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

[Acken]

@Chumchu I think you certainly have a point regarding freedom's loss of power with weaker specialist. 1 science or make specialist free of food could be something to try. Or go back to old secularism or another incentive to use specialist instead of pure growth. Buffing freedom make me wonder where autocracy would stand though.
Or go deeper in ideologies changes to give them better focus like some of the policy trees.

Gold reductions should probably be multiplicative instead of additive.

 

[chumchu]

Re: + 1 science/ specialists in freedom.

If we compare with how it was before the mod, freedom now only has more science in the rare cases where you take it without secularism.
Autocracy benefits from war being much more important and complimentary trees like honor and commerce being better.
Order is more flexible than the other two and will probably be the most common.

I liked the unmodded choice of ideologies for science victories. The end game was quite different between freedom and order while also quite balanced, though slightly in favor of order. I think that we should try to preserve it as much as possible.

Moving on to the modded state with +1 science in freedom.
The removal of trading post science hurts order more than freedom but I think theyshould stillbe roughly balanced. As it stands Order has the 25%, the free scientist, better infrastructure and general flexibility while freedom has more base science from specialists, easier endgame with purchasing of parts and potentially new deal combos in small empires.

 

[Chum]

So, was it intended for everyone to be able to faith buy Cataphracts? Because I'm hanging out in this Brazil game with a couple.

 

[Jaybe]

Speaking of Cataphracts: I find that I can purchase them with faith even without having any horses. I presume they would suffer the consequences of resource lack if I were to do so.

 

[rkade8583]

That is a phractin hilarious bug! I love it!

 

[Chum]

Speaking of Cataphracts: I find that I can purchase them with faith even without having any horses. I presume they would suffer the consequences of resource lack if I were to do so.

This is also true. They are pretty suboptimal if you don't have horses


I don't like the trading post change (the loss of science). Seems unnecessary, and it just leads to me farm spamming again instead of having to make a choice about what to build. Choices are good, they shouldn't be removed. 7science from oxford doesn't make up for it unless you're bad at the game, honestly, and I thought we were making a pro mode mod here.

Sea resources are perfect now, imo. It makes the buildings worthwhile if you don't have fish, it makes work boats something to build (since they never got built before), and you also have to protect your work boats, so now you do need to build a navy. These are all good changes. But, did you increase work boat cost again? I think it was 160 in the game yesterday, and 70 pre-patch. That's a bit steep, imo. Other than that, good changes.

Those really super early GS's from library kinda slow the late game down though. They make the early game go by fast, but the late game still drags. Having those cheap and easy GS's all gone early (and with fixed costs) means generating later GS's is gonna be rough. I still think you should cut faith costs to rebalance a bit.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

7science from oxford doesn't make up for it

Well, i think it was exactly what Acken intended when he made this change : reduce the amount of late game science so the end game's research doesn't accelerate out of control.
Now, if everyone think trading posts are bad, maybe something can be done to make them better at what they were intended for : generate gold. Maybe not to the point where you would spam them, but enough to make you consider them. I find it interesting that the main purpose of the gold generating tile improvement in the unmodded game is to generate science

Also, i don't see this mod as a "pro" mod. More a final level of polishing for the game. The pros will be happy with extremely difficult deity while the not-so-pro will be happy to have challenges without all the cheesing involved with unmodded deity and more options to play without purposefully playing sub-optimal (better overall early trees giving more options)

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I agree with the general idea of buffing Freedom a little, but I honestly don't think Order needs a nerf. I too think that giving Freedom another buff to specialist tiles is a good idea, that's what Freedom is supposed to be for.

Order is clearly very strong right now since it supports wide empires and AckenMod buffed wide play by a large margin. That doesn't mean that tall play is dead, though. I managed to win a DemiGod game with three cities, turtling until Nukes and XCom and my turf wasn't even good for tall play (I posted the Byzantium game somewhere earlier in this thread).

The reason why I was able to keep up was Autocracy tech-stealing. The improvements to the AI make it so that you can easily steal techs up to turn 200 on standard speed, while couping is less useful since CS get devoured. Autocracy spies are absolutely game changing. Especially in a game where you're behind.

If Freedom is pulled up to the level of Autocracy and Order I think the mod is much much closer to "balance" between the Ideologies than the base game is.

 

[Ravellion]

First try at version 4 today and it was a rather unenjoyable game. I have the distinct impression that the game was easier than in version 3, and the culprit seems to be the libraries. Getting science so easily completely devalues everything preindustrial as the game goes by way too fast. It also makes medieval/renaissance settling even more useless.

 

[DeAnno]

First try at version 4 today and it was a rather unenjoyable game. I have the distinct impression that the game was easier than in version 3, and the culprit seems to be the libraries. Getting science so easily completely devalues everything preindustrial as the game goes by way too fast. It also makes medieval/renaissance settling even more useless.

This is a weird idea, but maybe Libraries and Writer's Guilds could be switched on the tech tree to delay the burst of science a bit, but not long enough to make GSes all collect in the later eras?

 

[noto2]

This is also true. They are pretty suboptimal if you don't have horses


I don't like the trading post change (the loss of science). Seems unnecessary, and it just leads to me farm spamming again instead of having to make a choice about what to build. Choices are good, they shouldn't be removed. 7science from oxford doesn't make up for it unless you're bad at the game, honestly, and I thought we were making a pro mode mod here.

Sea resources are perfect now, imo. It makes the buildings worthwhile if you don't have fish, it makes work boats something to build (since they never got built before), and you also have to protect your work boats, so now you do need to build a navy. These are all good changes. But, did you increase work boat cost again? I think it was 160 in the game yesterday, and 70 pre-patch. That's a bit steep, imo. Other than that, good changes.

Those really super early GS's from library kinda slow the late game down though. They make the early game go by fast, but the late game still drags. Having those cheap and easy GS's all gone early (and with fixed costs) means generating later GS's is gonna be rough. I still think you should cut faith costs to rebalance a bit.

Well this is the dilemma Acken faces - how to balance late game tech speed. I'm sure the late game appears to drag to you, it appears to drag to all of us, and that's because at T320, a turn could take 5 minutes to play, or more, whereas at T50 we can blast through a turn in less than a minute, even while at war. So you might spend 50% of your total game time in the information and atomic ages alone. I agree that it's frustrating. However, if you look at the actual number of turns, I'm sure you spend fewer turns or, at most, equal turns in the Atomic and Information ages, as you spend in the Ancient and Classic ages.

The problem is, if we speed up the late game so that it doesn't "feel" as if it drags, so that we can go from Modern to the end of the game in an hour or two, what really happens is we spend almost no turns in the last two eras. In the unmodded game it got absurd. I'd blast through the Atomic age in 10 turns, or something silly like that. It really ruins the late game, in my opinion.

Personally I prefer the route Acken's mod takes. Sure, I spend a lot of real life time in the late game, but it's much better for game balance. I'd rather focus on making the late game enjoyable, than making it rush by so fast as to be irrelevant.

 

[Acken]

So, was it intended for everyone to be able to faith buy Cataphracts? Because I'm hanging out in this Brazil game with a couple.

I thought I had fixed that bug... sigh.

I don't like the trading post change (the loss of science). Seems unnecessary, and it just leads to me farm spamming again instead of having to make a choice about what to build. Choices are good, they shouldn't be removed. 7science from oxford doesn't make up for it unless you're bad at the game, honestly, and I thought we were making a pro mode mod here.

Sea resources are perfect now, imo. It makes the buildings worthwhile if you don't have fish, it makes work boats something to build (since they never got built before), and you also have to protect your work boats, so now you do need to build a navy. These are all good changes. But, did you increase work boat cost again? I think it was 160 in the game yesterday, and 70 pre-patch. That's a bit steep, imo. Other than that, good changes.

The work boats cost have been unchanged. The problem with TP +1 science is that it makes TP 2yield + 3 gold + 1 science which is better than a secularism non-scientist specialist in a lot of cases unless you play freedom. But considering I am considering making freedom a bit better so it may come back and is still up in the air. Maybe with a restriction rule instead like Chateaux.

First try at version 4 today and it was a rather unenjoyable game. I have the distinct impression that the game was easier than in version 3, and the culprit seems to be the libraries. Getting science so easily completely devalues everything preindustrial as the game goes by way too fast. It also makes medieval/renaissance settling even more useless.

I find that sentiment a bit strange. It's true that the slot increases the early game science speed but by only +2 science. Compared to v3, at university you now have 2 slots for a total of +4 instead of +3. Not that significant.

The first GS would come faster though so it may be an explanation. That's the problem with GS, they will accelerate whatever era they spawn in.

A possibility would be to simply go back to 2 slot universities or simply slow down GS spawn rate by limiting it to 3 slots and 4 with the NC.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Personally I prefer the route Acken's mod takes. Sure, I spend a lot of real life time in the late game, but it's much better for game balance. I'd rather focus on making the late game enjoyable, than making it rush by so fast as to be irrelevant.

This. If the mod appears to slow down late game tech a lot, it's because late game tech was way too fast without the mod.

I thought I had fixed that bug... sigh.

Haven't noticed this when playing Assyria. Maybe something related to choice of beliefs/social policies.

But considering I am considering making freedom a bit better so it may come back and is still up in the air. Maybe with a restriction rule instead like Chateaux.

That might be an option. It would allow trading posts to be very good tile improvements, but you couldn't spam them. However i'm not sure TP needs to produce science

The first GS would come faster though so it may be an explanation. That's the problem with GS, they will accelerate whatever era they spawn in.

They are indeed the culprit. First and second GS come very fast with Library+NC in capital and those 2 academies speed up medieval/renaissance research a lot.

or simply slow down GS spawn rate by limiting it to 3 slots and 4 with the NC.

Why not. Who said every specialist must have 4 slots in every city. You might even go the same route with other specialists and add a slot to their national wonder ad remove one from the 2 slots buildings. It's not often that we fill every Engineer/Merchant slot in every city anyway (even when playing freedom)

Re: Ideologies
I think there's 2 main issues with Freedom in the mod.
One comes from CiV itself : freedom have some very good tenets and a number of "meh" tenets while going order, it's hard to decide which L2 tenets to take as they are all good. Of course it's possible to abuse Volunteer Army if you can get a very early ideology but most of the time you take New Deal and Universal Suffrage and call it done. Even Their Finest Hour isn't as great now that you want to keep the fight away from your cities (previously it was a great turtler's tool to survive late game wars even thought it did little to help you actually win)
Second issue is Freedom worked best with tall tradition empires in CiV and those have suffered from the changes in Acken's mod and from the bigger more plentiful NQmap most players use with the mod. This makes freedom appear weak because it looses it's best synergy.

 

[chumchu]

Re: too much early science.
I have not really felt it, even in my egypt game with Glibv and early NC. There is still a large timing for swords and catapults as pikemen are delayed. The same for the medeival units.

If it still is an issue I would suggest that you remove the GS slot from national college. With slots at libraries there is actually a good reason to build them early apart from NC. I would not remove early slots altogether as you need a fair bit of planted GS for a tall empire to get a mid-game tech lead over a wide one.

Another thing that leads to a faster early game is the improvements to all starting social policy trees, and their significantly faster acquisition of policies due to double culture from palace (especially liberty with earlier settlers and free GS). The extra hammer to flatland cities and decreased maintenance are also significant.

The problem with TP +1 science is that it makes TP 2yield + 3 gold + 1 science which is better than a secularism non-scientist specialist in a lot of cases unless you play freedom. But considering I am considering making freedom a bit better so it may come back and is still up in the air. Maybe with a restriction rule instead like Chateaux.

The main attraction is really the science, just that policy makes it efficient to convert most of your land to it for the late game in science. That you can get that as well as gold makes them very good for other victories as well. Without it they are used when low on happyness, in specialised gold cities and major purchasing strategies. An arbitrary restriction does not seem very elegant but it is a decent compromise. I still prefer my suggestion for separate improvement that gives science but not gold as a compromise =)

Re: ideologies
Autocracy spies enables a catch-up but it is harder to pull ahead since it has no infrastructure bonii at all. And attacking at a tech advantage is a huge benefit. Order is good both for science and indirectly war through that science and sick hammers. If it is more flexible than the other two it should be slightly weaker to compensate.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Re: too much early science.
I have not really felt it, even in my egypt game with Glibv and early NC. There is still a large timing for swords and catapults as pikemen are delayed. The same for the medeival units.

Don't know. I didn't count the number of turns. Feels like research accelerates earlier now, but not by swords/catapult time, rather by mid-late medieval early renaissance. This was already the time where you started to research faster than you could build your infrastructure in the unmodded game (and you didn't have the gold/social policies to buy them) due to universities. I didn't feel this as much in v3 but maybe i merely focused better now (and i didn't forgot to use the NC slot for an unknown number of turns )

If it still is an issue I would suggest that you remove the GS slot from national college. With slots at libraries there is actually a good reason to build them early apart from NC. I would not remove early slots altogether as you need a fair bit of planted GS for a tall empire to get a mid-game tech lead over a wide one.

If there is a concern that tall empire are not as competitive as wide empire (as opposed to wide being weaker in the unmodded game - seems like balance is hard to reach), i wouldn't remove the slot from NC. National wonders are one of the mechanisms aimed at helping tall empire, i wouldn't weaken them.

Another thing that leads to a faster early game is the improvements to all starting social policy trees, and their significantly faster acquisition of policies

Valid point. I wouldn't go back to worse early trees thought.

The main attraction is really the science, just that policy makes it efficient to convert most of your land to it for the late game in science. That you can get that as well as gold makes them very good for other victories as well. Without it they are used when low on happyness, in specialised gold cities and major purchasing strategies. An arbitrary restriction does not seem very elegant but it is a decent compromise. I still prefer my suggestion for separate improvement that gives science but not gold as a compromise

Adding an improvement might be beyond the scope of this mod. Also i'm not sure it will solve anything. If it's just 1 science it will feel rather weak. If it's 2 it will be more than TP and will speed up late game science even more. If you put some terrain restriction it will be down to RNGesus whether you can actually build some of them or not (true you might go for conquest, but if your require Jungle for instance, AI might very well remove it before you can take their cities).

I always thought it felt silly to spam trading posts all over the land. What are we doing here? Giant country-sized supermarket?
I'm good with specialized cities but trading posts all around feels a bit silly. I would rather have better TP but in limited number.

Order is good both for science and indirectly war through that science and sick hammers. If it is more flexible than the other two it should be slightly weaker to compensate.

Careful not to get some "jack of all trades, master of none" ideology if we go that way. It might end up worse than both others. By the time you reach ideology you almost always know what VC you are after so there is almost no incentive to go for a more flexible ideology if another is better for that VC.

 

[J_Kovic]

I'm a new guy here and have played only one game with AckenMod.

I think that probably the best way to solve the problem with early academies is to scale them down a little bit by era. Ancient +3 science, Classical +4, Medieval +5, Renaissance +6 and so on like they scale in the later eras. That would probably bring some balance to the reward of getting early Scientist and punishment of working that scientist slot early.

That's my two cents on the subject, I'll go back to play CiV

Edit: One thing also sprung to my mind while playing that one game. I hate that you can beeline too much in the tech tree. You can reach Internet before Computers, Radio before Sailing or Chemistry and so on. I would like little more lines for the tree.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

I think that probably the best way to solve the problem with early academies is to scale them down a little bit by era. Ancient +3 science, Classical +4, Medieval +5, Renaissance +6 and so on like they scale in the later eras. That would probably bring some balance to the reward of getting early Scientist and punishment of working that scientist slot early.

I already suggested this as soon as Acken announced he would give Libraries a scientist slot. It shouldn't be hard as there are already techs that increase Academy output. I would see Education and Printing Press as good techs for a boost (they makes the most sense).
Either it went unnoticed or Acken didn't think the idea was very good.

 

[Acken]

I may have not noticed it or forgot about it, that's possible. I'll think about all current propositions on that specific problem.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

For what it's worth, I don't see the problem with early academies, especially given that throwing specialists into Library/National College early sucks out growth -- caravans just ain't that good anymore!

Still waiting, Acken, for that Let's Play you promised! Still slamming my head against that Immortal Pangea wall, would love to see specific examples of how y'all manage to sweep over 2 of your enemies by turn 100 while having 3-4 decent start cities of your own -- on DemiGod, even!

I'm sure part of the problem is that I suck at War -- my Swordsman rushes that start turn 70'ish or so aren't cutting it.

 

[chumchu]

I'm sure part of the problem is that I suck at War -- my Swordsman rushes that start turn 70'ish or so aren't cutting it.

Hmm... that should be okay, depending on your opponent of course. Go after softer targets, preferably tradition civs with nice cites and wonders, and not stuff like honor players with a large army (even if they look threatening). As long as they do not have medieval units you should be fine if you can gather like 6 swords and some support units by that time. Even if they also have swords you can use flanking and the fact that they promote cover instead of shock/drill to beat them in my experience even though you might lose 1 or 2 swords. Catapults are necessary to take harder cities efficiently, they are hardly ever targeted if you have a wounded swordsman in range, which you probably will. If you still struggle try the Vikings for 23 strength move 3 (+) units at MC.