Balanced Game Playthrough, Strategy & Analysis

[DeepQantas]

I typically switch from Piety to Rationalism around the end of Renaissance. With Constitution Wonder cities and radio stations coming soon the happiness culture is barely worth it anymore. Most of my cities have universities, too, so I can use the two free policies from end of Piety to get the happiness boost.

I'd only want to keep Piety if I'm going for cultural victory or don't have Freedom. Other than that, it's just a matter of when. There's a lot of good SPs in other trees I need to get, too.


Keep in mind that the two trees are obviously designed to be switched. That's why Piety has one-time benefits and that free SP ending. It also comes TWO eras before Rationalism so it's definitely not supposed to be as good.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

I switched from piety to rationalism once and found myself -24 unhappy. But a friend playing on King switches out of Piety regularly and survives the unhappiness hit without any real problem. Switching out in terms of benefits loss seems like it's not worth it, but if you look at Piety as a very comfortable bridge to the later branches, then I wonder if an argument could be made for switching out of it?

The bulk of the happiness hit comes from losing the -20% from population bonus. That means you have 150 or so citizens, a pretty healthy number at renaissance which means you're expanding towards your limit as fast as possible, meaning you're playing better than your friend!

 

[V. Soma]

Hi!

I played a game of tiny continents with 7 civs and 7 CSs
(patch 275 + mod TBC 7 + mod CSD)
King level

A lovely game, where I won with Spaceship as Monty,
the AI Arabs went for diplo and almost won it! (1 vote missed)
the AI England went for culture and almost won it (had 6 of the 6 branches, only Utopia unfinished!)

 

[rf900]

I have played some enjoyable games with TBC70, thanks for the hard work. One thing I noticed that I have lots of money now compared to vanilla, some AI civs also. With it I can win diplomatic victory too easily but the AI doesn't use it enough mostly when UN is built.

I know some of you play with CSD but with the latest patches I don't seem to be able to produce units. Even with the increased in gold of that mod I could buy the city states without diplomats.

So even if you can use the CSD mod how about balancing the diplomatic victory:

-Revise the gold/benefit relation with city states.
-Make AI use gold more often with them (will this MC_GIFT_WEIGHT_ values work?)
-Make some missions have much more value than the gold gift
-Bring back the kill other city state mission, with the benefit of a "permanent" alliance with the city state that asked for the mission, just like with liberating it. Maybe another bonus if possible.

 

[Thalassicus]

1. Revise the gold/benefit relation with city states.
2. Make AI use gold more often with them (will this MC_GIFT_WEIGHT_ values work?)
3. Make some missions have much more value than the gold gift
4. Bring back the kill other city state mission, with the benefit of a "permanent" alliance with the city state that asked for the mission, just like with liberating it. Maybe another bonus if possible.

MINOR_CIV_GOLD_GIFT_GAME_MULTIPLIER
MINOR_CIV_GOLD_GIFT_GAME_DIVISOR

1. I spent several months trying to figure out a way to decrease the influence-to-gold ratio, but couldn't find a good way to do so. We only have access to the two variables listed above. I wasn't able to conclusively figure out the formula they plug into. It's much more complicated than just influence = gold * multiplier / divisor. It varies with time somehow, and any significant alterations resulted in negative influence in the late game.
2. Thanks for pointing out those variables. I'll experiment with them a bit to see what I can do.
3. & 4. I did so a while back. Completing a kill mission gives a huge amount of influence, much more than liberation. All missions also give more influence than vanilla.

 

[rf900]

Should have noticed the missions bit, very nice, I have been out a while

I have seen the CSD mod that uses this, maybe simpler to increase the gold numbers as he does:

		<Update>
			<Where Name="MINOR_GOLD_GIFT_LARGE"/>
			<Set Value="2000"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Where Name="MINOR_GOLD_GIFT_MEDIUM"/>
			<Set Value="1000"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Where Name="MINOR_GOLD_GIFT_SMALL"/>
			<Set Value="600"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Set Value="17"/>
			<Where Name="GOLD_GIFT_FRIENDSHIP_DIVISOR"/>
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Set Value="50"/>
			<Where Name="AI_GOLD_PRIORITY_DIPLOMACY_BASE"/>
		</Update>

In my mod I used this, but as you say you have less control over it:

UPDATE Defines SET Value="2.5" WHERE Name="MINOR_CIV_GOLD_GIFT_GAME_MULTIPLIER";
UPDATE Defines SET Value="3" WHERE Name="MINOR_CIV_GOLD_GIFT_GAME_DIVISOR";

Other options, move UN building to later in tech tree, or add another requirements for diplo victory or UN construction.

 

[Thalassicus]

Does that decimal actually work? I remember someone doing testing on this last year and I seem to recall it truncating to integers... though it's been a long while so I could be mistaken.

I don't think it's possible to significantly alter victory conditions.

 

[rf900]

It has been a while, I also studied those values some time ago. In my mod they appear to work fine, but it was only until Medieval Era.

Still CSD values cause nearly the same effect, make money have less importance in relation, really straighforward increasing the gold values.

About the diplomatic victory I think more people find it too easy, it comes very early (compared to culture and science) and AI does not fight over it very well. If we cannot improve the AI maybe we can make it harder for the player, as I said, move it a bit further in the tech tree. And put a requirered building for UN, like X% of embasies in the cities for example.

 

[Thalassicus]

The problem with increasing the gold values is it also increases the influence gained... doesn't really change anything.

 

[rf900]

It seems the CDS mod achieve it, maybe with an additional modification.

With it in Ancient era you get:
600g = 35inf
1000g = 60inf
2000g = 120inf

While vanilla has:

250g = 40inf
500g = 80inf
1000g = 165inf

Big change and good to make diplo victory harder IMO.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Has anyone made any Let's Play Civ V Youtube vids with this mod? I've never been a very good Civ player in any of its iterations, but V has been giving me extra difficulty for some reason--I can't seem to wrap my head around the changes in gameplay concepts. I played vanilla for a while when it came out but got extremely bored from the pacing and cheese very quickly so I didn't really learn any actual strategies. A TBM vid would be sweet so I could actually learn how to play this game instead of learning how to cheese AI with RA blocking, diplomatic gold leeching, CS abuse and other lame things that suck the life out of Civ V.