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

[59saintdane]

Looking forward to v8
An idea: let cities keep their original pantheon all game long, even after a religion is spread there
Thx for all your work on the mod!

I second that. I know the devs said that this feature would be in Civ6, it would be cool to have it here as it gives a greater incentive/reward to found pantheons (especially since getting a religion is impossible unless you have good dirt/play a faith civ)

Also, don't know whether this is possible, but I think production multipliers should be multiplicative rather than additive; e.g. the policy in Order that lets you build factories in half the time doesn't actually cut the time in half right now due to the already existing multipliers from workshops, railroads, GA, etc. Along those same lines, maybe production multipliers should apply to cargo ship yields as well, as they're the only source of hammers that aren't affected by multipliers.

I'd also suggest having Privateers upgrade to Ironclads instead of Destroyers, like Caravels do; otherwise they tend to be useless for a long time, and it's annoying when I build a lot of them for Renaissance conquests and then have to build a whole new set of Ironclads from scratch after Steam Power. And I don't know if adding a new unit is beyond the scope of this mod, but I feel like it would be more balanced to have another naval unit between Frigates and Battleships, because 28 to 65 is a huge jump.

Also, great work on the AI; in the base game I beat Deity pretty consistently and now I struggle on Immortal. Last game the AI entered the Atomic Era by T215. On Immortal. Don't think I'll be touching Deity again for a while...

 

[Acken]

Looking forward to v8
An idea: let cities keep their original pantheon all game long, even after a religion is spread there
Thx for all your work on the mod!

Also, don't know whether this is possible, but I think production multipliers should be multiplicative rather than additive; e.g. the policy in Order that lets you build factories in half the time doesn't actually cut the time in half right now due to the already existing multipliers from workshops, railroads, GA, etc. Along those same lines, maybe production multipliers should apply to cargo ship yields as well, as they're the only source of hammers that aren't affected by multipliers.

Both are possible but too code heavy for me to bother at this stage. Also I don't think the mod as issues with production. With the added time it usually is pretty easy to get most +prod buildings.

I'd also suggest having Privateers upgrade to Ironclads instead of Destroyers, like Caravels do; otherwise they tend to be useless for a long time, and it's annoying when I build a lot of them for Renaissance conquests and then have to build a whole new set of Ironclads from scratch after Steam Power. And I don't know if adding a new unit is beyond the scope of this mod, but I feel like it would be more balanced to have another naval unit between Frigates and Battleships, because 28 to 65 is a huge jump.

Both good points. The Privateer to Ironclad change is doable. Not sure about an additional boat, maybe slide to the left of the techtree both the battleship and the cruiser with an appropriate reduction.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Can you incorporate some kind of variation of "Quiet Diplomacy" if not the mod itself? You know the one that removes useless diplo pop-ups with no choice (denaunciations, insults etc), instead moving those in with the rest of gameworld messages on the right.

It uses dll and so can't be used with your mod, but it would make a great addition to your awesome mod.

 

[noto2]

Whew, just took a 2.5 month break from all gaming. Gonna jump into an immortal Acken's game now and, since I'm rusty, prob get my rear handed to me Let's try out this V7

 

[noto2]

Okay, so, I have a question for you Acken Mod fans: have any of you had success opening with Piety? In the base game, Piety is so weak it's almost never a good idea, but here it is significantly stronger, imo, both because of the tweaked policies and because of modified pantheons.

Take Byzantium or the Celts, for example. I used to always open Liberty and then go Piety later. I'm wondering if there is a viable alternative. There's the 'religious settlemens' pantheon, that grants cheaper settlers and faster border growth, and then the cheap shrines that give +1 culture going down the left side of the tree help with early culture/borders.

Still, it's a bit of a slower start. Then again, by going Piety and skipping Liberty altogether, I could get an earlier start on another tree, like Commerce.

Thoughts?

 

[Tombaugh]

Simple ICS strategy:
Classical Start with Byzantium and reload until your starting location has some water resources and some production and forests. Beeline optics and chop Great Library for philosophy. While building wonders and dromons tech for compass and use Oracle for exploration. Then ICS with your piety religion(Jesuit education, sacred sites ...) . However you need a map with lots of islands and not too many religious civilizations. It was viable on emperor, maybe also for immortal. And there are of course better strategies for fast wins (domination with frigates), but its nice beeing able to settle cities on every island.

Ps. Sorry for language
Pps. Can't give you a startsave

 

[Acken]

Okay, so, I have a question for you Acken Mod fans: have any of you had success opening with Piety? In the base game, Piety is so weak it's almost never a good idea, but here it is significantly stronger, imo, both because of the tweaked policies and because of modified pantheons.

Take Byzantium or the Celts, for example. I used to always open Liberty and then go Piety later. I'm wondering if there is a viable alternative. There's the 'religious settlemens' pantheon, that grants cheaper settlers and faster border growth, and then the cheap shrines that give +1 culture going down the left side of the tree help with early culture/borders.

Still, it's a bit of a slower start. Then again, by going Piety and skipping Liberty altogether, I could get an earlier start on another tree, like Commerce.

Thoughts?

I have a tendency to mix Piety with something else rather than pure Piety. It works really well with the Culture pantheons allowing you to get high culture and faith from the tree.

For pure piety I'd probably also go for extra culture if available to start quickly on a second tree. Besides that pure Piety probably should play a 4 city game at first and then expand with routes or try some conquests.

If you want to try mixes and open piety early give a try to one of these :
-Tradition opener Piety opener Free Monuments Culture for shrines Rest of tradition Rest of Piety. This gives your 4 cities a fast monument + shrine start at +3 culture +2faith.
-Piety opener Left Liberty into full piety into right liberty
-Piety opener, organized religion into Mandate or republic into rest of piety into right liberty

 

[yung.carl.jung]

hey guys. haven't played much in months, but due to having no internet I started up a game a few days ago.

I wanted to test whether or not science was actually slower than in the base game. I tested on lowest diff / great plains with the shoshone. had an absolute blast.

actually managed to finish sub t200, to be exact t194 and that is with playing with hof rules. with reloading this could've been much better.

some pointers: had ~300 science at t100. got ideology around t125, but only got the free tenants and went rat. I didnt have a faith pantheon, rather I went sun god.

conquered 3 capitals and self founded 7 cities, for a total of 11. I went liberty, beeline for theology, oracle for getting the second exploration policy. I did 5 city nc, took caps, settled all my other cities at like t60 or smth ridiculous.

I had 5 cities down at like t35 which was the reason for my fast victory I think. fast expansion results in best finishing times.

I worked a lot of specialists over food, so my science was just brutal most of the time. remember having close to 900 beakers at t130. I blasted through the tech tree blazing fast and actually had 2 leftover gs by the end of the game.

4 in lib, trad opener to delay golden age, full lib, 2 in explo, commerce opener for bb, went freedom, got science from spec, food from spec and 25% gp generation, then went 4 into rat. had enough culture to dip into piety and get scholasticism and commerce cost reduction.

st was around t130, maybe t135. plastics was like t155 with a bulb n oxford. only planted 1 gs, 1 ge. my peak science was actually 3000, it was insane.

so yeah, I think what this game proved is that with all the variables like gp on diff counters, some buildings improved, policies changed etc the game progresses pretty much at same speed as the unmodded game does. only diff is you actually have to buy n build units, which sets you back a whole lot. even with making the later techs much more expensive and making gs fixed on creation, sub t200 space victory is still very much possible.

 

[Acken]

Dont forget you get bonuses on the lowest difficulties. However yes its not that much longer as long as you play wide. The exponential science of a wide empire compensates for the underlying tech cost increases.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

yeah, and its also almost impossible to maintain a 11 city empire on demigod and above due to AI aggression

that only works on lower difficulties. but still the point remains, that by going wide you can actually achieve similiar finishing times to the base game

 

[gorilla warfare]

It's easily fixable in the units.sql file. Just remove the lines you dislike. Should be easy to figure it out.

Too difficult for me. It's no problem, though. On Warlord it's better for me and i'm still challenged. They catch up quick (i'm not very good ).

 

[noto2]

I tried to use Piety alone while building a wide empire but it just doesn't work all that well. It seems that one needs either Liberty or Tradition in virtually every game, as forgoing both of those leads to a very slow start. Piety and Honour are certainly useful, but only when mixed with either Liberty or Tradition.

What I did was open Piety first, for an early pantheon, and then went Liberty to get my worker and settler, then switched back to Piety to finish it and grab my reformation belief, then finished Liberty.

By the way, Acken, the change you made to the cataphract works very well, imo, and was a good buff for Byzantium. After I finished settling my own cities and using faith to buy one missionary, I spent about 25-30 turns building an army, and using faith to purchase cataphracts, which allowed me to fight and win a late classic age war. I thought it was well balanced and it thematically suits Byzantium. I'm still not sure the dromon really fits, but that's probably not going to be resolved seeing as Civ6 is now on the horizon.

 

[Acken]

I have updated the mod to v8 with the following changes.

Spoiler :

Buildings :
-Constabulary and Police Station give 1 happiness.
-Caravansary gives 2 gold
-The CN Tower give one free musician instead of pop/happiness
-The pentagon also gives 1 free copy of your land units similarly to the terracota army
-The terracota army now gives 3 culture instead of 1

Misc :
-SS parts no longer require alluminum (mostly an AI buff here due to AI stupidity)
-Truly free great people

AI:
-Significant nerf to AI unit experience. They are closer to humans on Immortal and above difficulties with only 15 free and 25% bonus instead of 30free and up to 100% bonus.
-The AI should care more or less about your lands based on its meanness stat.
-AI will wait a bit more before pumping settlers

Sadly at this stage the mod is unlikely to receive more updates considering civ6 is around the corner. The interest for the mod by users also has decreased since the anouncement.

I'm quite happy where it's at even though not everything was fixed in my opinion.

I plan to mod civ6 instead. Civ6 is very likely to release with balance issues from what I see but on the other hand the features of the game look really interesting with a lot of gameplay options. I think we'll have to wait a bit for the modding tools though.

If civ6 is trash and I end up returning to civ5 then I may continue working further.

 

[Tombaugh]

Thank you for your work. Currently its IMO the best civ 5 mod.

 

[Dahebbie]

This mod is brilliant! Really, it is. Thx. Have played something like +40 gamez with it.
It saved civ 5 for me. Huge thx again
Is v8 savegame compatible with v7 saves?

 

[Acken]

Yes although some of the changes may not be active before a new game.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I am very satisfied with your mod, thanks for all the work.

 

[chumchu]

Congratulations on a great job! You achieved what you set out to do and avoided mission creep. You have produced a mod that addresses two of the major issues in Civ V that Firaxis was never able/willing to solve: making the AI challenging and avoiding one strategy overpowering the others. You have also made a number of smaller balance changes which helps the game immensely. There are some balance/design issues left in my opinion as well but it is absolutely clear that they are much fewer than before. I agree with 90% changes you made. To me personally the best have been the changes to combat and actually being scared of the AI.

The combat and balance changes also makes me want to test the mod in a multiplayer game through GMR. I mostly play civ 4 and lurk at realms beyond now, where I have designed the map for a MP-game going of civ 5 unmodded: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=261, I will see if I can get some interest for MP-game with your mod there. there.

I would not be so sure about diminished interest, fewer are commenting as less changes are made but there will still be people playing it. Further, I think civ 6 will be hugely imbalanced at release as that seems to be the norm with modern strategy games. Firaxis certainly did it with civ 5 and beyond earth. I expect it will need a few years to mature and it seems rash to make any similiar mod to this beforehand. There will be a fair amount of people going back to civ 5 after the luster of the shiny new game wears off and this mod is perfect for them as it gives them new challenges while being easy to get into.

Any game development project needs a period where the release is stable for a while to allow strategies to be tested against each other in depth. That period begins now, what you do with those results is up to you. It was fun being part of the development. Thank you for your service to the community!

 

[Ravellion]

I would just like to thank you for extending civ 5's lifetime by a full year (for me at least).

 

[noto2]

Yes, I'll chime in with my thank-you as well. I've done some modding and I know how much work it is, and this mod is a work of art. I can't even remember how long I've been using it. Two years? One and a half? Thank you for all the hard work, Acken. Great job!