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

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.

Not top priority but yes some wonders need love. I mean even something like Stonehenge. Nobody will ever attempt to rush for that kind of wonders. I'm currently thinking reducing the cost of some early wonders to make them more attractive to delay settlers.

My other idea is to use Civ4 mechanic where if you have access to some ressources some wonders are built way faster. But that's a way bigger change.

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.

Well dll changes will be uncustomizable UNTIL I complete the mod. For the simple reason that I don't want to deal with it until I have finished dll modifications. That said if you find the AI too agressive just comment out some of the changes in the diplomacy.sql it should be enough.

Play with strategic balance if you wish to have balance among players in regards of strategics.

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.

Did I not say in the v5 notes that jungles will be eligible for lumbermills ? That's the case. ;)

@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

Yes. You can already try it out by downloading the experimental version. Download it and remove every folder (not the .modinfo file !!!!). Just keep the map folder in the Miscelaneous folder.

If it doesn't work tell me and I'll make a standalone mod with just the maps.

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...

Remove the NQmapscript from the mod in the imported directory should fix things. I hope v5 will fix all map issues.

V5 should come before monday. A bit slacking because of dark souls 3 right now :blush:
 
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!

:smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug:

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 :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

I'm glad the mod provided a worthy challenge for you ! :D Since my goal was to provide a teeth breaking challenge on deity I am glad it took that much work to break it.

Now to win by domination or culture hehe ;D
 
Now that you mention it I do vaguely remember reading the bit about lumber mills. That's going to be a strange looking tile with food, production and science on it!

BTW, I tried the strategic resource start and that makes for a bit of a different game with a somewhat faster start for everyone. Still playing my fourth game and again I am impressed with how balanced the game is through all phases. One AI (or more) is always keeping me challenged on only Emperor and every game I have chosen a very different path through the social policies and techs. I really enjoy deciding on the fly my strategy rather than having to stick to a single 'best' path. Maybe that's different on the higher levels.

When you drop V5 to Steam, I assume it will auto update me, but how will that affect a game in progress since I think you said V5 was not compatible with V4? Is there a way I can tell I got V5 when starting my next game?
 
V5 will not be save game compatible. Sadly if steam updates your files trying to load your save game will either be impossible (forbidden) or would result in a crash.

It will be written directly in the mod name what version you are using.
 
Yes. You can already try it out by downloading the experimental version. Download it and remove every folder (not the .modinfo file !!!!). Just keep the map folder in the Miscelaneous folder.

If it doesn't work tell me and I'll make a standalone mod with just the maps.

Thank you -- it appears to work. (I have rolled a map using continents, though I haven't played any of it, but I'm assuming that if it rolls it should be OK.)

BTW, is Miscellaneous with one "l" an American spelling? I've never seen it before. One of my jobs is marking English exams, and I'm constantly surprised by the strange things that go on in North America ... :crazyeye:
 
No it's just written this way in the international language of broken english. Note that you can use either the classical "Continents" scripts which will be the original one for the terrain shapes coupled with my scripts for features and resources or the one called "AMBalance Continents" which offers smoother continents and options for islands.

PS: English is not my native language so I am fairly sure my mod is full of spelling mistakes like that. If you find some (especially in game, don't really care fixing folders names) please don't hesitate to point them.
 
PS: English is not my native language so I am fairly sure my mod is full of spelling mistakes like that. If you find some (especially in game, don't really care fixing folders names) please don't hesitate to point them.

Now that you mention it, the CamelCaps in "DemiGod" come across as a bit strange. Demigod is a word in English and you could just name Difficulty 7 "Demigod" without the extra capital letter.
 
Played the mod (for the first time) and it seems nice, turned back the level from deity to demi-god, but I am not entirely sure everything is nice and balanced. Evidence: In my first try I unluckly border Atilla, who has around 10 cities around turn 100, and already has XBs and muskets...is the pace supposed be that quick? And one undefended city can actually be taken a a single musket? Normally cities are too strong, but I am not so sure about this either.
 
I'd suggest turning down the difficulty at least one more time. I don't see why being out-teched on the second hardest difficulty is evidence of unbalance. The last two levels are designed to be hard for strong base Civ5 deity players. And when I say it should be hard I don't mean "figure a cookie cutter strategy and win" but "Even if you play well, you'll lose some, win some". I often lose my demigod games ! And on this forum there is only one report of a deity win.

If Attila is your neighbour, an attack is incoming. You'll need your own crossbows and if not muskets, try getting Longswords (23 strength vs 26 is fine). Or better, get decent units and try to stab him in the back when he attacks someone else. The beauty of weak cities is also that it alows the player to perform oportunistic attacks.

One undefended no walls small city can be taken by a single musket yes. As said it is undefended so it deserves to be lost. Civ4's city didn't even had health. That said though I've already thought about increasing health by around 50 to allow for a bit more reaction time.
 
ok, the patch is very good and resolves a lot of the cheap tricks/bottlenecks. Things like the improvement in melee units is also great. As said, I am playing it for the first time, so I am exploring along the way. I am just suprised by seeing what seems to be a run-a-way civ by turn 100-120 (maybe that's just unlucky).
 
Well yes and no. Muskets at T120 on demigod is not the norm but it's not rare from a militaristic civ (which mostly rushes the bottom of the tree). Especially if it was able to already eat other people and become an early runaway.

The difficulty from these difficulties is exactly to walk the fine line between not dying and not being left too far behind. Also don't forget that the national college is a lot less important than it is in base civ5. Cities and libraries are your early science as well as external TRs (you can get some nice +4/+5 science TR out there on top of a buffed gold). A detour to get Machinery/Steel and survive an attack is not the end of the world, your libraries can support you up to T120-130.

Another critical time are swords attacks which can come around T60-T70 and can be deadly on the unprepared. Later on you have planes which can be a game over if you are far from getting any AA yourself. (I'm also looking at making the AA gun a bit closer than balistics).
 
(I'm also looking at making the AA gun a bit closer than balistics).

I vividly remember my first attempt at cracking Deity. I had ~8 to 10 Chu-Ko-Nu promoted with Logistics and Range, upgraded them to Gatlings on T130 (pretty early considering I was playing Honor/pure Domination), went on to attack Theodora and got smacked by Great War Bombers, lost 2 promoted Gats every single turn :lol: An AI having GWB that early is just impossible to deal with.

I was probably about 40 turns away from any sort of defence (Triplanes? Probably would not have worked..) so I wholeheartedly support this decision of yours!
 
Thanks a lot Carl for the detailed write-up!

So, after all, even in this mod the best way to win by science can be to turtle (granted you need c. 7 cities vs 4)? I had hoped that the mod made some conquest mandatory.
 
I meant mandatory for the best finish time.

But you're right at least he had his fair share of defensive wars (not to mention he blocked Austria in the early game). And, even through blocking, you don't always have room for 7 nice cities, so this might be more situational than I implied.
 
Thanks a lot Carl for the detailed write-up!

So, after all, even in this mod the best way to win by science can be to turtle (granted you need c. 7 cities vs 4)? I had hoped that the mod made some conquest mandatory.

I actually think the "best" (easiest) way is to win by domination as early as possible. some civ with strong early UUs like Huns, Rome, Greece, Denmark (might even be too late). I'm just not a very capable warmonger. You see winning by science might be considered "safe", but it really is not when you consider the fact that

a) the AI will outproduce you by 2x, 3x, maybe even 10x your hammers. in the lategame this means that even with perfect blocker units, even if they are fortified in citadels, they will die. inevitably. imagine this: I had infantry (70 combat strength), fortified 2 turns, with a +20% combat strength bonus from defender of faith, with a +20% combat strength bonus from the order policy sitting in a freaking citadel and they still died in two turns. had I not had atomic bombs myself (and bomb shelters) I would have gotten crushed completely.

b) with early domination you can sort of control which AI snowballs and which does not. if you let a warmonger AI snowball it's bad, clearly, but it's not nearly as bad as letting as science AI snowball. in my first playthrough I had babylon gobble up two capitals in less than 100 turns, the game would have probably ended (either with him winning sv or dom) in less than 200 turns, making a space victory near impossible.

c) getting a lot of cities early and having an upgraded military with lots of bonuses from honor and autocracy is the only way you will be able to deal with the lategame AI I outlined in a). I remember I had a game as Spain where I set the number of NW to maximum, settled four of them, buying all settlers of course, had the entire world following my religion and was making about 300gpt with tithe at ~t150 and I still lost because Germany was building a dozen panzers every turn and it was impossible to defend, even with 5+ citadels.
 
Version 5

THIS VERSION IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH A SAVEGAME FROM A PREVIOUS ONE.

Steam workshop has been updated (or soon will be) and if you use the workshop your game will be updated automaticly.
You can find the .civ5mod version there (treat it as a .rar file):
Dropbox

Here is the list of changes:
Spoiler :

Units and Warfare:
-Pikeman is now back to 90 cost
-Sword strength is 15 and cost 75 instead of 16 cost 80
-Trireme cost has been increased to 60

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%
-The building cost of the National Epic, Heroic Epic, East India Company and NIA have been reduced by 40.
-The national epic now gives +4 culture instead of +3 culture (and still gives +25% GPP).

Religion:
-Prophets are no longer random

Misc:
-LumberMills can be made in Jungles
-Jungle cutting time has been reduced from
-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)
-The AI should look at its overall score and modify its attitude a bit based on it, more friendly with low score civs and less friendly with high score civs.
-The AI should value a DoF a bit more before betraying and denouncing

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.
Carthage gets the same priority coastal bias as Venice
Quinquireme strength reduced by 1 (now 14)
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 gives +1 science to specialists.
 
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