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

[noto2]

I'd rather not be adding units or buildings or techs, it is a Balance mod after all. You can combine this mod with mods that do add things. For example, I run Acken's, really advanced startup, faster aircraft animations, Info Addict, RED graphics mod, as well as mods that add things to the game like a special barracks for Japan and a special factory for England, and it all runs fine, and I'm not using a gaming rig by any standards, I'm playing on a laptop with an integrated graphics chip lol.

 

[Acken]

Yes i sugyest combining it with other modsnif you want diversity. Also i id have to learn how to make units which is unlikely with civ6 coming. I preffer to.focus on this and bring it to an almost finished state. Then depending on how civ6 is ill probably start modding it the same way.

 

[Acken]

The carthage free harbor was not working properly. Will be fixed in v6.

 

[Asterix Rage]

I don't argue with that. This is a balance mod, and it makes well what it said. A nice finish state will be great. Definitly
If civ6 will be released as a beta version like civ4 and civ5 was, you have plenty of time to do so.

 

[Acken]

V6 is ready and will be released soon with the following changes:

Spoiler :

Policies:
-Industrial espionage increases tech stealing by 50% instead of 100%
-Resettlement gives 3 extra pop instead of 5
-New Exploration tree:
Navigation School was replaced by Colonies giving +1 pop +1 worker +1happiness for newly settled cities
Treasure fleets now boosts coastal tiles without sea ressources +1prod +1gold
Both of these policies are based on the work of Fruitstrike for the NQMod so thank him and visit his mod.
The free admiral, more admiral movement and faster admiral generation are now in the finisher. The boost to naval strength has been decreased to 10%..
Naval tradition only boosts the buildings production by 50% instead of 100%

Warfare:
-Cities have 250 health instead of 200
-Melee units take a bit less damage on city assault
-Captured cities have 65% health instead of 75%
-Pictish Warrior, Mandekalu Cavalry have +1 strength

Misc:
-GE, GS, GM no longer increase the counters of each others but GE, GM and GS specialists only give 2 points instead of 3. The first specialist now costs 75.
-Guilds increase gold from trading posts by 1 to preserve for a total of +4G at Economics, staying in line with +2 hammer at chemistry/scientific.
-Caravan food was reverted back to its orignal values
-Spies are no longer more resistant based on level and tech differences
-Spies with levels are now more efficient at stealing cities protected by constabularies and police station
-Spies are more efficient at stealing if there is a big gap in tech numbers
-High Food is converted to production more efficiently when building settlers (max(0,excess-2))
-The map reveal map is now a 5 range circle around the ruin
-If you don't hook the required luxury fro 20 turns in a city for the We Love The King Day bonus, the luxury will be changed.
-Reverted nuclear plant changes
-No longer lose trade routes after a declaration of war

AI:
-Tweaks
-The AI should neglect Rationalism less
-Boosted number of units used by AI for defense a bit
-Increased maximum number of units to CS
-The logic for the AI growth bonus (above prince) has been changed. Instead of diminishing the growth threshold it now decreases food consumption.
-Increased AI tech penalty for cities slightly
-Reduced slightly the default AI era scaling bonuses (further production cost reduction, further growth reduction etc) across all King+ levels.
-The AI no longer has any bonus for making wonders

Techs:
-Manufactories get +1 production from Chemistry, Physics, Steam Power Combustion and Robotics
-Academies get +2 science from Printing Press, Scientific Theory, Electronics and +4 from Atomic Theory and Telecomunications
-Custom houses get +2 gold from Economics, Refrigeration, Steam Power and Computers
-Slight increase of the tech ramp cost
-Machinery is now a prerequisite of Gunpowder
-Flight is no longer a prerequisite of Balistics (this should make AA more accessible)

Wonders:
-Artemis Temple no longer gives a great engineer point
-Stonehenge gives 2Engineer points instead of 1point
-Parthenon also boost the city GPP by 25%
-Great Lighthouse gives 2Merchant points and 4 gold instead of 1 point
-Terracota cost reduced to 185
-Angkor Wat cost has been reduced to 325
-Himeji Castle cost has been reduced to 400

Maps:
-More sea oil
-More randomness in the amount of strategics a tile provides (more 2-3 horses, less 4 horses etc).
-City states now have a choice among 5 luxuries on standard instead of 3
-Less disabled luxuries per map (none on standard size)
-Mount Fuji can now appear on pangeas
-A bit more randomness in luxuries (more randoms, less of those dedicated to a region)
-A bit more ruins

Bug fixes

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I LOVE the changes. Earlier AA units is really big because Artillery sweeps rn still get shut down completely by GWB- The change to map ruin is much appreciated. Also the change to CS luxuries was much needed!

I like all the changes to wonders aswell. Looks good to me.

 

[Chum]

Acken, V6 doesn't appear to be up in the workshop yet. Dropbox only?

 

[Acken]

Soon .

 

[Chum]

Soon .

You said soon 3 days ago!

Gaming for the weekend in the states starts in less than 5 hours!

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Gaming for the weekend in the states starts in less than 5 hours!

It's only Thursday. Calm down.

I just played some community balance patch, but like Acken said, it is too easy. The yields go through the roof, and the AI is less competent than in vanilla. I played on Deity and took Paris with 1 Trebuchet, 4 atlatists, and some pikemen during Medieval. AI's all have like 3 cities.... what. I like that it's complicated, but it's also too much stuff, and I really don't want to deal with all of that because I am lazy.

 

[Acken]

You said soon 3 days ago!

Gaming for the weekend in the states starts in less than 5 hours!

I want to finish my game before uploading to make sure things are manageable. Today or tomorrow then.

 

[Chum]

I want to finish my game before uploading to make sure things are manageable. Today or tomorrow then.

That's the job of Carl and I, and I've finally got free time!

Dropbox your build of v6 then, and we'll help you test it out.

 

[Acken]

updated.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vf8miza21uw1cb9/Acken's Minimalistic Balance (v 6).civ5mod?dl=0

You can safely begin a game with this while waiting for the official release. There won't be any save game issue.

 

[Chum]

updated.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vf8miza21uw1cb9/Acken's Minimalistic Balance (v 6).civ5mod?dl=0

You can safely begin a game with this while waiting for the official release. There won't be any save game issue.

thanks dude.

 

[noto2]

So, Acken, are you planning on giving Byzantium that free prophet at Theology or what? I've played both with and without it and I can say it honestly doesn't make much of a difference. At high difficulty it's early faith that matters most. Theology is quite late.

Personally I would give Byzantium a UB for a temple, like a Basilica, maybe giving extra faith. I find the Dromon is generally not very useful and wouldn't miss it. I got a lot more use out of the Ballista than I did the Dromon.

Anyway, I'm playing the latest drop box. Going to fire up an immortal game with Japan and go Honour.

Speaking of Honour... it's kind of weird that the Heroic Epic hammer bonus comes with the finisher. Why not just make it build double speed with the same policy that gives double build speed to barracks, etc? Coming with the finisher is far too late. If I'm playing a military game I'm going to get that HE up ASAP, there's no way I'm waiting for the Honour finisher. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Dahebbie]

So, Acken, are you planning on giving Byzantium that free prophet at Theology or what? I've played both with and without it and I can say it honestly doesn't make much of a difference. At high difficulty it's early faith that matters most. Theology is quite late.

Personally I would give Byzantium a UB for a temple, like a Basilica, maybe giving extra faith. I find the Dromon is generally not very useful and wouldn't miss it. I got a lot more use out of the Ballista than I did the Dromon.

Anyway, I'm playing the latest drop box. Going to fire up an immortal game with Japan and go Honour.

Speaking of Honour... it's kind of weird that the Heroic Epic hammer bonus comes with the finisher. Why not just make it build double speed with the same policy that gives double build speed to barracks, etc? Coming with the finisher is far too late. If I'm playing a military game I'm going to get that HE up ASAP, there's no way I'm waiting for the Honour finisher. Just my 2 cents.

I agree regarding prod bonus on heroic epic

 

[Chum]

Played 150ish turns last night, AI is aggressive and teching fast. All seems right with the game.

 

[Chum]

Game works fine. Wonder whoring AI beat me to printing press, atomic era, and info era. 3 runaway monster civs taking up all available land and buying CS's every turn. Thoroughly annoying. Impossible to get to #1 in military even with 6 nuclear missiles and more troops than I've ever had at the end of the game.

Pretty much exactly what you expect from Acken's mod. Good version.

Aluminum may be scarce though - hard to tell from one playthrough, but I was #1 in land, and had 1 mine.

 

[Acken]

Aluminum may be scarce though - hard to tell from one playthrough, but I was #1 in land, and had 1 mine.

I've looked into it and you're probably right considering the map code. I'll probably diminish coal likelihood and increase aluminum likelihood.

 

[consentient]

I'm not sure if it's a bug or intended, but the free Spearman from the Honor tree won't upgrade on my latest game. Also, is there a way that the civs with a UU instead of Spearman could be given one of their UUs instead - like an Immortal/Hoplite/Pict ?

I'm gonna make my next LP using ModAcken on Immortal and a proper headset so reduce (or hopefully obliterate) the sound of the laptop fan.

Since you already did Greece, I'll probably do Persia or Celts or maybe Iroquois