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

[Acken]

If you ever make a complete report with screenshots it will be interesting Congrats on winning how would you rank Demigod My Immortal and my Deity compared to original Immortal and Deity.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I feel like winning with Korea is like playing one difficulty level lower. I'm still not satisfied at all, I want to win DemiGod with a civ that isn't Poland, Babylon, Korea, Shoshone or Persia, ya feel me? I will definitely do a detailed write up soon though, it's just the Korea game was so exceptional (in terms of dirt and wonders I got) it's not representative at all.

I would honestly say that even Acken Immortal is just as hard if not harder than Deity. DemiGod is easily one or two notches above deity, no questions asked.

Now Acken Deity.. I feel like it really is what the name suggests. Acken Deity is for the Tommynt, the Acken, the IronFighter level of players. Some games (Tundra start, Desert start without hills or river, combined with a mediocre civ) are straight up unwinable on Deity, especially if you also have troublesome neighbours like Zulu or Rome.

That being said I will try harder and harder until I crack Acken Deity for good. I can't stop.

My next try will be a mediocre civ on DemiGod. As always Standard/Standard, no reloading (I sometimes reload, for example when I Engineer a wonder and still don't get it, that just kills me). I'm thinking Netherlands or India, though India sucks because their start is so incredibly slow.

I've been pilying up some suggestions for the Civilization UA, UU, UB and UI changes, if you want to hear them (I don't know if you're onto that stage of the mod already) I'll try to make a longer post where I get my thoughts together.

 

[Acken]

Well I'm not working on it at the moment but it's the next step so feel free to suggest changes. v4 may be a simple balance pass over v3 and civ changes start at v5.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

For what little it's worth, my first attempt at a passive Polynesia-Archipelago victory on Acken-Immortal scored me a CV -- I don't recall having too many warring issues, thank goodness. I'd put the difficulty somewhere between standard Immortal (for which such a thing is a piece of cake) and Deity (for which such a thing can still be very tough for me, depending on the map).

Pangea, though, jeebus ... I haven't even figured out the optimal starting set of policy choices. Everyone here (including Acken!) talks up Liberty, but I rarely have the opportunity to settle more than 3 times, plus there are the inevitable happiness issues early on. I've done Honor a couple of times, do some nice expansion, but then get way behind on science.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I think Liberty is really strong now and can definitely compete with Tradition. I disagree with Acken thinking it is superior though, for a multitude of reasons.

The single biggest ressource being than on a standard Pangea with 8 Players and 16 City States you will never ever get to settle more than 6 cities without extremely aggressively forward settling (that usually means building one or two settlers before you get Collective Rule, which nowadays I often do).

Another thing to note is that the AI is extremely cautious of borders now. I honestly don't remember a single game where I Didn't get DoWed between T50 and T100. Usually it's not a single DoW, but a double DoW. That early in the game you most likely will not have roads between all of your cities and probably very weak military, a few Archers and Spears, Composites and Spears at best. Those have a really hard time fighting something like Swordsman UUs.

Even when I go Tradition and settle two to three expansions I usually get DoWed. It's pretty much inevitable.

So when you have a 6 city liberty empire chances are one of your city is going to be total grassland or total plains, which makes you extremely vulnerable early on.

The free Walls from Tradition also help immensely, since I get DoWed pretty much every game they show their worth every game. I love it. The revamped Tradition is not overpowered and doesn't have the very cheap change of just making a borderline useless policy the requirement for free Monuments, which is a change I hated.

If I actually "played to win" I would probably go Tradition in 7/10 cases, even with Acken significantly buffing peaceful wide empires. I still think it's far more reliable and the midgame growth is absolutely priceless. When you get an early culture ruin you can get Landed Elite as early as T30, that's a huge buff to growth (or Settler production in some cases).

I say that as a Liberty player, Liberty has always been my favorite tree and my favorite playstyle.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Huh. I'll admit it, I didn't expect to be DOW'd by Sweden after having a Declaration of Friendship, just because he was starting to be worried about my expansion. And when he was already at war with Attila. I had some units, just not enough to handle a carpet of 15 ...

EDIT: SWEDEN, dammit. SWEDEN.

 

[Acken]

Ideally I'd make DoF harder to get and harder to break. In the long list of to do.

 

[Legen]

And what do you think of Honor and Piety in their current state? I've been picking these two for the hammer savings they give when building units/barracks every turn and happiness (Pagodas) to absorv new conquests. The cheaper market with the 50 temple after Theocracy lets me delay Currency, since Philosophy is too important to pass, and Jesuit Education handles science well without halting my military production.

The AI now seems to avoid Piety as its first Social Tree, giving a much better chance to get an early religion if you put some effort, regardless of your civ. I quite love that.

Even then, Happiness problems are still a thing, especially now that the AI settles cities more aggressively between me and its Capital. I still hate how poorly Honor deals with global unhappiness. The Courthouse production bonus helps, but doesn't provide that buffer I need to push for one more city compared to Tradition or Liberty.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

In almost all of my games so far the AI more or less completely ignored religion. I actually had some insane sh where Shaka founded T156 or where Pantheons went T120+. If I do attempt to get an Religion I usually enhance first or second, without trying very hard. Even if I enhance third or fourth, the AI only picks beliefs anyway and I end up with Pagodas and Religious Community every single game.

I think that if no AI started Piety (they never do now) it is actually a decent starting tree, especially if you have a good faith Pantheon and get Jesuit. I don't think it's as strong as Tradition or Liberty, but it's definitely viable.

As a second tree it's insanely strong, Liberty-Piety is the way to go now for all peaceful wide empires, atleast in my opinion.

Honor I think is really, really strong. I've mostly read that people like to go left side Honor first which I never do. I always get the free Archer and Spear. Usually I try to go Scout-Monument-Scout, too, just to get that Spearman faster. It allows you to tribute City States at around T30, which is huge. After Tributing three or four City States you can get another Spearman and completely snowball. If you just build a few units you can enslave workers the second time around and pretty much not build a worker the entire game.

I don't often face happy issues with Honor since I usually only get one or two expands and never start conquering before Crossbows. At that point I try to already have Circus Maximus, so all my cities keep growing even if I annex/puppet a lot.

 

[Acken]

I've worked on v4 so that the AI is a bit more agressive with religion. The fact that it disliked Piety was a C++ mistake of mine that doesn't make sense in the mod compared to the base game. It now takes it sometimes especially for religious civs. I've also made them more likely to get a pantheon with an early shrine.

I'm considering diminishing Pantheon cost however (make it a fixed cost) to make higher levels less annoying for the player to simply grab a pantheon as well as remove GP spawn randomness.

This is also an attempt at making Piety a bit more desirable as a first pick by running a higher risk of getting a crappy religion, or none if you don't go that route.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I may have to go down to Acken-Emperor ... tried Pangea a bunch of times with Isabella, got some really good starts, but just can't handle (and don't see how you guys are handling) multiple AIs hitting turn 200 with 1000+ science! Going for some sort of total-war approach might work but anything where I take down 'only' one annoying AI and then turtle doesn't seem to cut it.

 

[Delvi]

Is it the v.3 fully compatible with Mac?

 

[Acken]

No, macs should use the mac version (which is basically a lite version) but it's not yet updated to the current version.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I may have to go down to Acken-Emperor ... tried Pangea a bunch of times with Isabella, got some really good starts, but just can't handle (and don't see how you guys are handling) multiple AIs hitting turn 200 with 1000+ science! Going for some sort of total-war approach might work but anything where I take down 'only' one annoying AI and then turtle doesn't seem to cut it.

On this note, if anyone wanted to post a Let's Play of Acken-Immortal I'd love to see it .

 

[Phukit]

I may have to go down to Acken-Emperor ... tried Pangea a bunch of times with Isabella, got some really good starts, but just can't handle (and don't see how you guys are handling) multiple AIs hitting turn 200 with 1000+ science! Going for some sort of total-war approach might work but anything where I take down 'only' one annoying AI and then turtle doesn't seem to cut it.

I just dropped down to emperor myself,for me it was the persistent multiple DoWs that always seemed to start about T50.I could fend them off for a while but by the time i could get peace there was always one or two runaways and the DoWs just kept coming from every angle even from civs i had DoF with. Its a tough nut to crack

 

[Acken]

When I say that I aim to increase the challenge and that base Civ5 is too nice on the player that wasn't a joke

And your difficulties make me happy

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I just dropped down to emperor myself,for me it was the persistent multiple DoWs that always seemed to start about T50.I could fend them off for a while but by the time i could get peace there was always one or two runaways and the DoWs just kept coming from every angle even from civs i had DoF with. Its a tough nut to crack

Ayup -- I'm a turtler at heart but even going to war with the leader doesn't seem to help, even if you crush them, there's always another civ or two ready to send 30 units at you because your ideology is different.

I suspect the only way to victory on Immortal is to be at war all the time after turn 120 or so.

 

[Acken]

Ok with a bit more testing some DoWs are definetely too random, I am currently working on it. Mostly thoses DoWs from a warmonger that then doesn't attack you. Update soon (I'll test the current fix and see how it feels).

 

[Phukit]

When I say that I aim to increase the challenge and that base Civ5 is too nice on the player that wasn't a joke

And your difficulties make me happy

My difficulties are by no means a criticism.

 

[Chum]

Ok with a bit more testing some DoWs are definetely too random, I am currently working on it. Mostly thoses DoWs from a warmonger that then doesn't attack you. Update soon (I'll test the current fix and see how it feels).

I had a game this weekend like that.

I rolled standard/random and I initially thought I was on a continent with Indonesia to my west, Ottomans northwest and Arabia north. I think I was 25 turns in, and a wild Shaka appeared, turns out Shaka was inhabiting a small break in the mountains that were a complete ridgeline seperating east from west, it was a pangaea and everyone was on it.

Shaka and Ottomans DoW'd me on like T30. Shaka wasn't in a position to even get to me, and the Ottoman's paid the price for it, he was gone by T60.

I don't have the problems that everyone else seems to have with Endless DoW's. I dunno what the difference is. Bad diplomacy? I pretty much go to war when I want to, outside of the initial forward settling map volatility. Maybe you guys need more military. Just because you want to play peaceful doesn't mean you're going to get away with a couple of archers. I'm pretty sure I could finish a peaceful game on a lot of the maps I've played, I just find that incredibly boring, so I either take the wonder whore's capital, or I hit the culture/tech leader to speed up the game.