Balance on Deity

[SionEnglaid]

Hello CBP forum

I recently began playing on the patch and love all the changes. My only issue is game balance... I can play Deity on unmodded Civ5 or on the NQ mod. It's hard and sometimes goes sideways, but it works out more often than not. If the AI comes around with a carpet of doom at the wrong moment... On the CBP though... I just started up a game to and played 120 turns to have some numbers.

Settings: Deity / Standard Speed / Communitas Map / Duel / Random Civs

I got Huns, the AI Morocco. By turn 120, the numbers look horrible. I will start a new game because I already won... I have 8 cities, my enemy has 4. I have 2x his pop, 3x his crop yield, 4x his prodcution, 3x his land, 15k more army and even a slight tech lead. He built 1 WW, I built 4. The same goes for slower speed, bigger maps, different settings. The AI just seems to settle too few cities and use horrible build orders. Sometimes, an AI players flat out refuses to settle a second city for 200 turns. What is going on?

 

[Paramecium]

The AI doesnt get free stuff like settlers and techs like in Vanilla. And I think your example isnt that good, from my experience in the last patchs, Marocco isnt doing that good and especially on Duel, you have an early game warmonger with a lot of early advantages with a late comer. I would recommend that you try it again with a standard map size on a vanilla map script like continents or pangea.

Or you are just very good.

 

[SionEnglaid]

Well, that game was just a quick one to have some numbers. I just loaded up an old save from a Deity/Marathon/Huge game I abandoned a few days ago: Turn 160, I have 68 pop compared to 32 for my next closest competitor. Byzantium refused to settle a second city, her cap has 9 pop. And that with a double wheat & cattle start and no direct neighbor. I have no idea what her AI was up to. Her next closest neighbor is Germany on 2 cities with 16 pop?! I have at least 3x the average on all statistics except soldiers and approval.

 

[DarkZero]

A quick search of this this subforum shows that you are the very first person to ever complain about deity being easy, since you say whit other mods you dont faceroll, we can eliminate the fact that you are a one of a kind genius, so you have two possible options, play on non beta patch to avoid any possible game imbalance or delete the folder and reinstall vox to make sure you're not experiencing a bug whit the installer, this can often cause some impossible to replicate bugs that no one will ever experience.

 

[Moi Magnus]

The AI is bad ok strange setups : duel, archipelago, ... Imagine that Morocco decided to play 4-city tradition for culture victory, then it would be completely inappropriate in your setup...

 

[SionEnglaid]

@DarkZero I already re-installed Vox and I think I am not using a beta build. That is not the issue.

@Paramecium Your suggestion regarding vanilla map scripts seems to be a big part of the issue. On Pangea, the AI is doing better for itself. Still way worse than on Vanilla or NQ, but at least they settle and grow okay. Might be the lack of a starting settler causing a significant part of the remaining discrepancy.

@Moi Magnus Yeah, I know. I just threw together that duel map to have some numbers. The issue persists across different settings. But apparently the mix of Fractal & Continents that is the Communitas map script seems to be really bad for the CBP AI.

In general, what is the reason for not giving the Deity AI a starting settler?

 

[DarkZero]

The goal of vp is to remove the as much "cheating" from the ai as possible while maintaining a good challenge for players, so that you are not constantly behind and automatically win the game the moment you get even or ahead like in vanilla of on nq mod, since a huge amount of development time was dedicated to the ai, especially during war, ai starting bonuses from across all difficulties have been removed simply because they dont need it to stay competitive, the overall deity experience in this mod it is literally impossible to win every game, and your experiences are so far away from average that either you installed a complete different mod or there is huge bug in the version you installed.

While not your "average" game here is an example of a deity game: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...aft-diplomatic-victory-12-6-1-version.625517/, there have been lots of number tweaks for the ai recently and I remember there was a single version where and error in the code made deity ai play like emperor, maybe thats the version you're are using? I just notice you never even mentioned the version you are using and there is like 3 different versions right now on the main page alone, no one would ever play this mod if the problems you mentioned actually happened every single game, so try a different version, either and older one or even one of the latest betas.

 

[SionEnglaid]

I like that reasoning for removing the settler Yes, I figured if my experience where common, more people would complain about it and changes would have already been introduced. I brought it up to check if some of you know what is going on, a bug, an issue with the settings, etc.
I used the installer 12-15 from the forum page to install the necessary mods. Version numbers are as follows: Community Patch v.88, Community Balance Overhaul v.13, Community Balance Overhaul Comp Files v.1.

 

[tu_79]

I like that reasoning for removing the settler Yes, I figured if my experience where common, more people would complain about it and changes would have already been introduced. I brought it up to check if some of you know what is going on, a bug, an issue with the settings, etc.
I used the installer 12-15 from the forum page to install the necessary mods. Version numbers are as follows: Community Patch v.88, Community Balance Overhaul v.13, Community Balance Overhaul Comp Files v.1.

I silly question. Did you actually win or did you think you had won?
Because AI gets stronger every passing era, and there are quite a few mechanics to prevent any player from conquering everything before Industrial Era. Unless you play on impossible to balance duel maps.

EDIT. And yes. AI is not programmed to fight properly in duel maps. You need to unlock world congress to see their true power.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I like that reasoning for removing the settler Yes, I figured if my experience where common, more people would complain about it and changes would have already been introduced. I brought it up to check if some of you know what is going on, a bug, an issue with the settings, etc.
I used the installer 12-15 from the forum page to install the necessary mods. Version numbers are as follows: Community Patch v.88, Community Balance Overhaul v.13, Community Balance Overhaul Comp Files v.1.

Version number are irrelevant, since for stupid reasons we can't increase them without having problems with the auto-installer. The relevant info is the date (12-15).
Note that since 2 months, we drastically changed the way difficulty bonus worked, leading with betas with difficulty scaling strangely. Latest version (there is approximately a version per week or per 2 week) should be far better.

As default setup. Choose continent, standard size, standard speed.
AI has no free techs and free settler. It still has a lot of bonuses, but they are yields given trough the whole game : the more the game advance, the more they have bonuses (quadratic scaling). Meaning that even if you take some advance in earlier eras, you might still lose. (Especially if unhappiness crush you due to over-expanding and lack of infrastructure)

 

[Gazebo]

Duel is a horrible test of balance.

G

 

[tu_79]

Duel is a horrible test of balance.

G

I wonder if specific settings should be made for duel maps. It just seems so wrong to win by settling over horses first...

 

[DarkZero]

I wonder if specific settings should be made for duel maps. It just seems so wrong to win by settling over horses first...

Them specific settings should be mage for huge maps, them for super huge maps, them for 43 civs maps, them for true earth starting locations map, them we should made special balance changes if you play whit barbarians disabled, otherwise authority is too weak, them a special setting for wen you disable city states, after all, quite a few leader abilities rely on those...get what i mean? This slippery slope does not have an end, a few changes where made to marathon and a couple of people already made mod mods on the changes...

 

[IcyAngel]

To be fair to the OP, recent versions have reduced early settling propensity of the AI a lot; multiple times I settled four+ cities before any AI settled their second one, which makes the game way easier for me.

(Though it doesn't always happen.)

 

[tu_79]

Them specific settings should be mage for huge maps, them for super huge maps, them for 43 civs maps, them for true earth starting locations map, them we should made special balance changes if you play whit barbarians disabled, otherwise authority is too weak, them a special setting for wen you disable city states, after all, quite a few leader abilities rely on those...get what i mean? This slippery slope does not have an end, a few changes where made to marathon and a couple of people already made mod mods on the changes...

Regarding huge maps, there are already some tweaks. But duel remains the biggest imbalanced map.

 

[SionEnglaid]

@Gazebo As I said, that game was just to get some numbers. The picture remains the same on all settings and map sizes mostly unchanged. Most of the games I played before posting here were on huge maps since I like the epic feeling of such big worlds.

@Moi Magnus Okay, I'll try one of the newer beta builds then.

@IcyAngel Yes, the AI seems to greatly undervalue settling. I usually have 10 cities out when the AI is still on 3 or 4. When some AIs begin to settle again, I am ready to do the same. But with 10 developed cities instead of 4.


I have the feeling the AI does not like to cross bodies of water to settle. On Continents/Pangea, they settle more and are therefor more competitive. Still not great, but better. But if I play on anything else, they just tend to stick to their home continent for the first few eras. Leading to some being stuck, not settling, lacking science/production to compete and basically stopping to progress for a long time until they are irrelevant. Bad for me, I'd prefer to play the more interesting maps Fractal/Communitas/Islands produces

 

[DarkZero]

I never play anything but fractal and never experienced anything you said...

 

[Gazebo]

@Gazebo As I said, that game was just to get some numbers. The picture remains the same on all settings and map sizes mostly unchanged. Most of the games I played before posting here were on huge maps since I like the epic feeling of such big worlds.

@Moi Magnus Okay, I'll try one of the newer beta builds then.

@IcyAngel Yes, the AI seems to greatly undervalue settling. I usually have 10 cities out when the AI is still on 3 or 4. When some AIs begin to settle again, I am ready to do the same. But with 10 developed cities instead of 4.


I have the feeling the AI does not like to cross bodies of water to settle. On Continents/Pangea, they settle more and are therefor more competitive. Still not great, but better. But if I play on anything else, they just tend to stick to their home continent for the first few eras. Leading to some being stuck, not settling, lacking science/production to compete and basically stopping to progress for a long time until they are irrelevant. Bad for me, I'd prefer to play the more interesting maps Fractal/Communitas/Islands produces

It seems very unlikely that you would be able to settle 10 cities in 100 turns without massive happiness issues.

G

 

[ElliotS]

It seems very unlikely that you would be able to settle 10 cities in 100 turns without massive happiness issues.

G

I consistently settle 6-8, and can go 10 if I want. I've had games where I settle 12-14 cities on my own before ~125. Happiness is just a number for most of the game, and I'd rather be at -15 with 6-10 cities than +10 with 4 most games. At least until later when the yields are a huge factor for happiness. Early on it's mostly the combat strength I care about, and that's solved by having 2x more cities than my enemy.

 

[Gazebo]

I consistently settle 6-8, and can go 10 if I want. I've had games where I settle 12-14 cities on my own before ~125. Happiness is just a number for most of the game, and I'd rather be at -15 with 6-10 cities than +10 with 4 most games. At least until later when the yields are a huge factor for happiness. Early on it's mostly the combat strength I care about, and that's solved by having 2x more cities than my enemy.

That’s fine, but it doesn’t refute my point. Negative happiness is a hole that a lot of new players have a hard time getting out of. That’s my point: he’s new the mod, may be underestimating the happiness system and spamming REX style.

G