Acken's Minimalistic Balance for singleplayer (and AI improvements)

[Acken]

Playing the experimental released on 7th and just wondering if I have missed something something drastic as neutral civs were only paying for 2-4 gpt per lux and moreover my DoF buddy offered hefty 25g + embassy for a lux nor are any of them doing 1 for 1 swaps. Not a game breaker but making any early money is tricky business here.

---

Also the Japs had multiple Samurais on late 50s which is too early especially with the welcomed postponing of Pikes and the Danes could perhaps use a buff but 40s Berserkers vs def 12 cities isn't gonna be a fair match-up. Something like making Guilds a prerequisite for all bottom late medieval techs could help.

Hmm okay regarding the luxury problem this is a "typo". I guess that's the point of experimental versions

The AI is supposed to pay less if it has high happiness but I put the wrong function. Instead of checking excess happiness I check raw happiness. I'll upload a fixed experimental in 10minutes so just update. It is supposed to pay 25% less for every 10 excess happiness it has.

 

[chumchu]

@ Grendeldef

Your proposed solution is elegant. I would still argue against it for two reasons:

1) I think wars, prosecuted for other purposes than taking cities is an important and fun part to the game. They make small and/or early militaries more useful and add choices about what to build and what to use your units for. Stealing workers is, arguably, the most useful parts of such wars and without it they would be prosecuted less often

2) It is a large change to the early game that might upset the balance between policy trees etc.

What I want to do is make worker stealing more challenging/risky.

Another way to address the issue is to add a negative relation modifier with the civ whose people you are holding. Text: "you are holding our people captive".

 

[Grendeldef]

I gladly admit that it's far from optimal solution but it'd solve the core problem. I'd much rather see (more than marginal) discounts in worker price so it'd be a viable option to put one or even several in the early building queue - an early worker vs not having one is just too good atm and one is willing to do quite few things before postponing the first worker until 50s.
One of the best things in the mod is reverting Liberty tree closer to what it used to be but the RP gamer in me shines through here - I like building stuff and abuse free labour as much as I can.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Worker steals - perhaps it could be coded such that you can't steal a Worker until the 2nd or later turn of a war?

Trades - Acken, in a v2.1 game (the last one released on Steam anyway) Assyria could not be bribed into wars (at least he never "proposed" a trade when asked - even against CSs), but he always would DOW a CS for free, even one half-way across the map in the early game. This seemed to be the only way to stay alive even on just Immortal, and seemed pretty cheesy...

 

[Acken]

Worker steals - perhaps it could be coded such that you can't steal a Worker until the 2nd or later turn of a war?

Trades - Acken, in a v2.1 game (the last one released on Steam anyway) Assyria could not be bribed into wars (at least he never "proposed" a trade when asked - even against CSs), but he always would DOW a CS for free, even one half-way across the map in the early game. This seemed to be the only way to stay alive even on just Immortal, and seemed pretty cheesy...

-Interesting idea although it's a bit of a band aid
-Thank you, found why and fixed it

 

[Gliese 581]

I started up your experimental mod to test it but I quickly shut it down again since I discovered that the city governor didn't adhere to the proudction focus I set in my capital. My city was situated next to a hill but my city governor would not assign new citizens to work it and would instead assign them to basic 2food hexes, even when I had surplus food of more than 2.



Some thoughts after playing with the regular version (2.1) for a while, mostly inspired by the NQmod for multiplayer which I tried previously (too unbalanced for single player use unfortunately):

Unit strength passes. I was playing as Zulu and they felt weak with the Impi retaining a combat strength of 16 which is now the equal of a swordsman. Also moving on into the rennaisance musketmen had their strength improved as well which means it's much harder to compete with Impis against them even with tons of promotions. I think there are other UU out there that could use a pass.

Another thing that would be nice in regards to units is if the chariot archer/horse archer/keshik/camel archer type of units could reset their promotions (perhaps with an xp penalty to not unbalance it) upon promotion so that they are not stuck with useless ranged combat promotions as a melee unit, I saw this feature in the NQmod.

Social policies:

Another nice NQmod feature is that oligarchy gives free walls to the first 4 cities. I don't think this change would be overpowered since you buffed liberty so much (free worker as 2nd policy and dramatically lowered science penalties for wide empire). I noticed that starting next to an aggressive neighbour on deity could be a terrible experience even with the shorter tech time toward composite bows, having the ability to get free walls would help a lot in the most pressed scenarios and you're still punished for getting them since you're delaying the key economical policies in the middle of the tree.

The Honor policy still feels lackluster. I think the barracks happiness + culture policy (which I really like by the way) is too strong to even consider going down the right side of the tree at the start. Perhaps shuffle the policies around a bit so you can pick it in the first tier? Also the policy unique wonder Statue of Zeus is very underwhelming compared to the unique wonders of the other policies which are all great. Perhaps make Temple of Artemis the unique wonder for Honor to make it more appealing since it buffs both growth and military and give GE points?

Another thing I would love to see are more viable options for quick culture border expansion. I saw that you were buffing Angkor Wat in coming versions which is great and provides another mean (that doesn't suck) to get faster border expansion for non Tradition civs. It should come with a price of course since that's one of the perks of going Tradition. The other one present for non-russian civs is the religious settlement pantheon belief which still feels a bit too weak to pick up even with the buff. Maybe give it another small buff? The only time I used it was when I knew I wouldn't be able to get a religion and I had lots of resources to grab with culture and several AI civs all around so that I was pressed for time to get all those resources claimed (very situational scenario).

Finally another thing the NQmod added is the ability for civilians to ignore blocking by military units. I don't know if I like this for settlers since they are extremely hard to contain without going to war on the higher difficulties if you can't terrain block but one thing I always hated with non-mil units blocking is when playing the danes city-states ships gets in the way of coastal invasions pre Astronomy. It would be cool if embarked units ignored military units and could pass through them for this reason.

 

[Acken]

I started up your experimental mod to test it but I quickly shut it down again since I discovered that the city governor didn't adhere to the proudction focus I set in my capital. My city was situated next to a hill but my city governor would not assign new citizens to work it and would instead assign them to basic 2food hexes, even when I had surplus food of more than 2.

Added a check for whether or not the city owner is a human.

Current experimental should have this issue fixed (note that official 2.1 also doesn't have the problem).

 

[Chum]

Acken - Citizenship does not appear to be increasing improvement speed at all in this patch. Does it appear to be on your end?

Edit - only appears to shave turn time off improvements after the 2nd (!) reload.

 

[Acken]

Hu ? No idea why. I just moved the policy, didn't touch it.

Edit: It seems to work fine for me. If I'm on a tile with a worker, a farm takes 7 turns or 6 turns with the policy. Make sure you always delete the last version before putting a new one (if you do it manually).

 

[Phukit]

having issues with game crashing after expending prophet or missionary

 

[kirbdog]

Or just make them killable like great persons.

I like this idea. (If it is considered an issue, anyway.)

 

[Acken]

having issues with game crashing after expending prophet or missionary

Please post the crashdump file or the save.

I have no problem on my end.

 

[Phukit]

Please post the crashdump file or the save.

I have no problem on my end.

where do i find the crashdump file?


Edit:midnight maintenance cleared all the dump files. ill save the next one if it happens again

 

[Acken]

it's located in the civ5 game directory

 

[khaciv]

Hi Acken, spearman still get obsolete with civil service.

 

[Acken]

Hi Acken, spearman still get obsolete with civil service.

Ha good catch. Fixed and uploaded.

Also fixed related issues like GWI still obsolete at Plastics, Trebuchet at Chemistry.

 

[Dahebbie]

Hi Acken.

First of all, this is an awesome addition to the game. Very well done indeed!
----------------------------
I play at deity, or at immortal with a couple of selfmade restrictions: no worker steal and full paying of war bribes. I usually win.
----------------------------
Played an immortal game as Ghengis with v 2.1, where I rolled 2 neighbors with Keshihks in the renaissance. But still, the first 100 turns where harder AND more interesting the usual immortal game. Much fun, until I was to much in the lead.
----------------------------
Now playing an immortal game on the experimental version downloaded 2015.09.11., as Morocco. Had a decent start location, got dessert folklore, and a good religion. ToA, Petra, Mids. But maybe a mistake, since now I'm behind the best AI's.

Here's a couple of observations.

All the AI's are active, expanding, warring, teching ALOT. Good.
City states produce settlers.
AI are hard to bribe.
AI are attacking citystates often. (I don't know how I feel about this really) It's new for sure. Is it intentional?
AI (USA, HUNS, PERSIA) is very offensive in their wars and have conquered 20 cities all in all. China is dead. Geez, that tough. But good

----------------------------
I surely need to tighten up my game plan to beat this immortal. Which IS GOOD!!

Thx a lot for alle your brilliant effort. There are so many of your improvements, that do good!

Suggestions:
A)
Horse archers, charotis should upgrade, at a reasonable cost, to XBs.
Keshik, camel arch, should upgrade, at a reasonable cost, to GGuns.
It is so bad, when the promotions don't make sense after upgrading.
B)
Maybe an artslot in the castle, so we can place artworks faster. A castle is on theme imo.

Best,

 

[consentient]

Any chance of making the starting Warrior upgrade to a Ram for the Huns?

 

[Acken]

No the ram is unlikely to come back to replace the spearman (which is why the ruin was giving you rams before). The main reason was that the ram was one shotting cities left and right. Now it's a catapult but it got a bit buffed in the process.

Hi Acken.

First of all, this is an awesome addition to the game. Very well done indeed!
----------------------------
I play at deity, or at immortal with a couple of selfmade restrictions: no worker steal and full paying of war bribes. I usually win.
----------------------------
Played an immortal game as Ghengis with v 2.1, where I rolled 2 neighbors with Keshihks in the renaissance. But still, the first 100 turns where harder AND more interesting the usual immortal game. Much fun, until I was to much in the lead.
----------------------------
Now playing an immortal game on the experimental version downloaded 2015.09.11., as Morocco. Had a decent start location, got dessert folklore, and a good religion. ToA, Petra, Mids. But maybe a mistake, since now I'm behind the best AI's.

Here's a couple of observations.

All the AI's are active, expanding, warring, teching ALOT. Good.
City states produce settlers.
AI are hard to bribe.
AI are attacking citystates often. (I don't know how I feel about this really) It's new for sure. Is it intentional?
AI (USA, HUNS, PERSIA) is very offensive in their wars and have conquered 20 cities all in all. China is dead. Geez, that tough. But good

----------------------------
I surely need to tighten up my game plan to beat this immortal. Which IS GOOD!!

Thx a lot for alle your brilliant effort. There are so many of your improvements, that do good!

Suggestions:
A)
Horse archers, charotis should upgrade, at a reasonable cost, to XBs.
Keshik, camel arch, should upgrade, at a reasonable cost, to GGuns.
It is so bad, when the promotions don't make sense after upgrading.
B)
Maybe an artslot in the castle, so we can place artworks faster. A castle is on theme imo.

Best,

Thanks for feedback.

Yes AI killing city states is intenional. Mostly these are mostly warmonger AI. If AI going for culture are doing it more than once then it's unintentional. No idea why city states have started again to make settlers -.- maybe I inadvertently deactivated a part of my code.
A) I'm noting all civs changes but like I said somewhere, civs change are the last major patch. I first have to release a v3 with the minimum amount of bugs.
B) Interesting idea, I've been thinking about finding a way to give a couple art slot while you wait for architeture wonders and archaeology. I'm not sure castle is the right move considering they are cheap in my mod. If the point was mostly to have room for the 1 or 2 Greatwork you have I was thinking about adding it to a national wonder instead. Like putting the palace on 2 slots or changing the slot of the national epic (not sure it makes sense though).

Unit strength passes. I was playing as Zulu and they felt weak with the Impi retaining a combat strength of 16 which is now the equal of a swordsman. Also moving on into the rennaisance musketmen had their strength improved as well which means it's much harder to compete with Impis against them even with tons of promotions. I think there are other UU out there that could use a pass.

Another thing that would be nice in regards to units is if the chariot archer/horse archer/keshik/camel archer type of units could reset their promotions (perhaps with an xp penalty to not unbalance it) upon promotion so that they are not stuck with useless ranged combat promotions as a melee unit, I saw this feature in the NQmod.

Social policies:

Another nice NQmod feature is that oligarchy gives free walls to the first 4 cities. I don't think this change would be overpowered since you buffed liberty so much (free worker as 2nd policy and dramatically lowered science penalties for wide empire). I noticed that starting next to an aggressive neighbour on deity could be a terrible experience even with the shorter tech time toward composite bows, having the ability to get free walls would help a lot in the most pressed scenarios and you're still punished for getting them since you're delaying the key economical policies in the middle of the tree.

The Honor policy still feels lackluster. I think the barracks happiness + culture policy (which I really like by the way) is too strong to even consider going down the right side of the tree at the start. Perhaps shuffle the policies around a bit so you can pick it in the first tier? Also the policy unique wonder Statue of Zeus is very underwhelming compared to the unique wonders of the other policies which are all great. Perhaps make Temple of Artemis the unique wonder for Honor to make it more appealing since it buffs both growth and military and give GE points?

Another thing I would love to see are more viable options for quick culture border expansion. I saw that you were buffing Angkor Wat in coming versions which is great and provides another mean (that doesn't suck) to get faster border expansion for non Tradition civs. It should come with a price of course since that's one of the perks of going Tradition. The other one present for non-russian civs is the religious settlement pantheon belief which still feels a bit too weak to pick up even with the buff. Maybe give it another small buff? The only time I used it was when I knew I wouldn't be able to get a religion and I had lots of resources to grab with culture and several AI civs all around so that I was pressed for time to get all those resources claimed (very situational scenario).

Finally another thing the NQmod added is the ability for civilians to ignore blocking by military units. I don't know if I like this for settlers since they are extremely hard to contain without going to war on the higher difficulties if you can't terrain block but one thing I always hated with non-mil units blocking is when playing the danes city-states ships gets in the way of coastal invasions pre Astronomy. It would be cool if embarked units ignored military units and could pass through them for this reason.

Regarding UUs and Zulus it's the same. Not yet but I know there are some stuff to change.

The tradition idea is reasonable.
Not sure I agree with honor to be lacking. The right part allow you to ask for tributes early in the game if you add a spear or two of your own, clear barb camps and maybe even make a quick spear rush. My current favorite way to play it is warrior code first to ask tribute or do quests then the left part.
What is the problem with border expansion ? The mod already gives more culture without changing the formula.
I'll think about embarked units passing through naval units.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Weird crash - Shaka ran an Impi and GM into my territory. If I kill the Impi I get a crash during Shaka's turn... v2.1
[edit - I killed the Impi the next turn, crashola. Too bad, I was enjoying this game.]

Spoiler :