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

[Legen]

I really feel like early midgame (T70 - T110, before you get Hermitage and/or enough money to permanently ally one or two Cultural CS) is a phase where one generally lacks culture, filling the last policy of your starting tree and getting the three or four filler policies before Rationalism takes forever, even with your reduced culture cost. I always hated how Civ was essentially: "Pick a starting Policy, fill it until the end, pick a filler, go Rationalism" for almost every win condition, I definitely enjoy the modded version where you can easily get 3-4 policies in another tree before Rat is even available. It would be even better if one could generally almost fill out two trees, then decide between Rat or Ideology, I think you had something similiar in mind when you made Rat directly compete with Ideologies. The only way to get some balance into this is to make the player actually compete for wonders, slightly change tourism modifiers and add a little midgame culture.

I would love a way to make Amphitheaters and Opera Houses actually viable for any VC that isn't Culture. I don't think a Hammer reduction would be appropriate, maybe theming bonuses could give the player a larger chunk of culture and a smaller amount of rather early tourism. (A theming bonus for Amphi with +1 or +2 Culture for a Great Work of Writing from the same era the Amphi was built in, something in that regard.) Whenever I go for Domination or Science I end up bulbing almost all of my Writers and Artists and I don't even bother with the Musicians Guild, which is quite sad. Maybe Great Works need a little more culture so they can actually be useful, like an early Academy or a Holy Site. They feel pretty lackluster to me in that aspect. I usually only make Great Works when I know Ideology Pressure is going to be insane later on and that is a pretty fringe reason.

To confirm, is this lack of culture happening only when going Tradition or on any opener? Right now, it has the lowest culture potential of the four starting trees (unless you manage to build tons of cultural wonders with it) and encourages you to build tall, meaning less cities in which to build Monuments. Haven't had problems filling a third policy tree before hitting Industrialization when going Liberty or Honor.

I'm with the impression that the best defense against Tourism midgame is building the Sistine Chapel. Whenever a AI builds that, its culture seems to ramp way quicker than everyone else and your cultural victory is quite delayed. It's a long time until Broadcast towers come into play as well, compared to how fast tourism ramp up in this mod's midgame.

 

[Acken]

I don't think it would really change what happened into your game to increase the policy cost. If a CV is too fast it's a problem with tourism mostly. Good CV civs are already swimming in policies, nerfing policy acquisition would mostly hinder the other civs.

Also your game is a bit of an exception, the demigod AI usually still has 2-3 civs to influence at t200 most of the time and there is a good chance it could also simply die when a warmonger hits bombers. That said sub200 is too fast. Considering the AI had a lot of wonders I think the removal of the theme buff is a good idea especially since v3 also gives more GPP for GWAM with wonders.

 

[Erneiz Hyde]

I think AI running away is a given in Acken's mod if you don't do anything about it yourself. You must go to war at one point or another to eliminate potential runaways or to snowball harder yourself, especially on the two highest difficulties. Wide empires (through conquest) simply beat Tall ones hands down, even if you're not going all out Domination.

Edit: Also, forgot to comment, Putting Replacable Parts after Dynamites is a major game changer. It used to be that Tradition, Rationalism, Radio Oxford, Freedom and Plastics are all in one neat tech line. Now you can't do that, not as smoothly. Still have to test playing it to know if I like that change.

 

[Acken]

Yes one of the design goal is to force players to take risks and exploit weaknesses in opponent. I want war to be an important tool of all victories.

It's important now to watch for an opportunity in attacking a busy opponent or to accept one of those coop wars we were used to refuse in the base game.
This is also where more policies gets in the equation, since you'll also get more policies now, all trees give some extra happiness for your growing empire.

Culture victory remains pretty capital centric though. But you'll still need to expand for science and military production.

 

[Legen]

Yes one of the design goal is to force players to take risks and exploit weaknesses in opponent. I want war to be an important tool of all victories.

It's important now to watch for an opportunity in attacking a busy opponent or to accept one of those coop wars we were used to refuse in the base game.
This is also where more policies gets in the equation, since you'll also get more policies now, all trees give some extra happiness for your growing empire.

Culture victory remains pretty capital centric though. But you'll still need to expand for science and military production.

I quite enjoy this need to expand through military. The AI seems to beg you to conquer them sometimes, as they don't stop sending settlers everywhere. Is this intended? I had a game there a neighbor Poland settled at least six cities during Ancient age, as I was conquering his expansions non-stop with another early Pikemen.

I've noticed a lot of AI scouts circling around my cities way before they attempt an invasion, is this intended or am I imagining things? I've been adapting my playstyle to always have a good reserve of military units to "show" them I'm not a good target to war against. Also, I keep clicking in their cities to see what they say about my military ("I'm sure someone will put you out of your misery" or "Your empire is famed by your military strength") even when playing a more peaceful civ, like Brazil and Byzantium. With them, I sometimes wish the diplomacy tab would show my military weakness as a negative modifier.

And I don't remember the Aesthetics tree having a policy that gives Happiness, only one that gives extra culture for social policy acquisition based on excess happiness (would be wonderful to have both). In fact, I've started to avoid this tree when going for Domination for this reason and choosing some other victory condition as a backup plan instead.

 

[Acken]

The AI scouts are just scouting the map. The AI knows your military strength regardless of what units it sees.

The AI will go 4 to 6 cities early, a bit like a human would (but due to bonuses it can do it really early). That's intended. If you feel you should stop a neighbour from doing that it is perfectly fine and if you picked honor to do it then this is what the tree is designed to do. Overexpansion is the equivalent of an AI going greedy and playing risky. The AI will also sometimes exploit this weakness of a neighbour and stop at 3 cities, build an army and cripple an overexpander. I like it this way because it creates diversity rather than have all AI stop at 3 city and then all build an army.
I don't mind if an AI get screwed in the process of you taking honor, this is why my mod is for singleplayer, this kind of design would be very frustrating in multiplayer. You still have 6 guys to beat.
However if these early conquests allow you to get a way better game than say opening liberty would then yes it would be a problem but based on your screenshot I'm not worried.

Yes Aesthetics is the exception but that is voluntary since a CV civ can probably get an extra tree during the game. If you skip aesthetics when doing domination you're doing the right thing

 

[yung.carl.jung]

To confirm, is this lack of culture happening only when going Tradition or on any opener? Right now, it has the lowest culture potential of the four starting trees (unless you manage to build tons of cultural wonders with it) and encourages you to build tall, meaning less cities in which to build Monuments. Haven't had problems filling a third policy tree before hitting Industrialization when going Liberty or Honor.

I'm with the impression that the best defense against Tourism midgame is building the Sistine Chapel. Whenever a AI builds that, its culture seems to ramp way quicker than everyone else and your cultural victory is quite delayed. It's a long time until Broadcast towers come into play as well, compared to how fast tourism ramp up in this mod's midgame.

I actually did manage to build the Sistine Chapel just so that Egypt would not get it. Also sniped Leaning Tower of Pisa. Funny that you'd mention it, I even included it in my lil' write-up.

You are right of course, the best defense against a strong tourism AI is going wide and I did go Tradition with 4 cities (there was no more space for cities anyway, maybe two more subpar cities).

I don't think it would really change what happened into your game to increase the policy cost. If a CV is too fast it's a problem with tourism mostly. Good CV civs are already swimming in policies, nerfing policy acquisition would mostly hinder the other civs.

Also your game is a bit of an exception, the demigod AI usually still has 2-3 civs to influence at t200 most of the time and there is a good chance it could also simply die when a warmonger hits bombers. That said sub200 is too fast. Considering the AI had a lot of wonders I think the removal of the theme buff is a good idea especially since v3 also gives more GPP for GWAM with wonders.

You misunderstood me. What I meant was not that the AI was getting too many policies, but rather that if you were going to buff Guilds and/or Great Works again, thus granting more culture to everyone, you could slightly nerf social policies, so that it evens out. This way Tourism victories would be slightly delayed but you would still get policies at the same speed you are getting them right now. The AIs social policies don't affect Tourism all that much, the only ones I can think of are Aesthetics and some Ideology Tenets.

As for the second part of the post: The game really does seem like an exception, but Egypt really wasn't that bad of a runaway, I've seen worse. It's not like the other AIs weren't generating culture and weren't building wonders. At T190 Pacal had: Stonehenge, Hanging Gardens, Angkor Wat, Notre Dame and Halikarnassos. (He had even more wonders, but lost a city to Portugal at one point which cost him Globe Theatre iirc). Full Tradition, Full Piety, Full Aesthetics. So he was definitely generating a lot of culture. (Fun fact: Egypt had finished Tradition, Liberty, Piety, Aesthetics and was heading towards the T3 Ideology Tenet).

I think AI running away is a given in Acken's mod if you don't do anything about it yourself. You must go to war at one point or another to eliminate potential runaways or to snowball harder yourself, especially on the two highest difficulties. Wide empires (through conquest) simply beat Tall ones hands down, even if you're not going all out Domination.

Edit: Also, forgot to comment, Putting Replacable Parts after Dynamites is a major game changer. It used to be that Tradition, Rationalism, Radio Oxford, Freedom and Plastics are all in one neat tech line. Now you can't do that, not as smoothly. Still have to test playing it to know if I like that change.

I definitely agree with you. I really like the challenge the mod gives you.

Yes one of the design goal is to force players to take risks and exploit weaknesses in opponent. I want war to be an important tool of all victories.

It's important now to watch for an opportunity in attacking a busy opponent or to accept one of those coop wars we were used to refuse in the base game.
This is also where more policies gets in the equation, since you'll also get more policies now, all trees give some extra happiness for your growing empire.

Culture victory remains pretty capital centric though. But you'll still need to expand for science and military production.

Here is something else to think about which I had not considered earlier:

Usually in Civ 5 going Tall Tradition is a relatively safe option. If you settle cities defensively, bribe and have at least a few upgraded military units around all you have to do is not up and go to space. The AI won't attack you nor will they beat your finishing times.

This has changed completely. Not only are tall empires threatened enourmously by Tourism, you are now also less likely to bribe and more likely to be attacked by an AI that produces a lot of units.

The only "safe" way to win peacefully is to go wide, generate decent amounts of culture and then go to space, but this won't work either, since expanding early will piss off the AIs. Additionally, if you are settling 6+ cities it is very likely one or two of those are in a bad position, or just bordering a psychopath like Shaka, which means war is almost inevitable. So this option is out of the window, too.

Really there is no safe Victory condition anymore, the tech tree is not nearly as linear (as Erneiz mentioned earlier) and the AI can actually win games in a reasonable time now.

Even though this isn't even the complete mod you can pretty much already mark your biggest goals. Neat.

That being said I'm going to test Persia with a Liberty + Aesthetics domination now and there is absolutely nothing you could do to stop me. I don't think I've ever gone Aesthetics unless I'm going for a CV, this'll be fun.

 

[Iberian]

Here is something else to think about which I had not considered earlier:

Usually in Civ 5 going Tall Tradition is a relatively safe option. If you settle cities defensively, bribe and have at least a few upgraded military units around all you have to do is not up and go to space. The AI won't attack you nor will they beat your finishing times.

This has changed completely. Not only are tall empires threatened enourmously by Tourism, you are now also less likely to bribe and more likely to be attacked by an AI that produces a lot of units.

The only "safe" way to win peacefully is to go wide, generate decent amounts of culture and then go to space, but this won't work either, since expanding early will piss off the AIs. Additionally, if you are settling 6+ cities it is very likely one or two of those are in a bad position, or just bordering a psychopath like Shaka, which means war is almost inevitable. So this option is out of the window, too.

Really there is no safe Victory condition anymore, the tech tree is not nearly as linear (as Erneiz mentioned earlier) and the AI can actually win games in a reasonable time now.

Even though this isn't even the complete mod you can pretty much already mark your biggest goals. Neat.

That being said I'm going to test Persia with a Liberty + Aesthetics domination now and there is absolutely nothing you could do to stop me. I don't think I've ever gone Aesthetics unless I'm going for a CV, this'll be fun.

Personally I hated that fact that 4 city builds were the best way to win. (though a DomV can be fast it is risky)

I just had a map that had KSM, GBR, and Sri Pada. Not only that it has a coastal river hill next to a mountain 1 turn away for a capital and a salt, copper, river, mountain for an expo. With a mountain range that protected me from the Huns, Austria, and Ethopia giving me room to expand to 7-8 cities with 5 being coastal without a single settler from anyone else even coming over for 150+ turns.

I played the map a couple of times and even though I would eventually be stronger (turn 300ish) I win faster letting all the open space stay open (didn't even settle GBR) and just sitting on the 4 cities. What kind of game mechanics make this ideal. Even with wide open uncontested natural wonder enhanced spaces you are better off leaving it to the barbs. Even going liberty 4 city was faster than tradition or liberty 7 city.

Takes several games to really know but I think I like Acken's play style better.

 

[Acken]

I don't really have a problem with tall. Trying to get a very strong capital with tradition should still be a possibility. I just don't like how it meant you were just turtling completely from there. Never expanding further, never conquering. Just an unsuspensful grind to the late game.
If that playstyle is burried 6 feet under I'm happy with it.

How I'd like trad to work is to start with a core of 4 strong cities (free monument, free aqueduct free walls) and then go from there with conquests or new cities boosted up with commerce rush buys. Considering how much better international routes are relative to internal it should be easy for tradition civs to make bank. V4 may even make land elite a bit better since internal routes give less food.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I forgot to mention this, regarding ITRs: I have a big problem with "Iron Curtain: Free Courthouse when capturing a City. +50% Food or Production from internal trade routes."

It doesn't actually do what it says. Instead, it increases base yield of ITRs by 50%. In standard Civ the base yield of a food caravan is 2, enhanced by 1 for every era. That means this policy gives you a single food per ITR. And that's when you're close to the Atomic Age, where growth isn't nearly as important anyways. It's completely and utterly useless. Don't forget this is a Tier 3 Tenet...

IIRC you changed the base yield of food ITRs to 1, which would make this tenet even more useless, as it would quite literally give you nothing (0.5 is nothing since Civ rounds down). It would be really nice if this tenet would just do what it is supposed to do, give an actual +50% food and hammers, not +50% base yield.

If they fixed this in a patch or if you already hotfixed it forget it.

 

[Acken]

That's a good remark. I'll fix it. The base food is 3 though. But I agree Iron curtain should be a multiplier of the total like cargos and not a multiplier of the base.
Edit: Actually it seems to work as it should. It is working like cargo. The bonus is additive to cargo bonus so in the base game a ironcurtain cargo will give 150%,

Relevant code:

			case TRADE_CONNECTION_FOOD:
				if (eYield == YIELD_FOOD)
				{
#ifdef AMB_LOWER_TR_FOOD
					iValue = 200;
#else
					iValue = 300;
#endif
					iValue += GC.getEraInfo(GET_PLAYER(kTradeConnection.m_eDestOwner).GetCurrentEra())->getTradeRouteFoodBonusTimes100();
					iValue *= GC.getEraInfo(GC.getGame().getStartEra())->getGrowthPercent();
					iValue /= 100;

					int iModifier = 100;
					int iDomainModifier = GetTradeConnectionDomainValueModifierTimes100(kTradeConnection, eYield);
					iModifier += iDomainModifier;
					iModifier += GET_PLAYER(kTradeConnection.m_eDestOwner).GetPlayerPolicies()->GetNumericModifier(POLICYMOD_INTERNAL_TRADE_MODIFIER);
					iValue *= iModifier;
					iValue /= 100;
				}
				break;

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Must've been hotfixed, I only recently watched FilthyRobots Ideology guide where he mentioned this mechanic, that's why I remembered it. I'll test it once I get the opportunity, but looks like it's working fine.

 

[Phukit]

Though its not really a "problem" for me I have noticed since updating to v3 that AI workers have been acting really funny.

I often notice them wandering aimlessly and lost miles away from home.

I had a roman worker basically camping out a few hexes near my cap.......Rome was 30+ tiles away on the other side of the continent.

I have noticed many CS worker much farther from home than one would expect and they never seem to try to get back once this happens.

 

[Acken]

^
I don't see this behavior at least on level 6 and 7 pangeas. At least not commonly.
Are other players also seeing this problem ? more than what could be reasonable.

As a side note Liberty Republic will get back down to 5% in a next version. It makes Liberty too good as a first tree with it.

 

[Legen]

I don't really have a problem with tall. Trying to get a very strong capital with tradition should still be a possibility. I just don't like how it meant you were just turtling completely from there. Never expanding further, never conquering. Just an unsuspensful grind to the late game.
If that playstyle is burried 6 feet under I'm happy with it.

How I'd like trad to work is to start with a core of 4 strong cities (free monument, free aqueduct free walls) and then go from there with conquests or new cities boosted up with commerce rush buys. Considering how much better international routes are relative to internal it should be easy for tradition civs to make bank. V4 may even make land elite a bit better since internal routes give less food.

Well, one problem with Tradition is that it doesn't have something really practical for expansion past 4 cities. Only growth and border expansion in the opener and the finisher. The policies in between are mostly useless for your new cities, save perheaps getting world wonders.

If you want to boost expansion past four cities, I'd suggest making those "free building" policies also give a production boost to the respective buildings. For example, Legalism could offer a +2 when constructing Monuments. This way, the policy isn't "wasted" as you expand to your fifth city.

By the way, if a city is lost and then recaptured, you don't get the free building back if it was destroyed. Also, you don't get free buildings in cities you capture. So, Tradition doesn't reward you for expanding early through conquest, you want to be peaceful if you don't want to waste its policies.

And, about the workers, I didn't see any with odd behaviors lately. At most, they garrison in the nearest city when I invade, rather than run to a safer city; this usually means lots of free workers in my conquests. Not really an issue for me.

 

[Acken]

The tradition tree is designed to accomodate 4 self founded cities with a monster capital. In the next version I have put landed elite at 15% instead of 10% to even help a bit further and may even raise it to 20%. This is done mostly to compensate for weaker trade routes. The tree still has 3 free buildings in 4 cities. The current philosophy is pretty much making a solid core of 4 up to T90 and then I'd suggest either expanding through conquest or agressive buying with Commerce (tradition still has a strong gold output).

Making your own cities late and then waiting for them to make buildings on their own is not working with tradition (to be honest even in the base game it doesn't work well). On the other hand your neighbours will have built their cities for you (especially in this mod where the AI will make good buildings). The mod even has increased the likelihood of capturing buildings after winning a city to help with this idea..

Note too that the next version will make commerce a bit better by making entrepreneurship a +1gold per specialist policy.

 

[Ravellion]

I think the party leadership policy (Order) doesn't give extra faith, while it states it does.

I played on Emperor, and the game ended around Turn 300. The AI teched along nicely, I caught up (I was behind 7 techs in the middle ages), but never really outran them till I won space victory with a scientist binge. Emperor now is a nice challenge. The game does seem to go by faster than with versions 1 and 2 of your mod though.

 

[Acken]

It may be because you are able to steal more techs or get more discounts. The tech costs have even increased compared to v2.

 

[Ravellion]

It may be because you are able to steal more techs or get more discounts. The tech costs have even increased compared to v2.

Mostly it is the AI teching more quickly than I can keep up with till education. Therefore I prioritize tech even more than I usually do after that (Research agreements, scientists farming, ignoring ideologies till I have rationalism complete).

One more thing that I noticed (apart from the party leadership thing mentioned above) is that the AI now wants to trade for one of your luxuries yet offers nothing in return if its happiness is 40+ (but it is a trade request, not a plea for help). Would it be an idea to at least always get 2 gold for it as the AI might still get some use out of the resource (WLTKD, CS quests, GA advancement)?

 

[tsf4]

I like the changes you have brought to this, Acken!

But I am having minute long pauses on a Standard sized map with 6 civs. It started as slightly more length of turns for certain AIs, and then by the classical era became oe-minute pauses. Game didnt crash, but waiting a minute for each AI to do their turn is excruciating.