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

[chumchu]

@ ycj: I will take on the challenge when I have time. That start looks very tasty. I'm thinking Liberty/Honor/Commerce/Autocracy if there is a lot of luxes. Liberty works so well with extra production on pastures, both for settler production and getting the most out of smaller cities for some classical/medieval timing push.

Is it an NQ-Pangea or a regular one?

@ Acken: Congratulations! I'm looking forward to version 5.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I really appreciate you taking the challenge! I sent out a few PMs to some of the most capable users on this forum, hopefully we can get someone to crack Deity

I honestly think Liberty into Honor or Commerce is by far the best strategy on this map. In my first playthrough I settled 6 cities before T70 iirc.

 

[chumchu]

Having a first go of it, playing sloppy and testing deity out. I moved the capital southeast for more pastures. Did not have the same luck as you with ruins. I have been attacked by Maya and Assyria which have stopped me from going after Korea. They were my intended first target after I stole 2 workers from them and they claimed the choke point towards me. I pumped horse archers early but they give too low military score and it is only with rams I have climbed in ranking and got a tribute off. All in all, a decent game but lots of room for improvement.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xj10j4ni143swh8/AAAjF5LIgTZRLmPL_7V_GMhWa?dl=0

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I tend to not Worker steal at all on Deity, or if I do it is never from a neighbor. They never peace out.

I see you with the Horse Archers though. I focused (as always) on Spearmen just so I wouldn't get DOWed, then got 6-8 HA and 3-4 BR as fast as possible. I started with

Spoiler :

Assyria

, but starting with

Spoiler :

Korea

makes much more sense. Nice empire you got there. I didn't settle the city east because I knew he would have conquered it anyway. So I just settled where I couldn't be attacked, allowed him to take my settlement and then took the city.

 

[chumchu]

The worker steal worked out really fine, You want to use that spearmen upgrade and set back your neighbor a bit. Korea actually peaced out with me for 30 g and wanted a DoF directly after =). But in general I agree with your point.Had I stolen from a warmonger who covets my land it would not have been worth it.

I wanted to try something different and went for wheel first. The horse archers are very useful for worker stealing, harassment and clearing camps. But it cost me some tributes and gold for panic buying spearmen and timing for my Korea attack.

The East city pushes him to attack but at the same time it is easy to defend against his towers with 3 fortified units on the hills in front of the city. I have killed a fair number of his units already, only losing a scout and my city state ally Colombo actually took back Riga from him =). The question now is do I push into him or go for Korea who has spammed two additional cities towards me. I think

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Forgot to mention, it's a regular Pangea. I prefer rolling regular ones because often times the player will end up with vast amounts of unoccupied space (like one in five games).

I remember having one Poland game where it took me 30 turns to find the nearest AI.. Turns out the continent was cut in half by a mountain range and the entire western side was mine. (I still lost, Deity AI is ridic).

Generally speaking of course the map script for NQ Pangea is far superior. I've had games with 7+ cities on regular Pangea and not a single source of coal, oil and aluminum.

 

[chumchu]

I keep getting attacked by my neighbors which really slows me down=( I should probably replay this with better diplomacy and more spears.

This game I built granaries and bee-lined horseback riding for the 4-6 hammer stables in most of my cities before churning out rams/horsemen/swords. Doing a late-classical push with a follow up in medieval that usually works on immortal. This seemed slightly too late as most AI:s get into medieval turn 80-90 and I had run into longswords and trebs turn 90 when I stopped.

Huns have the units for an early classical push and I should probably aim for that. I consider putting 2 into honor before going for right hand side of liberty, aiming for more tributes and conquest and starting peaceful development later. This should also hopefully disencourage DoWs

 

[wayneb64]

My sample size is far to small, but I am on my third game now playing continents and I have yet to get a horse near my capital city. I always go for Animal Husbandry expecting a horse but so far I have been denied with the mod. Am I just getting unlucky or was something changed? My current roll I am alone on an island with no horse or iron.

 

[Acken]

@Wayneb64 I am currently working on a replacement for v5 of the NQ mapscripts to have the best compatibility less bugs etc since this has been a recurring problem. That said you can always just pick strategic balance and be guaranteed horses.

I will finish that, add a few balance/feature changes and then release v5 quickly.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I keep getting attacked by my neighbors which really slows me down=( I should probably replay this with better diplomacy and more spears.

This game I built granaries and bee-lined horseback riding for the 4-6 hammer stables in most of my cities before churning out rams/horsemen/swords. Doing a late-classical push with a follow up in medieval that usually works on immortal. This seemed slightly too late as most AI:s get into medieval turn 80-90 and I had run into longswords and trebs turn 90 when I stopped.

Huns have the units for an early classical push and I should probably aim for that. I consider putting 2 into honor before going for right hand side of liberty, aiming for more tributes and conquest and starting peaceful development later. This should also hopefully disencourage DoWs

Deity is just incredibly tough

The game I am currently playing is the longest I have ever managed to hang on. Almost made it to T200. Somewhat got first ideology (the AI sometimes gets it around T140, no kidding). I have 6 decent cities of my own and 2 Austrian cities including her capital. Peaced out for 150GPT. Hiawatha essentially owns the rest of the map (4 original capitals, about twenty or thirty cities if I had to guess), is tech leader and is military leader. It seems that if you let one AI take over the others the game is essentially over. Anyway, I tried to start a war with him and I didn't accomplish much. Replaying it now to get better beakers so I can get to Atomic Bombs in time.

If you get tired of playing for domination (as did I, tried that Atilla game four times in total, but every time one AI just steamrolled the others) I will gladly give you the saves to my new game. Turf is almost equally as insane, as are ruins, but this time City States are just.. I had 3 Cultural and 1 Maritime allied by T40. I opened Piety, then full Liberty and I managed to breeze through Liberty by the time I usually finish Trad

 

[wayneb64]

@Wayneb64 I am currently working on a replacement for v5 of the NQ mapscripts to have the best compatibility less bugs etc since this has been a recurring problem. That said you can always just pick strategic balance and be guaranteed horses.

I will finish that, add a few balance/feature changes and then release v5 quickly.

I looked on the advanced setup for quite some time and could not see an option for that, but it has been proven I am often very blind. I also only have your mod and the UI mod, do I need to add another mod to get the strategic balance?

 

[Acken]

No its a basic option in civ5 under ressources.

 

[wayneb64]

I found it just now starting a non-modded game so I assume it will be there with your mod. I will try it on my next game. I kind of like the surprise of not knowing what to expect but if zero horses and iron is a bug then I guess I need to work around it until V5 comes out.

Otherwise I am really enjoying the mod. Still playing Emperor, which I like because I can take whatever path I feel like and still get a solid challenge from the AI. I have not faced carpets of death and the AI seems to always be 5-10 techs at least ahead of me. I quit the first game when my enemy started taking out my double shot ranged Gatling guns with triplanes. That still needs some kind of balance adjustment as there is just no defense against that. Nukes where nicely nerfed so the AI can't takeout all your most valuable units in one shot but the planes still can own you.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Can't wait for V5! I'm currently on my third try doing a wide Maya game on Deity. I think I have a realistic chance to win this, so I won't be playing V5 until I finished that game, but my end goal is to win a Deity match without a single reload. I don't think it'll happen before Civ VI is released, but a man can dream

 

[Acken]

I'm almost done with a first version of my map scripts which are mostly a modification of the NQMap ones with my own preferences and trying to deal with infinite loops it was creating.

Here are the current features:

-NQMap has been "removed".
-Rework of the map generator functions, inspired or copied from NQMap (this affect all map scripts) :
There should be less bugs with the map scripts.
Maps are more generous than the base game in amount of ressources and luxuries (for everybody).
Starting position should rarely be bad
Less jungles
Strategic balance always gives horses iron coal and oil
-New Map script called Balance Pangea inspired from NQPangea :
More land (5% more land on standard) and sea levels have a bigger impact.
Less mountains on 4B and 5B and less chains, more scattered
A big mass of land and some islands
There is a smoothness parameter which is set at high by default and will create a very "round" pangea in one big lump. If set at low it will create a more sinuous Pangea.
The map script avoids creating choke points
-New Map script called Balance Continents
Similar to Balance Pangea it has a bit more land and less mountains
It will also have some islands
Similarly to the pangea map script there is a smoothness parameters to chose if the continents are big lumps or sinuous

 

[stormtrooper412]

Nice going! I really liked what I saw in v4 but I rarely went past 100-150 turns since by then, an AI will have snowballed out of control and I wouldn't get to catch up

 

[Acken]

Current list of changes for v5 (work still in progress) :

Spoiler :

Units and Warfare:
-Pikeman is now back to 90 cost
-Sword strength is 15 and cost 75 instead of 16 cost 80

Policies
-Creative expression (+1 culture for each GW) has been replaced by Free Expression (+1 science for specialists)
-Theocracy gives +2 gold to shrine and +15% to temples instead of +1 shrine +20% temple
-Mercantilism reduces buying costs by 15% instead of 25%

Buildings:
-The statue of Zeus now has a new additional effect, it reduces by half the resistance time of a newly conquered city.
-The national college no longer provide a scientist slot
-The national college provides +4 science and +25% science instead of +30% science
-Stock exchange now has only 1 slot
-Factory now has only 1 slot
-Workshop now has 2 slots
-Market now has 2 slots
-Market, bank and stock exchange give one more gold but the % modifier has been reduced to 15%
-Big Ben reduces buying costs by 10% instead of 15%

Religion:
-Prophets are no longer random

Misc:
-Shrines no longer cost maintenance but monuments now do again
-The tech exponent for city strength is no longer reduced
-The growth cost exponent is 1.4 instead of 1.35 (original is 1.5)
-Forts build time has been reduced from 800 to 600
-Trading posts have been significantly changed:
TP are available at The Wheel
TP give +1 gold at Currency
TP give +1 gold at Economics
TP can only be built adjacent to a luxury.
-The formula for costs is no longer (P*30)^0.75 but (P*8)^0.88.
In other words, the early stuff cost less money and the late game stuff cost more.

Map (BETA) :
-NQMap has been "removed".
-Rework of the map generator functions, inspired or copied from NQMap :
There should be less bugs with the map scripts and I've also modified things to my liking.
Maps are more generous than the base game in amount of ressources and luxuries (for everybody).
Starting position should rarely be bad
Less jungles
Strategic balance always gives horses iron coal and oil
-Two new mapscripts AMBalance Continents and AMBalance Pangea which are modified from NQPangea:
More land (5% more land on standard) and sea levels have a bigger impact (58%, 66%, 74% amount of water tiles respectively).
Less mountains on 4B and 5B and less chains, more scattered
Islands in both scripts
There is a smoothness parameter which is set at high by default and will create a very "round" pangea in one big lump. If set at low it will create a more sinuous Pangea or continents.
There are two parameters for islands, numbers and size.
The mapscript avoids creating choke points for the Pangea script

AI:
-Reduced likelihood of the AI taking godess of protection
-The AI should offer a white peace if it has been at war for 20 turns without any unit lost and 40 turns without any city lost (from either side). (BETA)

Civilizations:
-Carthage
The African elephant now costs the same as the other horsemen UU (75) instead of 100
Carthage gets a special free harbor in every cities called the Cothon which gives +2 gold to every sea tiles instead of +1
Note that the Quinquireme got buffed with the Trireme making it already a very powerful early unit.
-Rome
The Legion strength was reduced by 1 (now 17).
The Balista was removed.
Rome now has a unique Amphitheater called the Forum costing no maintenance and giving +25% GPP.
Rome UA now gives +10% building production and +15% production for buildings already existing in Capital.
-Korea's UA only give +1 science to specialists.

Work In progress:
-Better AI diplomacy and coallitions, weak AIs more likely to form alliances against leaders.
-Rework great improvements ?
-Rework of or additional Reformation beliefs to make picking one early more attractive

 

[chumchu]

My initial impressions:

The changes to Units and Warfare, Policies, Buildings, Religion, Civilizations and AI seem spot on. I have three questions regarding them:

1) Why the 4 base Science on NC? I liked the removal of base science as it encouraged city specialization more and was not a too obvious build early so that it could potentially go somewhere else than the capital. I would bump it to 35% no base make it potentially stronger but less of a rush kind of building.

2) The change to Rome's UA seems more bland and an unnecessary buff for an already strong civ. What your thoughts about the change? Rome's UB is great idea and in the right place from a gameplay perspective. However, it makes more thematic sense for the forum to be a market or for the Greeks to have such a special amphitheater =)

In general I would support more GPP% to buff specialist strategies a bit more as you can not give any more science back. With specialist giving 3gpp, 25% makes very little difference though. My suggestion as I have said earlier is to make the national epic give 50% Gpp instead of 25%. Currently it is wonder that is only built when you have nothing worthwhile left too build. If you think that would be too strong you could make it depend on amphitheaters instead of monuments but IMO that would make it viable only too late in the game.

3) The nerf to Korea a nerf is very reasonable. What about Babylon though? My suggestion would be to move their free scientist to mathematics as it fits historically and makes their opening less obvious and powerful. And as I have said earlier: "Poland OP, please nerf"

Map changes sounds nice. I like the ability to customize around the NQ-script. But I cannot really comment without playing with it.

In all, great work! When will it be out? =)=)=)

 

[Tombaugh]

 

[Acken]

My initial impressions:

The changes to Units and Warfare, Policies, Buildings, Religion, Civilizations and AI seem spot on. I have three questions regarding them:

1) Why the 4 base Science on NC? I liked the removal of base science as it encouraged city specialization more and was not a too obvious build early so that it could potentially go somewhere else than the capital. I would bump it to 35% no base make it potentially stronger but less of a rush kind of building.

2) The change to Rome's UA seems more bland and an unnecessary buff for an already strong civ. What your thoughts about the change? Rome's UB is great idea and in the right place from a gameplay perspective. However, it makes more thematic sense for the forum to be a market or for the Greeks to have such a special amphitheater =)

In general I would support more GPP% to buff specialist strategies a bit more as you can not give any more science back. With specialist giving 3gpp, 25% makes very little difference though. My suggestion as I have said earlier is to make the national epic give 50% Gpp instead of 25%. Currently it is wonder that is only built when you have nothing worthwhile left too build. If you think that would be too strong you could make it depend on amphitheaters instead of monuments but IMO that would make it viable only too late in the game.

3) The nerf to Korea a nerf is very reasonable. What about Babylon though? My suggestion would be to move their free scientist to mathematics as it fits historically and makes their opening less obvious and powerful. And as I have said earlier: "Poland OP, please nerf"

Map changes sounds nice. I like the ability to customize around the NQ-script. But I cannot really comment without playing with it.

In all, great work! When will it be out? =)=)=)

1) For the NC the main reason was to somewhat keep the same amount of early science due to the removal of the Scientist. I also wanted to make bonuses more consistant with +25 and +50s rather than have an odd +30. Not something I strongly vouch for anyway, I'm mostly playing around with numbers here.

2) I mostly wanted to give Rome a bit more flexibility around their UA rather than getting nothing in the capital or for a building not already built there. Another Idea I had was to give a raw hammer bonus for cities with a connection which is both Thematic and works well with the Legion ability.

A solution for the problems of GPP you mention could be to transform +% bonuses in raw bonuses. For example the National epic could give +2GPP for all GPs instead of +25%. Or +1GPP +25% for example. Either way I'm open to modiffying the NE.

3) Babylon and Poland are not excluded for a later date. Korea however was way too crazy and the change was easy to make (1 line of code). Moving the bab GS around is also easy though.

Hello again, its maybe a bit too late but could you change the ua of spain? she is getting 500 gold on quick, standard, epic and marathon, please change it. (or is it already changed)
If someone is interested, i could post some toughts (though my english is rather rudimental) and the save of a nice start with ottomans (deity, continentplus, epic speed), however i dont know how to make screenshots...

I didn't know she was getting the same amount based on speed. Her UA may change altogether in the mod though.