Alternative Difficulty Mod
- Thread starter Milae
- Start date
So I found an extremely strange and very gnarly bug. For a while now I couldn't shake the fact that the AI was just flat out "better" than I was used to in pretty much all ways.
Now I have installed Alternative Difficulty Mod, and I tried it a few times, but I have not been using it, so in my recent games, the mod was turned off when I began new games.
And yet, in my recent Morocco game, I noticed that Alternative Difficulty Mod was on the list of required mods. So on a hunch, I removed the mod folder from the MODS area entirely. And low and behold....
Even when the mod is off, I now believe the mod setting have been "forcing" itself into my games, which explains why I'm having soooo much trouble with the AI on settings I am used to winning the vast majority of the time.
Now I have installed Alternative Difficulty Mod, and I tried it a few times, but I have not been using it, so in my recent games, the mod was turned off when I began new games.
And yet, in my recent Morocco game, I noticed that Alternative Difficulty Mod was on the list of required mods. So on a hunch, I removed the mod folder from the MODS area entirely. And low and behold....
Spoiler :
Even when the mod is off, I now believe the mod setting have been "forcing" itself into my games, which explains why I'm having soooo much trouble with the AI on settings I am used to winning the vast majority of the time.
Yeah there has got to be more to it. I played around with other saved games and its inconsistent, I see it sometimes and not other times, and I haven't turned it on in quite some time. I'll let you know if I see the behavior again, after this game I'm going to do a clean install of the game as I've seen some other weird oddities and maybe its time to just clean house.
Marviellac
Chieftain
Hello Milae, I liked your difficulty customization a lot! Does it work with all the new changes? Or only with versions prior spies rework? Thank you!
Nice man, congrats! Pretty unusual to not get hated when you close to winning but I guess being behind on tech and having Indonesia as a mutual enemy helped.
On the AI speed I have also found it quite ridiculous towards the end of recent games but at the same time clearly it's still possible to win so I'm not sure whether to reduce it or not.
I think there is also an issue where the AIs have so much production that it makes it hard for AI Authority Civs to conquer as everyone has a lot of troops. Again it's hard to lower that though because that would make conquering easier and I think it's at a good difficulty right now. I kinda wish the AI was a bit more aggressive and willing to trade 1 for 1 on offense so that the Auth civs could grind down weaker ones better.
World Congress thing is their production choices which is Ilteroi/Gazebo I think, my changes are just to the voting/proposal logic. Tbh though it doesn't actually have to be them who builds it to win a diplo victory but they are throwing away potential extra votes which seems silly.
Floats your boat
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2021
- Messages
- 66
First peaceful scientific progress win on deity. I rage quitted on 320-something when my last SS Booster bugged out (it turns out if you have one in production with one turn left and then invest in another one to add to queue on the next turn you will be left with non-invested one as investment will somehow go to the finished one, even though it shows otherwise turn before). Egypt was a major annoyance throughout late game, snatching Porcelain, Taj Mahal, Sistine, Bletchley, Manhattan and Apollo, those last two the same turn as me but first. I slightly outpaced him in science at the very end and grabbed Hubble and CERN. Only one puppet city taken from the Netherlands to have more space to retreat from in anticipation of Netherlands being overrun by the Zulus.
Probably would be somewhat faster if not for the WLTKD deals bug, denying me +15% production and +10% science in all cities a few times. Polynesia was 4 votes short of hegemony vote and needed some more turns to be influential with Egypt. Egypt needed both me and Polynesia still to win tourism. This science icon is a bug. So it possible to win without both war and tradition, but probably not in all games. 6-7-5 with Altern. Diff. Mod v5
Been best mates with Shaka for the whole game, apart from the last 30 turns, after I joined his war against Rome very early. I would have been declared on by Rome anyway.
Probably would be somewhat faster if not for the WLTKD deals bug, denying me +15% production and +10% science in all cities a few times. Polynesia was 4 votes short of hegemony vote and needed some more turns to be influential with Egypt. Egypt needed both me and Polynesia still to win tourism. This science icon is a bug. So it possible to win without both war and tradition, but probably not in all games. 6-7-5 with Altern. Diff. Mod v5
Been best mates with Shaka for the whole game, apart from the last 30 turns, after I joined his war against Rome very early. I would have been declared on by Rome anyway.
Spoiler :
So I made an attempt at changing the difficulty values for regular VP.
Take the Difficulty.xml file and use it to replace the one in: Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\(2) Community Balance Overhaul\Balance Changes\Difficulty
It should make their early game tech a bit slower and lategame faster but early game production better and lategame worse which I believe will help somewhat.
Just to clarify this is for people NOT using my Alternative Difficulty Mod. Also I don't have time to test out whether this is better or not so if you do try it then let me know how it goes.
Also for those who want it Alternative Difficulty v8 is out so you can use it with the new patch
Take the Difficulty.xml file and use it to replace the one in: Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\(2) Community Balance Overhaul\Balance Changes\Difficulty
It should make their early game tech a bit slower and lategame faster but early game production better and lategame worse which I believe will help somewhat.
Just to clarify this is for people NOT using my Alternative Difficulty Mod. Also I don't have time to test out whether this is better or not so if you do try it then let me know how it goes.
Also for those who want it Alternative Difficulty v8 is out so you can use it with the new patch
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Played this sub mod a bunch now under 3 different version so I thought I'd give my thoughts. Overall it seems great, it makes things harder but never impossible. It is much harder to just blitz away from the AI in tech and late game there always seem to be one who really pulls ahead, providing an end game threat. It is a bit hard to tell how much of the difficulty is just from thing being different but even after playing a lot it is harder.
Early game is pretty similar not exactly the same but not harder, which makes sense but later on the AI really scales up. It can be pretty variable in terms of how well the AI does but that is also true of civ power and starting location anyway. Plus even in worst case situation it never quite seemed impossible, although close to perfect play is require if everything goes wrong.
Early game is pretty similar not exactly the same but not harder, which makes sense but later on the AI really scales up. It can be pretty variable in terms of how well the AI does but that is also true of civ power and starting location anyway. Plus even in worst case situation it never quite seemed impossible, although close to perfect play is require if everything goes wrong.
KlHannibal2
Prince
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2021
- Messages
- 512
Pretty much the same as my experience.
KlHannibal2
Prince
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2021
- Messages
- 512
So I gave your newest version a try with Macedon. My benchmark is a few version back, as in my Rome game that you did a commentary video on. I went for the standard approach of shrine first into god of all creation, then spam hetairoi and later a few catapults. I settled a very forward city between Spain and Dutch to grab 8 horses. Very close to these AIs, but they were friendly still and did not attack. That would have been at least one guaranteed attack in the old version. Once I had my army up, Spain was an easy target.
The early game felt much easier than in my Rome game. I have to compare the turn numbers. I did not get many barb kills, but some nice tributes after killing some city state units.
Regarding city states: after I had my army up (some 8 hetairoi 3 warriors) I could tribute any CS I had met from a long distance, without any unit nearby. For about 30 gold each. I feel you should have at least a few units near it to get significant yields. Maybe later, when you are a superpower, you should be able to tribute without units nearby. Other than that, tribute yields fell good.
The early game felt much easier than in my Rome game. I have to compare the turn numbers. I did not get many barb kills, but some nice tributes after killing some city state units.
Regarding city states: after I had my army up (some 8 hetairoi 3 warriors) I could tribute any CS I had met from a long distance, without any unit nearby. For about 30 gold each. I feel you should have at least a few units near it to get significant yields. Maybe later, when you are a superpower, you should be able to tribute without units nearby. Other than that, tribute yields fell good.
chicorbeef
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2017
- Messages
- 1,552
Having a lot of fun with this mod, I was stuck in a position before where Immortal was too easy but Deity too hard, so I'm giving the alternative difficulty Immortal a shot.
Is there a breakdown of the CS changes mentioned?
Is there a breakdown of the CS changes mentioned?
Heinz_Guderian
Prince
Is it still the case that this increases the number of units of the deity AI compared to "vanilla" VP? I understand it might be needed for the challenge but I just find combat very tedious in the latter half of the game where there are no unused tiles
Closed Sky
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2021
- Messages
- 72
Kill them faster
The mod v10 saddly doesn't work with the new version, AIs are back to having 4 cities on turn 50 and massive science boost from settling, wiyh mod activated.
Kill them faster
The mod v10 saddly doesn't work with the new version, AIs are back to having 4 cities on turn 50 and massive science boost from settling, wiyh mod activated.
I'm not seeing that man, they can still be pretty quick at the start with the mod though, especially if they take progress.
