Acken's mod- strategy and relative power by civ

[Mr. Shadows]

First off, thank you Acken, your mod breathed new life into my favorite game. From what I gather a lot of people on here feel the same way. I'm making this thread hoping to discuss (and get advice on!) how it changes the game. Liberty is clearly MUCH more viable, as are melee units. For the first time all the GPs are important, which also makes the NE and garden more important. All of a sudden Iron Working is an attractive tech and Rome feels muscular. For starters, it feels like 6-9 cities is about right, although I'm still working my way up to the higher difficulties. Do you still shoot for NC before turn 100? How late do you keep expanding? I've been prioritizing the NC more or less like always, but I find myself expanding much later- even beyond turn 100 which is completely different from how I played the base game. I also find aesthetics to be more powerful because we now get more policies AND GP generation is more important. Gardens and NE now yield more of all GPs (GMs included) so it introduces a new synergy. I'm looking forward to hearing how the forum thinks it changes the game.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

1. I feel like National College benchmarks really depend on what victory you are aiming for. If it's anything but science or diplo (which is impossible) then no, I don't think NC before t100 is an important benchmark anymore. You need a lot less science for a CV in the mod since there are more and better sources of tourism and internet is hardly necessary to win the game. That being said I prefer getting it out of the way as early as possible, because I will usually keep adding cities until t100, either through conquest or settling. The cost of the NC goes up a lot and with 10+ cities it'll really screw with your capital build order! I don't think expanding peacefully after t100 is worth it unless you're Exploration. Also it isn't really possible on DemiGod and above anyway.

2. I would say every single SP tree is viable now, the only ones that feel weak to me are Patronage and Explo, unless you are using Patronage in conjunction with a Theology rush + Oracle, but even then you only use 2 SPs into the tree. Patronage would even be good if it wasn't so goddamn easy to ally all CS.

3. Focusing on GP is the new winning strategy, I agree. Often times I will sacrifice growth and hammers for GP generation, even relatively early in the game. LToP, which was already the best wonder in the game in my opinion is now even better. Parthenon is a top tier wonder, almost in the same league as Petra and LToP. Garden is a priority building for any peaceful VC. Specialist and food micro has become even more important. You should experiment with planting GP, too, which gives amazing yields now. I often plant one to three GEs now, one or two early or midgame and almost always one lategame if I have rationalism, because those 4 beakers in the cap can transform to like 11 or 12 iirc, it's crazy. Also lategame wonders still suck for the most part and can often be hard built anyway.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Well, I haven't had as much time to play lately but I've tried several games at difficulty 5 - King is the new Emperor. I lost a science race by at least a couple turns. I chose liberty with Arabia and founded seven cities. Unfortunately I played peacefully until attacked, which I was by all three neighbors one right after the other. I fought them off with no problem but it put me on my back heels for a while and that was all it took. I'm sure I'd have been better off if I went to war early and ended up with 9-10 cities instead. I see what you're saying about planting great people; I had Petra and my engineers made my desert hills amazing tiles (along with DF). I wish I hadn't wasted a couple on wonders I didn't need. For that matter, I think I stifled my growth by running too many specialists too early. I was tempted because it's fun to play with GMs for a change but even at this difficulty it's a whole new AI. It will just take a few adjustments for me to beat this difficulty. The changes make for an action-packed game and that's a lot of fun. Back to the drawing board...

 

[poxpower]

The last game I played on immortal on his mod, Indonesia was on the cusp of a turn 210 culture victory... lol
He was generating 600 tourism...
He had no hotels, no archaeology, no internet, no sacred sites.

Seemed sort of broken to me.

I might try again on lower difficulties just to get a feel for it. I did finish the carthage emperor game he posted here a while back. It was easy enough, but it was a domination game and he massively boosted honor and domination as a strategy while nerfing science into the ground.

It almost feels like on higher difficulties, you can't do anything but domination, especially if the AI gets culture wins on turn 200 somehow lol. Maybe that was just a fluke, who knows.

 

[Acken]

That shouldnt happen unless they had a large empire with international games running... please repport it with a game if that happens again.

 

[gimper420]

I'd like to also thank Acken for his wonderful mod.

your mod breathed new life into my favorite game.

Pretty much took the words from my mouth. Civ 5 had gotten a bit stale, if I'm being completely honest. Acken's mod fixed that. It feels to me as more of an overall fine tuning and fixing of the game rather than a mod. Thank you so much for your dedication and hard work. And also for your wonderful videos.