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

sorry. I tested the ua of spain, she doesnt get the same amount based on speed.(Its 315 for Quick)
My fault

 

I've made the current testing version available on dropbox (experimental link in OP). I'm currently in that phase where I play 2-3 games before releasing and changing stuff along the way, hunting bugs and seeing how things feels. People are free to help by making a manual install of that version.

 

Rome has always been a little weird in Civ5. Their bonus is good in certain circumstances, but somewhat awkward and inflexible. It's also not the most suitable bonus to an empire constantly expanding through warfare.

I modded Rome to have a reduction in per city unhappiness, making early expansion easier, and a boost to gold from city connections, like Machu Pichu.

I do like the old production bonus, I just think it would better suit another civ. Also, I didn't want to get rid of either UU.

 

Fully agree with ChumChus notion of buffing the National Epic, I honestly never build it. Capital is so busy most of my game it's just not worth it.

 

Yep. Only time it ever goes up is when it's a 2 turn build, which is pretty much usually way too late for it to make a difference. It's super overpriced for it's benefit.

 

Well don't forget the mod gives it more culture (+3). The cost must be a bit more than garden + amphitheater though.

 

I don't see why it has to. If I have a tall empire (let's say 4 or 5 cities), building it is a complete no-brainer and it gives you big benefit. If you have a wide empire (which you always should if you want to compete) the cost of NE skyrockets and you're working less specialists. For wide empires it's just not a good wonder, which is my biggest gripe with it.

 

No I meant must as in "It probably is" not as "It has to be"

 

If it gives 50% GPP it does not have to give 3 culture, that was a change to make it slightly more playable.

I would qualify the no-brainer part. You would probably build it just before you start working specialists and you can not really do it that early as it hurts your growth curve. I think the common timing will be around turn 100-130 when you get universities and guilds online. If you play a very tall empire you might rush it directly after NC. I think that is how it should be, we want multiple desirable ways to use production.

 

Sorry for the confusion then

 

And from now, I'm mad about when V5 will be released.

 

I've been thinking.. I think for the final version of ABM I would really love to see both Pentagon and Christo Redentor reworked. They're both horrible wonders no one ever builds aside form a culture victory.

 

Acken I think the changes for v5 look good, especially the trading post one. It really made no realism sense for trading posts to be built on flat desert and jungle; next to luxury resources sounds like a very good mix between realism and gameplay.

That being said would you consider allowing people to customise the mod acoording to their liking? For sql based changes its no issue to change things on the user end but things changed in the dll its not really doable. For example i might really like the improved AI for the improvements, citizen management, army control, great people logic etc, but not so much for the diplomacy and war declaration logic.

Lastly regarding map generation, perhaps you could consider more closely controlling strategic resource placement? Its always semi-random and hence you have to limit strategic resource unit's power ratio - else you will end up in a situation whereby the player who is "lucky" enough to get strategic resources will stomp the one who is "unlucky". Maybe assigning at least 1 copy of each strategic to each "region" will prevent such issues from occuring while retaining the gameplay anticipation feeling that comes along with researching that strategic tech. It would also allow you to buff strategic resource units so that they feel different to non strategic resource units.

 

What about trading posts in jungles? That's about all jungle is good for upgrade wise and pretty much the main place I build trading posts.

If jungles no longer support trading posts then doesn't this nerf Universities a bit as working those tiles no longer provides gold. Less jungles in the starting area also nerfs Universities as well.

 

I DID IT! I FINALLY DID IT! After almost 200 hours of gameplay and spending pretty much an entire week playing the same damn map (only two real attempts came of it) I finally managed to beat Deity!



I blasted off into space after two extremely long and hard (what she said) wars, after being nuked, after facing off against a godlike Hiawatha with 30+ cities wielding Modern Armor, Rocket Artillery and an unstoppable stream of units.

I will probably do a detailed write up later this week, I'll just celebrate now. With this, I'm pretty much done for Civ V. It'll be some time until I'll test V5, I'm just taking a break from the game now. Maybe in a few weeks I'll try winning on my first attempt without a single reload, though to me that sounds pretty impossible.

I dropped at least six nukes straight into Hiawathas face, hitting at least a dozen units with each. God that felt good. I had all the AIs I hate most in this game (Austria, Hiawatha, Alex) and I screwed them over. That's it for now, so long

 

Well done!! on the Diety win!

And thanks for all the time put into writing down your views on the game in post 1138. Very nice.

 

capital location​

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my capital looked great on first sight: coastal, lots of early growth, mining luxuries, a little bit of river.

if you look a little closer though it is actually completely terrible. one of the worst capitals I've ever had-

in total there are three hills in working range of my capital. I had no production in my most important city for the entire game. building settlers was slow, building wonders was slow, my capital was behind on buildings.

there were barely any plains, almost exclusively grassland. my capital was coastal, but only had one single coastal ressource. this might just be the worst coastal start I've ever had. not having any coastal ressources (besides oil) in all of your rings is a complete joke.

growth wasn't fantastic either. I had a few civil service tiles, but since I went wide I did not get to work all of them, they were shared with other cities. in the end this amounted to a capital that was both smaller than it should have been and completely underdeveloped.

I ran out of tiles to work, too, which was horrible. I will comment on this in another post.

at least I had some iron and two horses, but I would've given those away anytime for just a single hill..

turf​

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(this is actually a screenshot from another playthrough, I settled "tikal" last in my other games)

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yields​

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coastal resources I never had...
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expos​

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almost every one of my expo locations was better than my capital was. I settled six cities in total, in the following order: Tikal (south of cap) / Tulum (far east) / Uxmal (far east, south) & Chichen Itza (east, south) on the same turn, so I wouldn't get a diplo penalty for ignoring "don't settle cities" / Copan (east of cap) / Coba (west of cap).

those were pretty much the best available locations. I could've settled Tikal and Uxmal next to a river, but preferred not to do so in order to gain a superior defensive position, which ended up being immensely useful.

Copan deserves a special mention because it was a much better city than my capital. the yields from petra were absolutely insane.

in general my expos were all pretty good. aside from coba, which had no growth, they all had a decent amount of river tiles, hills and lots of strategic ressources, especially oil and iron. this really helped with gold throughout the game.

with all the oasis that I had plus some desert hills or desert iron my faith was through the roof. usually flood plains are what make desert broken, this game proves that even regular desert tiles can be insanely strong.

all my cities​

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copan is amazing​

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general map layout​

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I had three cultural city states next to me which I kept allied from T50 on for the rest of the game. I had a lot of barbarian problems early, but unit purchasing and playing defensive helped a lot.

as you can see from the screenshots vancouver was positioned horribly, not allowing me to pass through. not allowing worker steals either.

austria only had three very narrow choke points to escape her shut-off area. I made sure to control those all game.

iroquos and portugal closed their borders insanely fast so that only one of my scouts was able to see the other half on the pangea. I found every natural wonder by turn 100 still. had the world discovered in no time.

hiawatha was luckily not directly next to me, the city states were a nice buffer. without those I'm certain he would've declared on me much earlier.

early game​

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I settled in place. capital build order was: scout / scout / pyramids (got me desert folklore) / scout / (buy scout) / monument / atlatlist / atlatlist / settler x3 / library / pyramids / settler x3.

while scouting I found the following ruins in this order: population / upgrade (spearman) / map / population / culture (open piety) / gold / upgrade / culture (open liberty) / population / culture (free worker). in total that makes 3 pop ruins, 3 culture ruins, 1 gold ruin, 1 map ruin and one upgrade ruin.

I had four scouts in total. two of them were busy scouting the map while the other two were closing down the two remaining choke points, not allowing austria to settle or even move. I shut down any attempt of units passing the mountain range.

only with this strategy was I able to delay my settling until very late (last city came online T80 iirc).

early game I focused on science so that I would get theology as fast as humanly possible. after opening piety for the hammer reduction on pyramids I went straight for collective rule, which kicked in about T40. I had already built 2 settlers prior to that.

by clearing two barbarian camps I allied the three cultural city states plus panama city. I then stole a worker from portugal and drew all my scouts but one back.

aside from building pyramids I built a worker in almost every single expo. I had a total of 9 workers after all my cities were settled. delayed granaries and monuments heavily, but it was worth it in my opinion.

the capital meanwhile built me pyramids after the first three settlers. I needed to catch up in happiness before settling the last three cities.

luckily I managed to actually get the second bak'thun which starts at T76 iirc. this was a very early theology and I'm quite proud. I chose an engineer for temple of artemis.

I managed to meet all the AIs by ~turn 50 or 60: austria (neighbour), iroquos (neighbour), portugal (close), indonesia (far), greece (far), rome (far), babylon (far). in that order.

all AIs were constantly warring, even without me bribing them. portugal got taken out by hiawatha, babylon got reduced to one city by indonesia and rome, indonesia was eliminated from the game by hiawatha who then became a superpower with two capitals. was leading all demographics throughout the entire game.

after blocking austria and settling all my six expos for seven cities total I started to work towards my science victory. my plan was to rush for the order ideology, then public schools, then take austria's capital with artillery and oxford for plastics.

my liberty finisher was used to get petra in my newly settled Copan. I hardbuilt colossus and oracle in my capital, which I used to breeze through piety a little bit faster.

mid game​

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one of my expos was building macchu picchu and chichen itza was building chichen itza. I got both at around T120. my petra city built leaning tower of pisa, which I then used for an engineer to get globe theatre in my city with the writer's guild.

got my prophet (second religion). picked up tithe and pagodas. bought 3 missionaries, then two pagodas, then enhanced (second to enhance) with mosques and defender of faith. defender was a great choice, because it actually ups your military score in the demos, meaning the AI is less likely to dow you!

the next fifty turns were spent catching up while trying to get ahead. not an easy task, really. I had to delay building aqueducts because I needed units so I wouldn't get dow'ed instantly. I built granaries and monuments, then aqueducts, then workshops.

piety finisher (got it with a writer) got me jesuit, which I picked immediately. I got my unis really late (T120), just when I got my national college (T115, took more than 20 turns to build in my horrible cap..).

second great person of choice was a scientist which I used for an academy. it was my only academy. third one was a great writer for piety finisher. after universities I teched straight for industrialization, bulbing it with my first natural scientist.

I saved all my money, sold gpt for cash and used my fourth great person for a merchant, which I expended for cash. stashed about 3500gold that way, enough for three factories.

I had coal online the turn I got indu, so I instantly bought three factories and got ideology the next turn. I had gotten a writer five turns earlier and was in a golden age (extended) which I decided to save for ideology, but sadly I had to put one policy into commerce before that. bad timing. it doesn't happen often that you have too much culture.

I expended the writer the turn I picked order and picked up order factories instantly, which were then built in all my cities. got my second natural great writer (delayed because of globe theatre) and decided to go rationalism and save the rest of order for later.

Copan then immediately built big ben, followed by the porcellain tower after I got into rationalism.

unsurprisingly austria dow'ed my shortly after a denouncement, roughly on turn 130. it was a long war of attrition that I could have played much better. built knights that were useless, didn't get to pillage any trade routes or abuse pillage repair, but I did end up stealing four great prophets. out of those three were able to be planted.

out of the blue she asked me for a peace deal shortly after I upgraded to rifles and cannons. I ended up getting ~400gold, a luxury which got me three wltkds and about 20gpt. the war lasted about thirty turns total.

I saved all my faith after entering industrial and was able to buy public schools in all but one city (4 with faith, 2 with gold). then I got all my pagodas and mosques in order to stay happy. after that I kept my faith for plastics.

I used the scientist from porcelain to bulb towards plastics, stole electricity and used oxford on plastics. got a great artist for my fifth great person, which I saved. in the world congress I proposed scholars in residence, with success. then +3 culture per wonder, which was later also approved.

after getting all pagodas and mosques all of my cities were in permanent wltkds because I got every single lux needed from hiawatha (who controlled 3 capitals, had easily over 30 cities at that point and was leading every demo). I was using all my gpt to buy new tiles and improved them instantly.

on the turn I got plastics I was able to buy five out of seven labs, got the other two labs the next turn. my science was insane at this point with secularism.

late game​

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I feared I would not have enough culture to fill all of rationalism, then get to order T3. I went for biology and built seven archeologists, which gave me four landmarks and three great works. also got the musician's guild in the cap so I had all guilds online.

I built christo in my petra city and broadway in my cap. I timed broadway perfectly to spawn a musician after getting my second natural musician. missed christo by a single turn which really pssd me off, but I decided not to reload.

after +3 culture per world wonder was approved I went for worlds fair. on my way to hubble I won the fair quite easily and at this point I realized I had more than enough culture for all of rationalism plus all of order.

I preemptively built all defense buildings up to arsenals in my two eastern cities, plus nuke shelters. built some fighters and some blocker units, but not enough. I focussed on banks/hospitals/stock exchanges too much and only upgraded my army instead of building more. hiawatha inevitably dow'ed me at around T190.

his army was consisting almost exclusively of info-era units. lots of planes, lots of marines, anti air guns and machine guns. I wasn't ready. my bombers and fighters had no offensive use at all and were pretty much a waste of hammers, since hiawatha had pretty much unlimited intercepts. should have built blocker units instead.

My happiness was widly going up and down, at some points +40, at some -20. I built Zoos in all cities and got Neuschwanstein, but still had happiness problems.

I had to stop building anything relevant to the spaceship in every city but Copan and focussed on not getting rolled over. I lost almost all of my units, even fortified great war infantry with the 20% bonus from defenders of faith just melted away. hiawatha got to atomic theory, I stole it. he bought an atomic bomb and dropped it on me the next turn.

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I did the same thing, only I build three atomic bombs, befriended austria, traded gpt for gold and bought another three nukes. even after getting just about 100 units blown away by bombs, planes, rocket artillery and fortified infantry hiawatha still wanted six of my cities for peace...

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I built hubble, only built the spaceship factory in one other city and produced three spaceship parts manually (the three boosters). I proposed spacehsip factory and invested exactly 860 production for the research boost and the scientist. after buying three scientists for faith with peak science I bulbed through the entire tree. It was barely enough. I saved up three engineers (got the last one only two turns before I won the game) and finished the last three parts.

I blew off into space on turn 237 (the move of my last part ended in my capital, would've been 236). that is my fastest science victory to date. Only 4 of 8 players survived, only 2 of 16 city states did. What a game.

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technology path​

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Pottery / Animal Husbandry / Mining / Bronze Working / Masonry / Calendar / Writing / then beelined for Theology. After that Currency / Civil Service (~T90) / Guilds / Metal Casting / Education

Then I went towards Printing Press / Industrialization / Scientific Theory.

Lategame I went for ST to Astronomy / Fertilizer / Replacable Parts / Plastics / Biology / Railroads / Satellites.

social policies​

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piety opener

liberty opener
citizienship
collective rule
republic
meritocracy
representation

organized religion
mandate of heaven
theocracy
reformation
religious tolerance

commerce opener

hero of the people
socialist realism
worker's faculties

rationalism opener
secularism
sovereignity
free thought
humanism

young pioneers
party leadership
spaceflight pioneers
academy of sciences

mercenary army
mercantilism

patriotic war
universal healthcare

scientific revolution

wagon trains

that is a total of 31 social policies. my lord. my culture maxed out at +900 during a golden age whilst getting the world's fair bonus:

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wonders​

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Pyramids
Temple of Artemis
Colossus
Oracle
Petra
Chichen Itza
Macchu Picchu
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Globe Theatre
Big Ben
Porcelain Tower
Broadway
Kremlin
Neuschwanstein
Hubble Space Telescope
(in order)

National College
Ironworks
National Epic
Great Temple
University of Oxford
Circus Maximus
(in order)

benchmarks

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Turn ~150​

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Turn ~180​

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Turn ~190​

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Turn ~200​

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my science peaked at roughly 1450 in the late game, would've been more with working all specialists. I would have liked 1600+ with 7 cities, but it was enough to get through the whole tech tree.

and that's it for now. over the next days I will make another big post about things I would really like changed based on my experiences on demigod/deity. hope you enjoyed this write-up and I hope people actually read it

 

Carl,

You are a scholar, and a gentleman. Bravo, sir!

 

@Acken

Just curious -- could your new maps be used without using the rest of the mod? I have a Mac, so no DLL mods for me.

Trying to roll a decent map is a painful pursuit. Takes half the fun out of the game.

Cheers

 

I have that no-resources -problem even with the v4 and NQ-maps...I thought It was fixed already? Cant wait for the v5 if it fixes that too...