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

[noto2]

As it stands right now, nuclear plants add absolutely nothing to the game other than random luck. They should be removed completely if the old mechanic isn't restored, imo.

 

[Acken]

V6 is not save game compatibl3 due to the change to we love the king day

 

[Acken]

Some possible changes to early wonders:

Wonders:
-Artemis Temple no longer gives a great engineer point
-Stonehenge gives 2Engineer points and 6faith instead of 1point 5faith
-Parthenon also boost the city GPP by 25%
-Great Lighthouse gives 2Merchant points and 3 gold instead of 1 point
-Angkor Wat cost has been reduced to 325
-Himeji Castle cost has been reduced to 400

I'll look into the nukeplant issue. Far from top priority though

 

[noto2]

Why such a massive buff to stonehenge? It serves its purpose quite well - guaranteeing a religion

Parthenon buff sounds OP. How about keeping it in theme and adding a point or two for great artists, or even giving it an artist slot?

Temple of Artemis is strong either way, so I'm ambivalent on that nerf.

GLH buff sounds good. It could use a buff. Angkor Wat and HCastle changes sound good, those wonders are a bit lack-luster for their cost.

 

[Acken]

The reason is to make them more desirable to grab before the ai. While it seems good to sacrifice some early production on toa it becomes a lot more questionable to make a rush for stonehenge (mostly because a religion is not that important). The parthenon is kind of an average wonder nobody prioritize. Making the detour to Drama and spending the cost has to be worth the economic hit. To be honest that version of the Parthenon feel on par with the best wonders like ToA or Pisa. That said its true that with the buff to great works the parthenon already gives a nice amount of culture so I'm on the fence.

 

[Chum]

The reason is to make them more desirable to grab before the ai. While it seems good to sacrifice some early production on toa it becomes a lot more questionable to make a rush for stonehenge (mostly because a religion is not that important). The parthenon is kind of an average wonder nobody prioritize. Making the detour to Drama and spending the cost has to be worth the economic hit. To be honest that version of the Parthenon feel on par with the best wonders like ToA or Pisa. That said its true that with the buff to great works the parthenon already gives a nice amount of culture so I'm on the fence.

Parthenon buff is good for 2 reasons. First you already addressed - it's complete trash that no one builds. AI gets it every game, and I couldn't care less about it. Having it be something that's worth going for is a good thing.

The second is that if you ignore it now, the AI gets a buff. Any buff for the AI is a good thing. They already don't really use great people optimally, so them getting to use 25% more of them would be a good change for them.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

im in line with chum. changes look good.

 

[Acken]

For stonehenge I've removed the faith buff, Noto is right that the faith bonus is enough for the wonder to do its role. However I'm keeping the +2 GE points to still encourage player to get this one.
With the possibility of getting an engineer in the next 40 turns after the wonder this makes Stonehenge a great prize to get early I think. If it's too good I'll find something else.

 

[Acken]

I need more testing on V6. I don't know if you guys still find the current version too easy but if you do there is definetely a problem somewhere since it's not my experience. I'm tempted to even nerf the AI as I am seeing some GWB at T180 on Demigod. Used to be more in the 210s. And I'm looking at a size 47 Delhi making nukes on turn 200 right now.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

I am currently playing 2 practice games, so I can give my thoughts on them. Keep in mind that even though I generally play on Deity, I am bad and occasionally reload. And I have never won SV before t200.

Game 1: Arabia, difficulty 6.

I got double DoW'ed by Isabella and Gajah before I had even settled my second city, somewhere in the t30's. Oddly enough, Isabella never moved her units towards my borders, and Gajah harassed me with a couple of archers. I think I then had to reload around t130 to send Napoleon after Celts. Now he DoW'ed me again, but the position is easily defendable because I have units now, and my religion alone is giving me 83 gpt (tithe), so I just buy buildings with merchant dynasties. Speaking of religion, take a look at the screenshots: tithe and evangelism are doing lots of work. With evangelism, my cheap missionaries battle out Theodora's prophets -- but that's something you could do in the base game. Happiness is also not an issue due to my massive religion spread (and I am not yet done).

Policies: Piety -> Commerce. Pocatello is the leader, and he just entered Industrial on t160, which would the case for vanilla Deity, I think. However, I stole like 5 techs from Bouddica, and that's keeping me afloat. I could potentially go for bombers + tanks domination, provided there is enough oil, but the map is large, so I don't know if I want to spend like 10 hours on it. I will also have to steal a lot of techs. In general, the start wasn't too difficult, but the spawn location is pretty crappy for anything other than religion, and I don't think that science or culture are possible at all.

Game 2: France, difficulty 5. Tried a "wide" Liberty game, but had to replay because of some things I did not know about the mod.

Much easier game, and I am on par with the AI in terms of technology. The plan was to expand to 8-9 cities, but then Pocatello dropped a city in my face, and I decided to simply conquer it. 4 CB's and a spear took defense 8 city no problem. Then I went ahead and burned a Mayan city, which made him give me one other city in white peace. I sold that city to Pocatello. When Alex and Shoshone double-DoW'ed me, I reloaded and bribed. Eventually Alex still DoW'ed me, but thankfully I had Chivalry by then and was able to kill his hoplites with pikemen. As you can see, terrain is poor on food, and I am spamming chateaux, but it is difficulty 5, so I will be fine.

Policies: Liberty -> 4 Piety -> Aesthetics.

Some thoughts:

1. AI is still too aggressive. While it might seem like a good thing and challenge the player, it also hurts other AI's who could be potential runaways. For instance, the Mayans could be running away with science or culture, but because Alex and Pocatello have such strong early game, they will just wipe him out, which makes it easier for the human player to go for CV or SV, as long as you defend against those two. Of course, they can also start running away with culture themselves. But I think that overall AI's are fighting each other all the time, and that makes the game a little less enjoyable.

2. Because the AI's are fighting and always angry, it makes friendship very difficult. In the Arabia game, I was at war with all my neighbors, and only Isabella became friendly after t150 or something when she adopted my religion. Otherwise, you can't really send trade routes out (hurts liberty game or Morocco) -- and they don't really affect diplomacy, it seems. The AI's always covet your lands and think you are expanding aggressively, even when you have 2 cities. In the France game, everybody hates me. Sure, I took a city and razed one, but that was 70 turns ago, but I am still being denounced for warmongering. I stopped expanding nearly 100 turns ago, and the AI's still think I am building cities too aggressively. All in all, it is a very hostile environment.

3. On units. While I like that melee units are much better now and matter more, I almost feel like now they are so good they make ranged units pretty useless. Ranged units do very little damage, and given the costs, you are better off just spam-building melee units and ramming them into other melee units and AI cities. I think that in the current situation, either ranged units should be cheaper, or melee units should be more expensive to build/buy. In the France game, Alex's hoplites together with Honor are so good that they are basically pikemen. On higher difficulties, he will have them earlier, while the human player has a long way to Chivalry. Given that pikemen are now at Chivalry, I feel like now you must beeline Chivalry in most games because otherwise you won't be able to defend yourself against AI or go for any conquest because swordsmen are pretty weak in comparison and ranged units don't do anything.

I haven't played demigod or deity, but I think you are approaching the fine line between challenging and impossible.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

I need more testing on V6. I don't know if you guys still find the current version too easy but if you do there is definetely a problem somewhere since it's not my experience. I'm tempted to even nerf the AI as I am seeing some GWB at T180 on Demigod. Used to be more in the 210s. And I'm looking at a size 47 Delhi making nukes on turn 200 right now.

Is it possible to nerf AI's early game, but give them bonuses, as they advance through eras? That will make them easier to deal with early on, while keeping them relevant in the lategame?

Quite frankly, you might just nerf their early game and call it a day because it seems that they are not losing steam at all. Right now the AI's are doing pretty well throughout the game, and especially if they conquered another civ or two.

 

[noto2]

Okay, I'm on another game and I take back what I said about v6 being easier. I think I just had two abnormal games in a row. One of them was some weird shizz that happened with city states conquering an entire civ, which was hilarious, but certainly unusual. No, the AI is not too easy. On a side note, I got into a war and city states were really attacking my cities full force and almost taking them... never saw that before, but I really like it. CS should be relevant


As for other balance debates... I think AI aggressiveness is fitting, and improves the game. Sure, peaceful civs would be expected to pursue other goals but they too need to build a military to repel the warmongers.

Also, when it comes to difficulty balance, I have to say I'm not a fan of making the AI super powerful in the late game. I really don't like the "per era modifier" being more than 5. I'm not sure I like it being more than 4, to be honest. It really throws off the game. I've had too many games where I'm Babylon with 6 cities at 40 pop each, and the Zulu have 6 cities at 20 pop each, and I've got research labs in every city and the Zulu don't even have unis, and yet they are teching faster than I am in the modern era.

So then I'm forced to just win by domination. Extremely high late game AI bonuses just make peaceful victories impossible and I find this really ruins the overall game balance and forces the player to do nothing but go on endless early-mid game wars.

I'm okay with the balance as it is now. I certainly wouldn't want AI bonuses to be nerfed early game, and buffed late game, any more than they are right now.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

I disagree. Early game is where the human player is at her or his weakest, and there is nothing a human player can do about AI frontloaded advantages. Just think about Shaka having Impis on t50. On the other hand, if an AI decided to march a big army on you in the Industrial Era, you should have an army yourself and a good infrastructure to make more units, so a more challenging AI in later eras makes more sense. In the current vanilla Civ, AI's become pretty much irrelevant past Industrial/Modern eras.

With regard to teching, I think a big problem is that the human player just can't keep up with the AI right now because research has been nerfed. Since everyone is at war, you are unlikely to get an RA, and because bulbs are now suboptimal, you have to research technologies in full (or steal, if you are lucky), which delays the human player by a lot.

However, keep in mind that I have not yet won a game in Acken's mod, and so far I have only extensively played 4-5 games. I am fairly certain I will win the France map (5) and maybe even the Arabia one (6), but not the Ethiopia map (6). I think a big challenge there was Catherine eliminating 2 civs and running away on the other side of the Earth. I think I could have won the Poland map (7), but it was in v5, so I just ditched it. Besides, it's Poland on salts.

 

[Acken]

I don't think there's a big problem with teching itself. However trade routes are not as usable to help teching as I would like.

I'm trying to see if there is a way to reset the routes when DoWed instead of deleting it.

 

[noto2]

I disagree. Early game is where the human player is at her or his weakest, and there is nothing a human player can do about AI frontloaded advantages. Just think about Shaka having Impis on t50. On the other hand, if an AI decided to march a big army on you in the Industrial Era, you should have an army yourself and a good infrastructure to make more units, so a more challenging AI in later eras makes more sense. In the current vanilla Civ, AI's become pretty much irrelevant past Industrial/Modern eras.

With regard to teching, I think a big problem is that the human player just can't keep up with the AI right now because research has been nerfed. Since everyone is at war, you are unlikely to get an RA, and because bulbs are now suboptimal, you have to research technologies in full (or steal, if you are lucky), which delays the human player by a lot.

However, keep in mind that I have not yet won a game in Acken's mod, and so far I have only extensively played 4-5 games. I am fairly certain I will win the France map (5) and maybe even the Arabia one (6), but not the Ethiopia map (6). I think a big challenge there was Catherine eliminating 2 civs and running away on the other side of the Earth. I think I could have won the Poland map (7), but it was in v5, so I just ditched it. Besides, it's Poland on salts.

Yes the AI should be stronger in the late game than early. I'm not sure if you're aware, but this is already the case. At the beginning of the game the AI gets a reduction in the cost of techs, units, buildings, social policies, and maintenance fees, as well as a reduction in unhappiness and a bonus to starting happiness.

There is something called the "per era modifier". Every era that passes, the AI cost reductions are increased. This applies to production and science at the very least, and it may apply to other areas as well.

For example, at the beginning of the game a warrior might cost the human 20 hammers, and only cost the AI 16 (a 20% reduction). By the modern era, which is 5 eras past ancient, the per era modifier is applied 5 times. On Immortal, for example, this modifier is 4, so the AI gets a further 20% reduction. I'm not 100% sure on the math, whether it is additive or not, but it means the AI would drop from 80% cost to 60%, or it would be (.8)*(.*), or 64%. Either way, it's a huge buff to the AI.

In the modern era, that warrior would only cost the AI about 12 hammers. So a 1000 hammer army would cost the AI only 640 hammers, and each technology is reduced in a similar fashion.


I'm sorry if you already knew this, I don't mean to condescend, it just sounded like you weren't aware of this. The AI already has its bonuses enhanced as the game progresses. What I'm saying is I think it's enough. I think the per era modifier is already high enough and I don't want to see it increased. I gave my reasons for this before. If the per era modifier is too high it just means that the human player is basically forced to win via early war as they can't hope to compete with modern or information era AIs.

 

[Acken]

It's multiplicative and for clarity is something that comes from vanilla.

I've currently reduced it by 1% and removed it for wonders.

Also the TR change was easy to find so TR resets when at war will be in v6. I've also restored the AI likeliness to make trade routes. Both these should help the early game and players to grab military techs without falling too far behind.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Yes the AI should be stronger in the late game than early. I'm not sure if you're aware, but this is already the case. At the beginning of the game the AI gets a reduction in the cost of techs, units, buildings, social policies, and maintenance fees, as well as a reduction in unhappiness and a bonus to starting happiness.

There is something called the "per era modifier". Every era that passes, the AI cost reductions are increased. This applies to production and science at the very least, and it may apply to other areas as well.

For example, at the beginning of the game a warrior might cost the human 20 hammers, and only cost the AI 16 (a 20% reduction). By the modern era, which is 5 eras past ancient, the per era modifier is applied 5 times. On Immortal, for example, this modifier is 4, so the AI gets a further 20% reduction. I'm not 100% sure on the math, whether it is additive or not, but it means the AI would drop from 80% cost to 60%, or it would be (.8)*(.*), or 64%. Either way, it's a huge buff to the AI.

In the modern era, that warrior would only cost the AI about 12 hammers. So a 1000 hammer army would cost the AI only 640 hammers, and each technology is reduced in a similar fashion.


I'm sorry if you already knew this, I don't mean to condescend, it just sounded like you weren't aware of this. The AI already has its bonuses enhanced as the game progresses. What I'm saying is I think it's enough. I think the per era modifier is already high enough and I don't want to see it increased. I gave my reasons for this before. If the per era modifier is too high it just means that the human player is basically forced to win via early war as they can't hope to compete with modern or information era AIs.

My point is that the AI's should get smaller bonuses in the early game and bigger bonuses in the lategame.

 

[noto2]

Acken I just played a game where I found an enormous number of islands full of goodies in the medieval period, so I thought it would be a perfect game to try out your new exploration policies. Holy smokes, dude, exploration is now an amazingly powerful policy tree and you have completely changed the dynamics of the game.

Previous to this, it was either REX (rapid early expansion) or not. There was no point in settling lots of new cities later in the game. Ever. I might place a new city down on T200 to grab something important, like oil, but I wouldn't do it just for the sake of adding new cities to my empire. Even T100-T200 was kind of iffy. Now it is fully viable to start small, even start Tradition, and then to Exploration and explode in size if the map calls for it.

It's such a powerful policy tree that I think it even borders on OP. It would be mandatory on archipelago maps and mandatory for any civ with mostly costal cities. It's easily a match for Rationalism now, easily. The bonuses are even comparable to many Order policies.

I would just like to take this moment to reiterate that commerce seems out of whack now. Exploration blows commerce out of the water for a large empire, provided at least 50% of the cities are coastal. Commerce is seeming rather weak lately.

 

[noto2]

My point is that the AI's should get smaller bonuses in the early game and bigger bonuses in the lategame.

Then it's just a Warcraft 3 comp match against 3 "insane" level AIs. You either rush or you die. There is no other viable strategy. Rush rush rush rush rush.

 

[Asterix Rage]

Trying v6 (Immortal / Marathon / Huge Map) with Sukritacts E&D v3, Condensed Promotion v14 and Really Adv. Setup v15x to make some personnal adjutments at the beginning.
At turn 421, indus. area, all is fine so far.

Done.
French won cultural at T~700 and science at T~800
My point is Huge/marathon was stable dispite a couple of crashes because Sukritats E&D sometime crash. That's it
3or 4 times, in lately game the massive continental french empire took 4 or 5 mn to play his turn. Feel weird but at least he played well.

Now. This MOD is bloody genius but sometimes I'd like to deal with innovative features. It's why I love SE&D which emplify the leaders traits and extend the quantity of gold, hammer food and so.
I'd like to see in this Mod some new units to make an alternative to the standart unit path. Also an advanced carrier is missing. Doesn't it?
I know it's not the goal this Mod but come on, v6 is a kind of mature version, maybe it's time to bring something new.

Thx anyway for this piece of art dedicated to Civ5