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

[Chum]

You have control over what your close neighbours are doing to a degree but you have no control over what snowballing civs on the other side of the map are doing.

Again,I love the mod its a great piece of work.

But let's be honest....if you arent commiting to a full DomV or at the very least 90% domV/ScienceV you arent going to win.This is a DomV centric mod plain and simple.

I dont think that is a bad thing but it is what it is.

I don't think you're as good at the game as you think you are. No offense, but if you didn't understand my comment, then you're not getting it.

In order for a civ to win a Cultural victory over you, you have to let them. They have to be influential over YOU. They can be influential with all the other civs except you and they cannot win until they pass you. Which means that you are neglecting your cultural defense. That is 100% your failing. You are letting them win the game. Don't give open borders. Pick different ideologies. Declare war if you have to get rid of the trade routes. Build a cultural defense against their tourism. Snipe tourism wonders. Put military on artifacts. If someone else has won a culture victory it means you did not defend properly against that victory, and the fault lies 100% with you.

You're on emperor difficulty. You have a lot of different avenues for victory, and the only one that's probably not feasible is Diplo. Try harder, it's entirely possible.

 

[Phukit]

I don't think you're as good at the game as you think you are. No offense, but if you didn't understand my comment, then you're not getting it.

In order for a civ to win a Cultural victory over you, you have to let them. They have to be influential over YOU. They can be influential with all the other civs except you and they cannot win until they pass you. Which means that you are neglecting your cultural defense. That is 100% your failing. You are letting them win the game. Don't give open borders. Pick different ideologies. Declare war if you have to get rid of the trade routes. Build a cultural defense against their tourism. Snipe tourism wonders. Put military on artifacts. If someone else has won a culture victory it means you did not defend properly against that victory, and the fault lies 100% with you.

You're on emperor difficulty. You have a lot of different avenues for victory, and the only one that's probably not feasible is Diplo. Try harder, it's entirely possible.

First off I have never personally lost to a CV.Another poster on this thread mentioned the AI in their game posting a sub 200 CV in v2.

Say what you will but the fact remains that you cannot win any VC in this mod if it is not DomV assisted.Peaceful play is just not an option.I am not criticizing the mod for that.

 

[Acken]

Well peaceful maybe yes but you can win something else than domination. Especially science.

Someone could argue that it's not really a science victory if you have to kill someone (tech leader or culture leader) to do it but that's certainly not my opinion as I want killing or crippling to be an efficient tool and not solely reserved to domV.

 

[Legen]

Well peaceful maybe yes but you can win something else than domination. Especially science.

Someone could argue that it's not really a science victory if you have to kill someone (tech leader or culture leader) to do it but that's certainly not my opinion as I want killing or crippling to be an efficient tool and not solely reserved to domV.

I'd also argue that bribing other civilizations to declare war to your rivals isn't really peaceful play either, as commonly done in some unmodded Deity gameplays, you're still responsible for the war. At least your mod forces the player to do the dirty work himself.

By the way, do we get a casus belli if an AI attempts to conquer (or demand tribute to) a CS that's under our pledge of protection? I didn't pay attention to that, could be a good way to justify a war when playing peacefully (i.e. only defensive wars).

 

[Acken]

It's not the case at the moment but it's on my possible list to go further in improving the warmonger system (CB is just a part of it).

 

[ICanHasName?]

It's amazing how much the aggressive ai with its improved tactical skills changes the game. There was such a huge difference between peaceful beelining and having to divert to make a tiny army, but now warring is something you always have to plan for. It was really shocking to see a bunch of knights surround and kill a unit, instead of just running back and forth.

CS sure do have a really bad time though. Then again maybe I should have to fight for CS if I want them to exist! In any case maybe there should be a mechanic where capturing a CS that is allied with an enemy civ gives you the option to "coup" it rather then keep it. Most of the mass CS death seems to result from them ending up literally in the middle of the endless wars, even though I bet AI Alex would prefer gaining a CS ally to yet another knight factory, if he had the choice.

Did the AI always have this much happiness and I just never noticed? It sure seems like they can flood the world with big cities and never even slow down. They certainly do make better use of it!

 

[Acken]

The bonus for Happiness were not changed but their threshold for when to build it was changed.

Basically the AI has some triggers that will increase their likelihood of making happiness buildings. In the base game it's -1 happiness for NEED_HAPPINESS and -10 for NEED_HAPPINESS_CRITICAL which is rather stupid.

I have put these threshold at 4 and -1 so that an AI will no longer wait for unhappiness before making the buildings and sees -1 has being horrible (like players do).
If you're seeing a difference it's due to them basically playing better.

I've added such triggers for a number of things too. For exemple the base game has only a single trigger for culture buildings and science buildings. This is why the AI is very likely to make monuments and libraries but takes ages for universities. I've now made sure the AI also has triggers for when to build second, third etc science buildings (it's based on city pop mostly for now).

 

[Phukit]

Well peaceful maybe yes but you can win something else than domination. Especially science.

Someone could argue that it's not really a science victory if you have to kill someone (tech leader or culture leader) to do it but that's certainly not my opinion as I want killing or crippling to be an efficient tool and not solely reserved to domV.

This is way i would compare it to the base game.

In the base version (BNW) DomV assist makes other VCs easier.

In this mod it makes them possible.

 

[Chum]

First off I have never personally lost to a CV.Another poster on this thread mentioned the AI in their game posting a sub 200 CV in v2.

Say what you will but the fact remains that you cannot win any VC in this mod if it is not DomV assisted.Peaceful play is just not an option.I am not criticizing the mod for that.

So you haven't tried to or you are not able to?

Just curious, since you seem to be basing your opinion off of things other people have posted and not off your own experiences.

 

[Phukit]

So you haven't tried to or you are not able to?

Just curious, since you seem to be basing your opinion off of things other people have posted and not off your own experiences.

I have yet to win any "peaceful" game i have tried on this mod,and there have been many.

Though via a ridiculous start with Isabella (Continents Emperor) in my current game (FoY and Krakatoa settled by t20, Mt fuji T75) I may achieve a reasonable science V in what seems to be about as peaceful a game as i could hope for (only 3 dows by T100 took Zulu cap to keep it from Pocatello).

And please take a look at all 22 pages in the thread,I have been quite active since the mod was released.And yes i do share the same opinion as some other posters in this regard.

No I am not the greatest player,nor have I once claimed as much but I can Spank the base version of BNW on immortal and Im about 50/50 on deity.

Given your assertion that the player has total control over what any other civ can do how would you have dealt with the poland runaway from this game?

A sub 300 culture victory by Poland on Emperor... While I was Byzantines with Sacred Sites . I am impressed. Can't recall the last time I lost a culture victory, and definitely don't think I lost an emperor game in years.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=398652&d=1443110018

 

[Phukit]

Regarding the Fixed nature of GS in the mod,at what point do you stop planting and start bulbing vs the base game?

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Since my post was apparently one of the reasons why this discussion started in the first place I will just weigh in on what I think about the different VCs in the v3 version of the mod. This is all on Standard / DemiGod, I cannot talk about Deity.

1. Losing

As Acken stated, the most likely way for the AI to win is still by going to space. I have played a couple of games where the AI was very close to launching. In v2 of the mod they would usually (had I let them) launch around T260 to T270. v3 changes that a little, I would say at this point they would usually launch T250 to T260, which is rather early, considering the tech curve is slowed down compared to base game civilization.

However, the AI is now far more likely to win a Cultural Victory aswell. I had two games where the AI finished really early, both of them in the v2 version. In one of the games I played as Alexander, went Honor, built two expands and took two capitals. I was ready to crush the leader in culture, but they won shortly before I reached their capital. This was not Brazil or France by the way, it was Siam. He won the game T210 if I remember correctly, so really early. As I already mentioned there was a game with Ramesess where he won by Cultural Victory T191, though this was an exception I could not replicate until now. As I already mentioned I went Tradition with three expands that game and got Sistine Chapel, still managed to be "influenced" by him at around T180, last to go were Mayans with Oracle and six or seven cities.

Letting the AI win by Domination is something you have direct control over, so I will not go into detail about that.

The same goes for Diplomatic Victory, I essentially consider it a Science Victory in disguise, so I don't feel like commenting on that. I have yet to lose a game to either of those two.

I have to say though I disagree with one statement Chum made in this thread, even though I share his other views: The player definitely does not have direct influence over whether or not he will lose to a cultural powerhouse, not even on Pangea. It is entirely possible that an AI is well-protected by mountains, on his own continent, or just has two or three ICSing civs that form a protecting wall around him and in that case your only way of defending is by stacking culture. Seeing as it is possible to have the AI (technically) win over you as early as T180 (I was not the last remaining civ as I mentioned earlier) even if you get Leaning Tower of Pisa, Sistine Chapel and a Cultural City State ally is problematic. I will repeat the game I played is not the majority, it is just one case of the ~50 games I already played on this mod, but it happened. Seeing as the AI is now teching even better than under v2, I definitely think some slight buffs to culture generation or slight nerfs to tourism generation are needed.

Acken is already working on that as we speak.


2. Winning by Science

Launching into space is still by far the easiest way to win and does not depend on how well others are doing, unlike Domination and Culture. At the moment I usually manage to produce more beakers then the AI at around Secularism, I take the tech lead shortly after Research Labs, when the AI really gets hit hard by the city penalty in comparison to the player. I do however think that there will have to be slight nerfs, I don't think it is fair to have an AI with 10+ cities that has been doing nothing but warmongering still outtech Babylon after Public Schools and Fertilizer as was the case in my last game. Still, we're talking about very slight adjustments here.


2. Winning by Culture

If this wasn't as map- and opponent-dependant, I would say this is now by far the easiest way to win. I mentioned earlier in this thread that I managed to win a rather early (for me) Cultural Victory against a Poland that literally swallowed 5 other civs, had two continents for itself and had settled or conquered between thirty and fourty cities, had pretty much half the wonders in the entire game and I still only needed three musicians in the end. I really like the new Cultural Victory, it's much more doable than in the base game where it was by far the hardest victory in my opinion.


4. Diplomatic Victory

This one is rather problematic. As I already mentioned, Diplomatic Victory to me is essentially a slightly different Science Victory, but I think the AI flavour for taking city states is just too high at the moment. It is at a point where the AI is even crippling itself, I think they would benefit much more if they made the city states their allies, they usually have enough gold to spend anyway. Haven't managed to win a Diplomatic Victory yet, though I haven't tried to either.


5. Domination

It's hard, but it's definitely doable. Domination assists all the Victory Conditions, especially Culture. Domination is however not required, not for Culture (unless you're crammed, then it is), definitely not for Science. Domination might even be neccessary for a Diplomatic Victory at this point, seeing as I have yet to play a single game where the AI doesn't end up swallowing most City States.

 

[Acken]

Let's remember that v3 nerfed Artistic Genius to 1 tourism instead of 2. Also as stated earlier in that thread I am reverting back the theme bonus to its original values in the next version.

I don't really mind big civs outpacing Babylon though. Civ5 is such a game that it doesn't make sense to give a guaranteed tech advantage to a civ since science is basically what makes you win. If a civ managed to reach higher levels through warmongering rather than a direct bonus I am perfectly fine with that. It's also worth remembering that the AI has always been awful with Babylon (hell the mod at least tells it to plant its first GS compared to vanilla where it would be bulbed...) a better AI civ with science is Korea.

Regarding city states there are multiple problems. The biggest reason why the warmongers love killing CS is because first it allows them some easy conquest, second its thematic, third it makes diplomatic harder (and people on these forum probably know by now that I hate the diplomatic victory and how easy it is ) and more importantly it allows AI warmongers to actually move more easily. Not killing city states is a huge problem for the 1UPT AI. One choke blocked by a CS and the AI will fail miserably at attacking behind it.
This is the kind of stuff where yes in a perfectworld I'd make the AI more human and try to ally CS but the difficulty is that it's really not a simple task and CS end up working mostly in the human favor. Something that is very apparent in the base game. My current solution to this design imbalance between human and AI is to make AI eat them. A possible change to diplomatic victory, to make it more accessible is however possible.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I don't really mind big civs outpacing Babylon though. Civ5 is such a game that it doesn't make sense to give a guaranteed tech advantage to a civ since science is basically what makes you win. If a civ managed to reach higher levels through warmongering rather than a direct bonus I am perfectly fine with that. It's also worth remembering that the AI has always been awful with Babylon (hell the mod at least tells it to plant its first GS compared to vanilla where it would be bulbed...) a better AI civ with science is Korea.

If it was unclear, I was playing as Babylon, one of my few proper games with them, I had three academies up at round about T100 if I remember correctly. America didn't really capture any cities that would increase Science, he just ICSed 10 cities and took the Egyptean capital which (gasp) did not have a single wonder. It was like Pop 5 after he took it so I can't imagine him getting a big beaker boost out of it.

Let's remember that v3 nerfed Artistic Genius to 1 tourism instead of 2. Also as stated earlier in that thread I am reverting back the theme bonus to its original values in the next version.

That's probably enough of a nerf in my eyes. I feel like playing a Culture Victory on Immortal today anyway, so might aswell test how easy/hard it is now! I just need a break from DemiGod even though I have been doing fairly decent recently.

Regarding city states there are multiple problems. The biggest reason why the warmongers love killing CS is because first it allows them some easy conquest, second its thematic, third it makes diplomatic harder (and people on these forum probably know by now that I hate the diplomatic victory and how easy it is ) and more importantly it allows AI warmongers to actually move more easily. Not killing city states is a huge problem for the 1UPT AI. One choke blocked by a CS and the AI will fail miserably at attacking behind it.
This is the kind of stuff where yes in a perfectworld I'd make the AI more human and try to ally CS but the difficulty is that it's really not a simple task and CS end up working mostly in the human favor. Something that is very apparent in the base game. My current solution to this design imbalance between human and AI is to make AI eat them. A possible change to diplomatic victory, to make it more accessible is however possible.

Agree on all points. I never really gave a sh about Diplomatic Victory anyway, it feels so redundant. Freedom Science Victory with buying all the parts and Diplomatic Victory feel so incredibly samey.


~

Another unrelated thing I noticed during extended testing is that it is actually a lot easier to get (early) wonders on your mod than it is in the base game, I love it. Since the AI actually builds military now and also prioritizes really strong National Wonders like the NC or the Ironworks or the Hermitage it gives the player more of an opportunity.

In my recent Korea game (I just love this civ..) I literally just queued up National College, Oracle, Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens and Macchu Picchu with no building or unit in between and got every single one. Started about T70, finished all the wonders at round about T105. Still yet to play that game out since I reserved it for info-era warmongering.

 

[Ravellion]

Given your assertion that the player has total control over what any other civ can do how would you have dealt with the poland runaway from this game?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=398652&d=1443110018

That game was on V2, and I think it wasn't the wonders that allowed Poland to score a win against me. It was V2 artistic genius and warmongering. It ate two civs (which also gave it some of those wonders) that gave it a lot of great works, and it had a full aesthetics tree. Note that Poland did not have Eiffel Tower, because I built it.

 

[Phukit]

That game was on V2, and I think it wasn't the wonders that allowed Poland to score a win against me. It was V2 artistic genius and warmongering. It ate two civs (which also gave it some of those wonders) that gave it a lot of great works, and it had a full aesthetics tree. Note that Poland did not have Eiffel Tower, because I built it.

I used your post as an example trying to demonstrate that the player is not always 100% in control of whether or not a civ becomes influential over you.Had poland been your neighbour you could have kept him in check,not the case in this example

 

[Phukit]

.

In my recent Korea game (I just love this civ..) I literally just queued up National College, Oracle, Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens and Macchu Picchu with no building or unit in between and got every single one. Started about T70, finished all the wonders at round about T105. Still yet to play that game out since I reserved it for info-era warmongering.

Do you plan on turtleing until info then cutting loose?

I am wondering if 4-city tradition turtleing until dynamite is even viable in this mod,I would be worried about runaways before then.I always have one sometimes 2 in my games.

I am also wondering if civs that have an ealier UU have a greater advantage over civs who have a UU come much later like germany.I love UUs like the panzer but I am finding i rarely get to use the late UUs as the war is basically over by the time I get to them.

 

[Legen]

Regarding city states there are multiple problems. The biggest reason why the warmongers love killing CS is because first it allows them some easy conquest, second its thematic, third it makes diplomatic harder (and people on these forum probably know by now that I hate the diplomatic victory and how easy it is )

(...)

A possible change to diplomatic victory, to make it more accessible is however possible.

The Superpower mod had toned down the amount of influence you get with gold gifts to really low values (I think 500 gives 20 or less). The author mentioned that his idea of a Diplomatic Victory is that gold shouldn't earn you friends/allies, completing the missions they give you should. You could try a philosophy around that route. I wish I could see it in practice, that mod is gliching my Civ5 for some reason.

And these city states could as well give us missions to denounce/DoW some aggressive civ that is eating too many of them, as well as to pledge protection. I'm surprised that they don't try to ally themselves to a major power when near a warmongering civ, they are more scared of barbarian encampments than of Genghis Khan and Attila...

I think a change around this direction could enhance the importance of war in your mod, while also giving some other layer for diplomacy. This is still a raw idea, though.

 

[Chum]

The Superpower mod had toned down the amount of influence you get with gold gifts to really low values (I think 500 gives 20 or less). The author mentioned that his idea of a Diplomatic Victory is that gold shouldn't earn you friends/allies, completing the missions they give you should. You could try a philosophy around that route. I wish I could see it in practice, that mod is gliching my Civ5 for some reason.

And these city states could as well give us missions to denounce/DoW some aggressive civ that is eating too many of them, as well as to pledge protection. I'm surprised that they don't try to ally themselves to a major power when near a warmongering civ, they are more scared of barbarian encampments than of Genghis Khan and Attila...

I think a change around this direction could enhance the importance of war in your mod, while also giving some other layer for diplomacy. This is still a raw idea, though.

It's a good idea for sure, since I was in the middle of Askia when he decided to also DoW Mogadishu which was right near my borders. Unfortunately, since I wasn't allied with Mogadishu, I had little reason to waste my time protecting it, since I was getting no benefit from it. I thought about the same thing at that time, that it sure would be nice if the CS's would notice that we're fighting a common enemy or something.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I finally won my first Domination Victory on DemiGod, needless to say it was glorious. I definitely could have finished thirty to forty turns earlier, but I really felt like fking around later on, so that's what I did.

Do you plan on turtleing until info then cutting loose?

I am wondering if 4-city tradition turtleing until dynamite is even viable in this mod,I would be worried about runaways before then.I always have one sometimes 2 in my games.

I am also wondering if civs that have an ealier UU have a greater advantage over civs who have a UU come much later like germany.I love UUs like the panzer but I am finding i rarely get to use the late UUs as the war is basically over by the time I get to them.

My cities had pretty mediocre growth, I got forward settled five times in the early game so I was forced to build Composites, got Dow'ed T40 by both France and Big Willie, fended them off, turned towards Assyria, took two cities in the matter of eight turns (he even built roads for me, thanks) and then beelined Crossbows in order to take his capital. William was sieging my eastern city the entire time, but fending him off was pretty easy. I got Machinery at around T105, Assyria's capital fell T112. He had seven other cities that I really didn't care about, so I made a pretty lucrative peace deal with him, France and the Netherlands and started turtling and feeding my cities hardcore. At this point I had:

Oracle, Artemis, Hanging Gardens, Macchu Picchu, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Globe Theatre, all in cap.
Petra, Great Library, Notre Dame, Halikarnassos, all in Assyrias cap. He had three Oasis' and something ridic like three or four salt.

I could've just ended the game there going for Crossbow towards Arti, but I thought that was rather boring. Turtled until I got bombers, I passed the AI in tech shortly after Public Schools iirc (had enough gold to buy all of them in my five cities, oh lord). I started warring at around T200, bulbed towards Hubble, used the scientists to buld towards Xcom and finished the game five turns after Xcom were online.

In almost 800 hours of Civ I never really got to use nukes, lategame warfare is so much more fun now! I finished this T249, though I accidentally made peace with Brazil so it would've been T239. Still I think if I didn't play so sloppy towards the end (I lacked 1 scientist, had to put 12 turns towards Xcom tech) I could've finished this roundabout T210. Super fun game, I'll definitely play more science-oriented domination games in the future.

One note on the Panzer though: with Acken changing up the tech path, putting GWI and Infantery down the bottom Panzers are a ton more viable now. They're really, really strong units, the thing that made them bad in the base game was the deviaton from the standard tech path.