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

[consentient]

@mejobloggs: It's certainly possible, and perhaps even frequent in my games since I go to war assisted by CS a lot. I once had Mombasa capture 2 cities, and in a recent game, a CS even took a size 25 capital!

@Acken: Thanks a lot

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Adding to what Consentient said, I really like the idea of "Ambush Formation" promotion, I think it makes a borderline useless Promo actually worthwhile and opens up new strategies. I tried it in the NQ Mod and rly enjoyed it, esp with Landships and Tanks.

Also I would highly suggest doing something like the Pike -> Musket mod does. The fact that Pikes upgrade to Lancers just makes me upset, it's dumb. You should get rewarded for stacking promotions on blocker units, that's what they're there for. Getting Drill 1 / 2, sitting on a hill, fortified, getting Cover 1 / 2, getting Medic 1 / 2. That's how they should be used. It doesn't make sense that pikes are essentially worse than before after a really expensive upgrade. You lose the ability to fortify, which in conjunction with the bonus against mounted is what made Pikes good in the first place! It doesn't make any sense historically either since Pikes and Lancers fill completely different roles (ever seen Pikes on the offense slamming into the opponent?.. or running as fast as their feet can carry them to perform a quick flank? no, they're mostly used defensively, against horses..), it doesn't make sense gameplay wise, it's not fun and there's no reason to keep it imo.

I will prepare a list with a few wonders I'd like to move 1 tech forward/behind for later

 

[consentient]

Pikes to Muskets is a no brainer.

 

[Tombaugh]

My lovely elite sipahis

 

[Acken]

I've uploaded a new change for spies.

Please let me know if the stealing is over the roof:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0i8w0qxzc4m26ee/Acken's Minimalistic Balance (v 7).civ5mod?dl=0

Also short list of changes :

Spoiler :

Warfare
-City strength base has been increased to 7 from 8, city strength from pop has been increased to 0.33 from 0.30

Misc
-No limit for barb exp
-Better spy rate in the later eras

AI
-AI should be a little more tolerant for other civs expansions
-Deceptive AIs are more likely to build an army but now the AI no longer hides whether or not it covets your land.
-New AI flavors to encourage culture and science buildings under specific conditions (mostly city size)
-More AI building decisions improvements

Fixes
The change to GPP generation was not working properly. GSEM specialists now give the correct 2 per specialist.

 

[Tombaugh]

France needs a buff, which helps them early.
An idea could be to improve their palace (versailles?), and keep the doubled theming bonus (but maybe for all cities):
maybe two slots for great art, and additional culture (+1)
or + some production , to make sure their capital will be the best city.
Just some thoughts, the proposition in nq mod lacks imo historic context and changes the UA completly.

Thanks for barb exp

 

[noto2]

I haven't had time to play lately, but I'll just say this -

-I like the trading post changes, seems well balanced now with slightly more gold per tile and no science

-Pikes to muskets is probably better than to lancers, unless some change were made to lancers/anti tank that made these important units

-I've always hated the way the game represents mountains and toyed with modding mountain tiles giving yields. An observatory that gives science from mountain tiles would be good for gameplay, imo

-I don't see any problem with salt at all, and on a related note, I think the early game gold situation is fine. The player needs to either get gold from ruins and not spend it, or prioritize killing barb huts, or prioritize getting traderoutes up ASAP.

-Tombaugh's idea to give the French palace additional art slots is genius, fits their theme, and gives an appropriate buff to a weak civ

 

[Acken]

Interesting idea for France.

Will see for the rest.

Note : decided that honor was lacking a bit in momentum so removed the heroic epic production bonus, made the national wonder cost less by default for everyone and instead honor gives +4 happiness to the heroic epic.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Man I don't know all the things you did with the mod, just kinda looked through real fast and decided to go ahead and try... and I never do that. But damn it was fun seeing Brazil completely dominating me culturally, influential while I'm still in medieval era, and seeing two city-states completely obliterating Ottoman empire... all in one game And it's only king difficulty. 10/10 will play again

 

[Jullego]

Random thoughts:

1. Is there a way to prevent city states wanting great musicians before turn 100? It's only possible from liberty finisher or Maya's long count but who's gonna do it anyway.

2. Aristocracy policy from tradition feels quite similar to Monarchy. What about 15% to wonders and 100% production to happiness buildings (circus, colosseum etc.)?

3.The common enemy modifier doesn't seem always to work properly. I know it takes some turns to appear but in my current game I have fought at least for 10 turns and still nothing.

4. Morocco UA: Instead of 1 culture per trade route to different civ or city state, maybe 1 culture from 1st route, 2 culture from 2nd, 3 culture from 3rd etc.

5. Denmark UA: One movement point from sea to land is good sometimes but not that great, so maybe let them embark right from the start to use that ability more.

6. I was bit disappointed that floating gardens didn't give extra food for Lake Victoria . I know it's the same in the unmodded game, but I wonder if this could be changed.

 

[Chum]

5. Denmark UA: One movement point from sea to land is good sometimes but not that great, so maybe let them embark right from the start to use that ability more.

Oh, right, I meant to talk about this.

Denmark UI late game currently works like this -

If you have a unit embarked, he will start with 6 movement. If he then hops onto land, it will show him as having 5/2 movement, and he'll get to move 5 tiles on land after he disembarks.

I'm assuming that was not intentional, but Denmark is really fun right now. It probably shouldn't be. 5 move melee near the coast is a little over the top.

 

[Plumfairy]

First off, let me say that I'm really, really digging this mod. I've only played (and lost) 3 games so far, but it seems like it fixes many, many annoying facets of the game. Really nicely done.

I've discovered a very minor bug: the wiki entry for the Reformation belief "Sacred Sites" states that all science buildings purchased with faith provide 1 tourism, culture, and gold a piece. Since you can only faith-purchase science buildings if you select a competing Reformation belief (Jesuit Education), I assume Sacred Site's text should instead read "Each building purchased with faith now yields 1 tourism, culture, and gold."?

 

[Acken]

Yes you're right but I'm so lazy to fix civilopedia entries

 

[Acken]

Am I alone in finding Laboratories are a bit too big a jump in science currently ?

I find the game pace pretty good up to plastics and then bleh between faster growth (hospital and medical) and the late game scientists (hubble + faith) the last 2 eras just melt similar to the base game.

 

[Plumfairy]

Am I alone in finding Laboratories are a bit too big a jump in science currently ?

I can't get that far, actually. I usually play on Deity, but even when I turn down the difficulty to Demigod (i.e. the new Immortal), I lose every single game the exact same way: in the early Renaissance two nearby civs team up & attack me at the same time. It doesn't matter what I do: I build a military that's equal in size to either one of them, (although I can't beat both at the same time) I maintain good relations with them, (as best I can) I don't overexpand, and yet every single time two of my neighbors form a secret pact and then simultaneously backstab me. And now that the AI is completely unbribable, I can't go back a couple turns & pay one to go to war with somebody. It's happened in 7 out of 7 games... and these are games where I'm playing God-tier civs.

I've even tried using the IGE to immediately force one of the AIs (chosen at random) to Make Peace, but the pacified AI just re-joins the war in 15-20 turns. I suppose I could use the IGE again & again on him, but that's a pretty unsatisfying way of playing the game.

I suspect the faulty AI is caused by this change: (from the changelog)

-Improved the warmonger logic:
The negative hit now depends on relationships, distance, era, personalities. More to come.
-Added a (for now rudimentary) casus belli hidden variable making the first city a civ conquer free of any hate if:
The civ was declared war upon
A friend of the civ was declared war upon
It also boosts the War approach so beware before stealing workers Text has been added in the opinion detail for it but has no direct opinion weight.
Casus Belli has a 50turns expiration

Regarding the bolded item: does that mean that stealing workers results in everybody hating me? If so, this might explain the behavior I've seen.... but it also means the game isn't winnable for me on the higher difficulty levels since I *need* to steal workers to have a chance against the Ai's ridiculous early expansion.


Is there any way I could "unimprove" the warmonger logic? I love all the other changes to the game, but the inevitable enemy alliances are making the game nigh unplayable.

 

[Chum]

Am I alone in finding Laboratories are a bit too big a jump in science currently ?

I find the game pace pretty good up to plastics and then bleh between faster growth (hospital and medical) and the late game scientists (hubble + faith) the last 2 eras just melt similar to the base game.

Well, that's not my experience. I'm still waiting way too long to finish games I think , even with Rat finisher and Oxford on Nanotech and Adv Ballistics.

My best science games are usually ~260-270, which is quite a bit different than your 248 Dido game where you messed around a bunch.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Am I alone in finding Laboratories are a bit too big a jump in science currently ?

I find the game pace pretty good up to plastics and then bleh between faster growth (hospital and medical) and the late game scientists (hubble + faith) the last 2 eras just melt similar to the base game.

I don't think so. Honestly, after hours of testing I think SV is a lot slower than CV in general. Probably the "latest" VC of them all.

I find often labs are not needed for CV, they are often needed for DomV and obviously always needed for SV.

Lategame techs don't go too fast imo, unless we are talkin about bulbs who indeed are crazy rn.

 

[consentient]

I think I might try a non-Domination victory today to test what Acken and Plumfairy are saying.

 

[SirWhale]

I can't get that far, actually. I usually play on Deity, but even when I turn down the difficulty to Demigod (i.e. the new Immortal), I lose every single game the exact same way: in the early Renaissance two nearby civs team up & attack me at the same time. It doesn't matter what I do: I build a military that's equal in size to either one of them, (although I can't beat both at the same time) I maintain good relations with them, (as best I can) I don't overexpand, and yet every single time two of my neighbors form a secret pact and then simultaneously backstab me. And now that the AI is completely unbribable, I can't go back a couple turns & pay one to go to war with somebody. It's happened in 7 out of 7 games... and these are games where I'm playing God-tier civs.

I've even tried using the IGE to immediately force one of the AIs (chosen at random) to Make Peace, but the pacified AI just re-joins the war in 15-20 turns. I suppose I could use the IGE again & again on him, but that's a pretty unsatisfying way of playing the game.

I suspect the faulty AI is caused by this change: (from the changelog)

-Improved the warmonger logic:
The negative hit now depends on relationships, distance, era, personalities. More to come.
-Added a (for now rudimentary) casus belli hidden variable making the first city a civ conquer free of any hate if:
The civ was declared war upon
A friend of the civ was declared war upon
It also boosts the War approach so beware before stealing workers Text has been added in the opinion detail for it but has no direct opinion weight.
Casus Belli has a 50turns expiration

Regarding the bolded item: does that mean that stealing workers results in everybody hating me? If so, this might explain the behavior I've seen.... but it also means the game isn't winnable for me on the higher difficulty levels since I *need* to steal workers to have a chance against the Ai's ridiculous early expansion.


Is there any way I could "unimprove" the warmonger logic? I love all the other changes to the game, but the inevitable enemy alliances are making the game nigh unplayable.

I concur with this. I'm not really sure what's the point of diplomacy when war is inevitable.

 

[Acken]

Well im working on it for the next version to find a good balance between challenging and annoying. Mostly ill look into double dows and out of character dows.
Ill see also if i can make cooperation more valuable.

By the way no. Worker stealing only affects the civ you stole from.

Meanwhile I strongly suggest going down in difficulty if the one you try is too difficult. At least until you can complete games.