Alternative Difficulty Mod

Okay, maybe I rolled some generous start to AIs but they suspiciously were ahead in tech increasing with the number of cities, that's very good if the mod works with any version from now on.

I rolled back to 1.2.1 so can't say about logs unfortunately.
 
Hi, mate. Your mode (v9) causes Austria UA doesn't works e.g. influence decay after marriage, don't get additional vote in world congress and great people generation doesn't increase in capital.
I see that you have v10, is this bug fixed?
 
Quick feedback on city states: one of the changes was that you can peace out with friendly city states if you are at war with their ally. After playing a domination game until the late game with it, I feel the old way was better. Peacing out can make life easier for an attacker. But without it, you might have a tough choice: try to ally the CS before you declare on their master, conquer it and get the unhappiness, or try to conquer around it. That makes the game more interesting than just being able to peace out with them IMO. It might give a different impression if you are not the attacker though.
 
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I played V10 of this mod wtih VP 1.3.4. I think this is the version where you reduced the AI unit spam and gave humans a cost increase, right?

With less units, the AI feels too easy to conquer on deity epic. After their initial wave is destroyed, they struggle to rebuild enough units to get a coherent front up again. Even more so if they fight another AI before I attack them. Inter AI wars keep them weakened for a longer time. I could feel some cost increase, but as you rarely use units as a human player, it does not impact you as much once you have your army built.
 
I've played this sub-mod quite a bit now so I thought I'd post my thoughts.

Overall the most recent changes seem good, although it does make it slightly easier. The AI seems to get even further ahead in science and culture but less units makes it easier to break through and run them out of units. I think the increased cost has a knock on effect that they build less as well as the units swarms are noticably less. It also helps the AI sometimes win wars vs each other rather than just stalemating . It is still rare but it is nice to see. There is also almost always an end boss AI that runs away and ends up far ahead of me and other AI in tech and culture, meaning I have someone to beat at the end.

I'm not sure how possible it is to win a peaceful game but that is sort of inevitable. With the increased difficulty you have to do the most powerful things, so some options just aren't viable.
 
In my third game with this mod, all using the latest update for both VP and ADM. I'm an emperor-immortal player in standard VP, but with this mod I'm roughly King level.

Highlights from this game:
- Montezuma AI capped 2 AI capitals in the same turn
- there were two vassals in the world, and neither were mine
- end boss syndrome is definitely prevalent in all my games
- that said there are around 4 AI + Me capable of winning on King difficulty
- the world techs ~50-100yrs faster than irl timelines
 
I just edit the values game after game in the mod until it matches something I enjoy playing. Just pick a difficulty, then edit the values until it's where you want it. Works great.
 
Just finished one game with this mod. Thanks to the reduced unit spam, the AIs took over each other's cities more often. Very cool! Just as noted above, AI moved very quickly through the technology tree. The world entered the Renaissance in 1200AD. And there was one AI that was very far ahead in terms of score, culture and technology (Arabia)

Is it possible to use only the part of the mod that reduces spamming of AI units and increases their cost to the player?
Or maybe someone knows what changes need to be made to difficultymod.xml for this effect?

EDIT: If I decrease the AITrainPercent value in difficultyMod.xml, but also decrease the AIPerEraModifier, will this effect be achieved?
 
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Yea that will do the AI part of it but not the increased cost for the player. The way to do that without the mod would be to increase TrainPercent for everyone by either changing it for the GameSpeed or for the StartEra you are using.

Lmk if you need more info than that.

Thank you! Yes, I would really like to know how to do this, can you elaborate?
 
Well, as far as I know, if you change TrainPercent in Civ5gamespeed.xml, then the changes will also affect the production of civilian units, so I think it's not worth changing this value,
because it can totally ruin the balance of the game.
 
I just edit the values game after game in the mod until it matches something I enjoy playing. Just pick a difficulty, then edit the values until it's where you want it. Works great.
Which values are you using at the moment?
 
I noticed with this mod, there is always 1 AI which is a cut above the rest. It feels intentional and randomly selected. I think it helps ensure there is always an AI you must compete against.
 
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