS).
Lakes are max 20 tiles (9 in BTS) which means oceans are min 21 (10 in BTS).
Naval units and buildings require an adjacent body of water of any size (at least 10 in BTS) for city production.
Workboats are basically workers on water, i.e. both cost 60 production/food (30 production for workboat in BTS) and their improvements take time but don't destroy the unit (useful for exploration too).
Frustration reduction:
Units and building can stay in production queue without decay (units decay after 10 turns and buildings after 50 in BTS).
Experience gain is unlimited, i.e. defeating barbs/animals always grants xp (10/5 xp max in BTS) and upgrading a unit retains all its xp (only 10 xp without a general in BTS).
Each unit costs 1 gold per turn, unless supported by 1 population, e.g. 6 units minus 4 population will cost 2 gold per turn.
Units outside cultural borders cost the same as units inside.
Apostolic Palace and United Nations can optionally be enabled with no diplomatic victory.
Misc:
All civilian units can be captured and convert to the same class, e.g. a captured settler converts to a settler (worker in BTS).
Team tech cost is proportional to the number of civs in a team (half of one more than the number of civs in a team in BTS).
Free tech popup cannot be exploited (Oracle/Liberalism popup is exploitable to get extra techs in BTS).
Note:
Making a pleasant multiplayer experience is one of the primary motivations for this mod, yet it is equally suitable for singleplayer.
Comparisons to unaltered BTS 3.19 gameplay are made above as "X is new value (old value in BTS)".
(For the modders) every file in this mod has a purpose, modular xml loading is used where possible, and no changes to the DLL are made to encourage merging.
Normable is not only a portmanteau (Normal+Noble) but is also a real word meaning capable of being adjusted to a norm (i.e. a theoretical balance).