Any serious attempts at fixing the gamebreaking issues yet?

[Gliese 581]

As discussed in numerous posts.
The gamebreaking issues once again:
REF tied to bells (or, I believe, anything that can be exploited).
Incompetent New World AI, particularly on defense from player aggressions.

I look over the mods periodically but so far I'm not aware of any that resolve these issues.
Dale's mod looks excellent but the measures there are not ultmately going to adress the REF issue imo. At least until further tweaked. I'm unconvinced that anything but a baseline linear buildup of REF over time like in the original game is going to work but that remains to be seen I guess.

The forced peace with other New World powers in Dale's mod is intriguing for the second problem as it's an easy answer that can be readilly adjusted if proven insufficient.

Relevant articles:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=293126

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=293581

 

[Dale]

What further on the REF tweaks would you like to see over and above what I've done in AoD2?

Also, 1.06 is a completely new kettle of fish with the AI since I put better AI in it. And resolving the immigration hurry, navy and army issues of the AI make it a completely different competitor now. I think you'll be happy with the AI's increase in 1.06 when it comes out (there's still more to do though).

It's a slow process, and in depth analysis and feedback is always appreciated.

 

[Dale]

Further, you could play without using the exploits.

Besides, after reading through those two threads, I'd like to see someone try those methods with AoD2 1.06 (when it's out).

 

[Babibo]

Just in case you didn't read that

This mod doesn't seem to enhance the AI, but I find that major balance problems have been solved.

 

[Gliese 581]

Dale: Well I'm not the best arbitor of your mod since I've only read the changelog but haven't actually tried it. In regards to REF the fundamental changes I see is:

3 times the start size of REF. This will help but one of the games linked were done in 40 turns. I know in my game I could have handled a much bigger REF since the king didn't send them all att once. With more turns spent on preparation this greater REF number should be overcome in isolation using the same tactics.

20 turns of forced peace vs europeans. This is a promising move, no idea if it's sufficient to toally negate the "free city effect" from taking AI cities though.

Cannons get no +% attackbonus for attacking settlements, this helps against gold-farming the natives but ultimately is a minor thing I think.

REF increases have been slowed and start at a later point overall. This will help the abovementioned tactics for a quick and easy win presumably.

Rebel sentiment is calculated on citizens only. This means you now don't have to delete all citizens, you can have everyone as a soldier except 1 elder statesman per city to get 100% rebel sentiment much faster and have a huge army as well as long as you have guns. This seems like a tremendous bonus for someone using the abovementioned tactics.

The one exploit that I can think I would be willing to avoid is the deletion/gifting of cities to AI. But with the last change I'm not sure this is even necessary any longer. Other than that it's hard to avoid if you play the game to your best ability in order to win as discussed in the linked threads.

Kudos for your ongoing work on the series I'll probably continue to check in from time to time and maybe I'll make a try with 1.06 to see if it's any different. But from the points listed above you can see why I'm not convinced.

As for my suggestion, it remains that REF be increased in a linear fashion based on difficulty and that it be totally unrelated to PP or any other resource you harvest. I think it's a good idea to make gold demands have a secondary effect on it as well as other similar events. As for the specific numbers I have no idea, perhaps someone with more experience with the behind-the-scenes mechanics of COL1 could supply some rudimentary starting points to experiment with.

Babibo: Thanks for the tip.

 

[Dale]

Gliese:

That's all cool. And yes, the point on rebel sentiment being on settled colonists only does play into the hands of these exploits. But I plan on changing that in a future update.

You may be interested in my politics design: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=305578