3 simple ways to balance game for yourself right now

[Jacozilla]

I respect your right to not play the game if you feel it's so unbalanced or handicapped with bugs/issues. However for many - it seems you can do three simple things to make Apollo a real challenge for those of us who are fairly skilled but not CiV deity gods.

No mods needed, just an exercise in self control.

1. Don't enable frenzied aliens. They seriously hamper the AI lot more than you

2. Don't abuse the negative health lack of penalty. Self control yourself to play as if negative health was crushing, and simply keep health at 0 or higher all game.

3. Don't build autplants

Use, abuse, spam TRs all you want, but if you just do these simple steps, even with power of TRs (limited to 2 per city without the autoplant) with zero balance mods or lot of more complicated self restraint issues, for most players this will create a fairly challenging Apollo game.

Btw - I put frenzied aliens at #1 because unlike frenzied barbs, the AI (or human) has no competitive units that can take them on early game, seriously hampering the all important early expansion that helps jump start their empires. It's just that humans can work around frenzied aliens more efficiently than the AI.

 

[Roxlimn]

Haha. That's kind of how I play already.

I know negative Health doesn't do much of anything, but I still can't make myself go into the negatives for very long. I feel like I'm cheating myself out of a good experience when I do that.

 

[Yzman]

I try to avoid negative health. I really don't understand the whole it doesn't do anything. I also don't play with frenzied aliens...just the standard options.

I won't limit myself with something in game though.

 

[bhavv]

I disagree with 3.

Build autoplants for the production ... Just pick the +1 energy quest option.

 

[Jacozilla]

I disagree with 3.

Build autoplants for the production ... Just pick the +1 energy quest option.

Sure, or that too.

Generally though the hammers cost of early autoplant production doesnt really pay off if you're not going to use that extra third trade route. so if you build the plants anyways for the energy handicap instead, it's prob better after early game.

 

[m15a]

For rule 2, do you mean you never go below 0 health even for a single turn? Do you intentionally stop your cities from growing early on? And how many cities do you have before getting the virtues that help with health? Seems like typically (without the rule), one would become unhealthy with just three cities.

 

[Roxlimn]

You could just adjust your play to prioritize getting to 0 Health as soon as your health drops to 0 - no making Colonists, go for techs to increase health, make any available Health buildings, and so on.

With a good route through the tech tree and conservative expansion, you could play through the game pretty powerfully without exploiting the weak Health restraints.

In fact, if Health proves too difficult to balance right, a hard wall for stopping expansion might be a rule that says "Colonists cannot be built at negative Health."

 

[Jacozilla]

For rule 2, do you mean you never go below 0 health even for a single turn? Do you intentionally stop your cities from growing early on? And how many cities do you have before getting the virtues that help with health? Seems like typically (without the rule), one would become unhealthy with just three cities.

Yes. While like cooking with a recipe you can obviously add your own twists, if you're asking how I personally apply rule 2 - yes, I never let myself go below 0 health (which doesn't mean for a few turns it doesn't happen - see more below)

So early game, yes - I deliberately handicap by teching towards health builds rather than the all affinity early rush that is so powerful now if you can ignore negative health.

But, also yes - while I try and pace city growth via production emphasis, citizens locked on certain tiles, etc - there are turns where I can slip below 0 health in early game (never in early mid game or later where between virtues and advanced health buildings I can always queue enough health buildings to outpace growth negative health)

My personal rule for how violation of rule 2 is handled is that if my empire goes below 0 health, then ALL cities in my empire can only do 1 of 2 things - produce health related buildings or set city to product science while i lock tech path on whatever health tech/building needs to be researched to dig myself out of the hole.

However, with virtues being pretty strong all by itself, especially prosperity path, I have to say even at aggressive expansion and growth stance early game, I can generally stay at 0 or higher without too much micromanagement of cities.

Even before eudamonia, the +7 boost helps keep me right at low 1-5 health or close to zero. So in about the half dozen full games I've played since enforcing this play style on myself, I've really never had more than a few turns here and there where I've had to shut my cities down via my just in case if rule 2 is violated procedure.

The essential spirit of this handicap is that you play as if health mattered. Not necessarily needing to be all,that bothered about short, temporary dips below 0.
E.g. Occasional small negative health while you go about correcting it is a totally different game (and challenge) than when you cruise to global domination at a constant negative 40 or lower all game long as you can now if you tech pure affinity and ICS expansion since that's about how much health penalties matter atm.

 

[Roxlimn]

It's a better game, if you ask me. Technically, I CAN just make a bunch of nothing chump cities for the TRs and jump-tech to Battlesuit every single game, but I can't find anything interesting about that sort of game to keep playing it for more than the one time just to try it out. I didn't even finish it.

 

[Gort]

Eh. Just play with mods. Done.

 

[Jacozilla]

Eh. Just play with mods. Done.

Yes, that's one answer.

But not all solutions solve the same issue.

I like achievements. I chase achievements. Mods = no achievements possible.

And in my book, self control is the best mod of all. If you really feel you just can't control yourself, by all means, use a physical mod that does the exact same thing as the outline conditions I impose on myself.

 

[Roxlimn]

Yeah. It's not like playing by self-imposed rules is harder than downloading and installing a mod that pretty much does the same thing.

 

[Jacozilla]

And as a note, I'm not against installable mods. There are a variety of conditions which can only be done with a physical mod.

For example, if you want to level infinitely with alien xp up to whatever is the max unit xp cap, ala the no cap barbarian xp mod from CiV and I think there's one similar for it by now for CBE, then obviously that is an enhancement mod, not a restriction or balance or re-balancing issue.

But any area that a mod addresses that is about restriction or balance, you can just use to good ol Mark I brain. And use a modicum of self control. Perhaps I'm just from a different generation of gamer (e.g. board games) where the game rules were basically whatever you imposed on yourself.

Anyone ever play the boardgame Axis and Allies when it first came out and used different unit purchase or start conditions? That's a mod in my book

 

[Gort]

I like achievements. I chase achievements. Mods = no achievements possible.

Not true at all. You can get achievements and play multiplayer modded if you trick the game into thinking it's a DLC.

 

[Jacozilla]

Not true at all. You can get achievements and play multiplayer modded if you trick the game into thinking it's a DLC.

Semantics. One far outlier or couple outlier conditions doesn't invalidate the general statement.

If you have to trick a system into thinking the modification you just made to that system was not a mod but part of the game expansion (e.g DLC), you can still call that a mod if you like, but at that point since we're now in the semantics game, that's a "hack", not a mod.

 

[Gort]

Semantics. One far outlier or couple outlier conditions doesn't invalidate the general statement.

If you have to trick a system into thinking the modification you just made to that system was not a mod but part of the game expansion (e.g DLC), you can still call that a mod if you like, but at that point since we're now in the semantics game, that's a "hack", not a mod.

So? You can play with mods and still get achievements. Best of both worlds.

 

[Roxlimn]

If you really just wanted to play with 2 TRs per city, you could just pick the other option in the Autoplant questline. That doesn't even require a mod.

 

[spfun]

Wait for patch?

1) Go purity, promised land. Learn farm techs and go tall. Limit yourself to 3-4 cities on a standard map/Pangaea. Make sure to get a heavy land based start location for capital and the other cities.
2) Have fun, game will be a bit more balanced on Apollo.

I think a few things that are a big problem in combination.

1) penalty for tons of cities in this game is to small with current -health penalties and/or 10 prosperity.
2) Water based trading bonuses are to much
3) Max trades based on number of cities, ( was better capped in Civ 5 as removing TR from auto plant just hurts tall, doesn't harm City spam )
4) Combat AI that doesn't know how to play the game. ( easy to steamroll equal affinity level opponents, without losses. And take cities without much penalty )

 

[m15a]

Interesting. Thanks for the details, Jacozilla.