BeBa - Beyond Balance

Loving this mod so far, but there's one thing it really needs to be usable in Marathon speed. It's already part of another mod so maybe you could incorporate it into this.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=537701
"Spy Operations
* Siphon Energy and Steal Research previously included a strange "scaler" multiplier, with very odd results on Marathon. It has been removed. Steal Research has been changed from being based on a percent of the tech being researched to being independent of that. Both are now based on the number of turns elapsed in the game so far, which was part of the existing code and already scales across game speeds. The yields are now reduced for these actions, but they are still a highly viable strategic option for spies." - credits to kirbdog.

I prefer BeBa over the other, but because of this one feature, I have to use the other mod if I play anything but standard speed. Wouldn't everything be conflicting if I enable both mods at the same time?

edit: Maybe taking the files from his mod and putting it in your mod will work. I'll test it in my next game.
 
I strongly suggest not using both mods at once.

That fix is in the next update, but as I've said, I am quite busy this week and won't be able to update BeBa until the weekend. I might put up what I've fixed so far though tonight anyway as I've got some time to spare.

Thanks for your patience.
 
A few more thoughts on the early game:

I feel like the starting science is a little bit too slow, and this makes the very early game a bit dull, limits options, and makes early game progress very dependent on the luck of your starting site. I would suggest +1 science from headquarters.

On that note, I don't know about everyone else but my starting tech is always Pioneering -> Chemistry, because trade routes and labs are so critical, and recyclers are awesome too.

There doesn't seem to anything to compare to the free settler opening. A thought to slow things down a bit is to move Pathfinders where the free settler is now, and move the free settler below that (technically into tier 2). So it will come one virtue later, and by being in tier 2 it will delay getting the tier 1 synergy bonus. To compensate a little, the free settler might then feed directly into Settler Clans?
The free worker is also a little weak comparatively. With Pathfinders moved, it could then feed directly into Gift Economy, which would strengthen it slightly.

On a related note, there's another mod that alters Pathfinders to +1 module and +1 sight for explorers, and I think this is an excellent change.

Physics is really weird at the moment. The gunners are excellent, sure. But the observatory is something you will almost certainly not be able to build until much later tech, and even then it's a bit underwhelming. I would suggest changing it to require a mountain within two tiles instead of firaxite (but still give the firaxite bonus). Also +2 naval movement is a ridiculous quest reward, I would make it +1 and increase the opposing city strength boost.

Trade routes are a lot better now, but I think trade depots and trade units could be somewhat more expensive.

EDIT: Don't know if it's possible to mod, but a slight increase towards favouring hills for border expansion would be welcome. A thought I had was to also increase favouring tiles adjacent to a dome, but I'm pretty sure that would be impossible to mod.

Anyway I'm really liking this mod already! Best of luck with your exams!
 
I wanted to return to the topic of overnerfing TR's.

I fully agree that they are OP at the moment. They are so strong that they turn other gameplay elements irrelevant. That's a fact. As is their annoyingness (mostly a fault of the UI).

But taking a large hammer and and nerfing them into oblivion is not the right way. I doubt the current power of TR's is a mistake in the eyes of the devs. The didn't underestimate the yields so much that they need a 83% nerf - They are not as incompetent ;) I am very sure the high importance of manually established trade is a core gameplay element of BE. They had this idea for BNW, and it turned out well. The dev's realized the potential and wanted to expand on it.

Let's look at the (theoretical) advantages of TR's:
  • They are an active gameplay element involving lots of choices
  • They are high risk, high reward
  • They help new cities founded in midgame to catch up (they would always stay irrelevant otherwise)
  • Their partial collaps in wartime represents the vulnerability of a developed society
  • They intensify the relevance of allies and good diplo relations
  • They give more relevance to aliens/barbarians
  • Naval trade routes make having a navy relevant
  • External TR counter tendencies to turtle (we need patrols in the wilderness)
  • TR protection gives a purpose to our army in peacetime
  • They help to connect cities in gameplay terms (the civ series always had this problem that cities felt isolated. In some iterations there was almost no way for your almighty empire to help a single small city get up and running. Your chance to get a wonder often only depended on the strenght of individual cities, not your empire as a whole).

And this is why TR's currently fail to fulfill the above in BE:
  • The risk and the need for protection can easily be eliminated within the first 100 turns (US fence!!!)
  • The choices we have to make are instransparent and lack logic (bad yield formula, no official explanations)
  • The yield of TR's doesn't depend on diplo relations, wasting the chance to make them relevant
  • The AI is not competitive or smart enough to make the vulnerability of TR's matter
  • They have no real, transparent relation to the state of our empire (they at least don't feel connected to city yields)
  • They don't serve to distribute our empires power, they create yields out of thin air instead
  • The yield formula is intransparent and full of oddities (e.g. zero yield TR's)
  • Much of their strenght comes from the right quest decisions
  • Only the quantity of TR's matter, there is no good way to increase their quality

So IMHO, we need to improve them along the following lines:
  1. Rework the US fence quest to give them back some vulnerabilty and to reintroduce risk vs. reward choices (no total immunity)
  2. Relate their yields better to the yields of the involved cities (see my earlier suggestion about a %-based yield bonus)
  3. Give them clearly understandable, reliable yield mechanics
  4. Reduce the overwhelming importance of autoplants (and their quest)
  5. Make the number and quality of trade routes more influenceable by skilled players.
  6. (Increase competitiveness of the AI)
  7. (Improve the UI)

The last points are in brackets because modders have limited inflluence on this, we have to hope for official patches to fix those items completely.

I'm convinced we don't need to overnerf them if we can make them fulfill their promises. The most important change would be a yield formula that forces you to have powerful, well-improved cities for your TR to be profitable. Their current disconnection from tile improvements and good city management is their principal fault.
 
Tried putting the files SiphonEnergyCovertOperation and StealResearchCovertOperation into the Lua folder from Simba to BeBa and on marathon turn 331 I gained 6048 x3 energy. I expected around 600-1200. Then I tried using his mod and same result. Can't wait for the update..
 
I just registered to report a small bug/inconsistency with the mod: In the Autoplant quest, the reward choices don't really fit with the flavor text. The choices are (from memory) “internal consumption”, giving energy, and “trade”, giving production. Shouldn't this be the other way around?
 
Tried putting the files SiphonEnergyCovertOperation and StealResearchCovertOperation into the Lua folder from Simba to BeBa and on marathon turn 331 I gained 6048 x3 energy. I expected around 600-1200. Then I tried using his mod and same result. Can't wait for the update..
I am very confused. Do you want Siphon Energy to give more energy? I have found it absurdly overpowered, personally, and I was under the impression from the BE General Discussion forum that that was the consensus... more than willing to hear all opinions!
 
I wanted to return to the topic of overnerfing TR's.

I fully agree that they are OP at the moment. They are so strong that they turn other gameplay elements irrelevant. That's a fact. As is their annoyingness (mostly a fault of the UI).

But taking a large hammer and and nerfing them into oblivion is not the right way. I doubt the current power of TR's is a mistake in the eyes of the devs. The didn't underestimate the yields so much that they need a 83% nerf - They are not as incompetent ;) I am very sure the high importance of manually established trade is a core gameplay element of BE. They had this idea for BNW, and it turned out well. The dev's realized the potential and wanted to expand on it.

Let's look at the (theoretical) advantages of TR's:
  • They are an active gameplay element involving lots of choices
  • They are high risk, high reward
  • They help new cities founded in midgame to catch (they would always stay irrelevant otherwise)
  • Their partial collaps in wartime represents the vulnerability of a developed society
  • They intensify the relevance of allies and good diplo relations
  • They give more relevance to aliens/barbarians
  • Naval trade routes make having a navy relevant
  • External TR counter tendencies to turtle (we need patrols in the wilderness)
  • TR protection gives a purpose to our army in peacetime
  • They help to connect cities in gameplay terms (the civ series always had this problem that cities felt isolated. In some iterations there was almost no way for your almighty empire to help a single small city get up and running. Your chance to get a wonder often only depended on the strenght of individual cities, not your empire as a whole).

And this is why TR's currently fail to fulfill the above in BE:
  • The risk and the need for protection can easily be eliminated within the first 100 turns (US fence!!!)
  • The choices we have to make are instransparent and lack logic (bad yield formula, no official explanations)
  • The yield of TR's doesn't depend on diplo relations, wasting the chance to make them relevant
  • The AI is not competitive or smart enough to make the vulnerability of TR's matter
  • They have no real, transparent relation to the state of our empire
  • They don't serve to distribute our empires power, they create yields out of thin air
  • The yield formula is intransparent and full of oddities (e.g. zero yield TR's)
  • Much of their strenght comes from the right quest decisions
  • Only the quantity of TR's matter, there is no good way to increase their quality

So IMHO, we need to improve them in the following points:
  1. Rework the US fence quest to give them back some vulnerabilty and to reintroduce risk vs. reward choices
  2. Relate their yields better to the state of the involved cities (see my earlier suggestion about a %-based yield bonus)
  3. Give them clearly understandable, reliable yield mechanics
  4. Reduce the overwhelming importance of autoplants (and their quest)
  5. Make the number and quality of trade routes more influenceable by skilled players.
  6. (Increase competitiveness of the AI)
  7. (Improve the UI)

The last points are in brackets because modders have limited inflluence on this, we have to hope for official patches to fix those items completely.

I'm convinced we don't need to overnerf them if we can make them fulfill their promises. The most important change would be a yield formula that forces you to have powerful, well-improved cities for your TR to be profitable. Their current disconnection from tile improvements and good city management is their principal fault.

You put this very nicely. I completely agree.

The percentage-yields solution seems to me the best solution of all the proposed so far. It solves a lot of problems with a very simple and easy to understand change.
 
I am very confused. Do you want Siphon Energy to give more energy? I have found it absurdly overpowered, personally, and I was under the impression from the BE General Discussion forum that that was the consensus... more than willing to hear all opinions!

Nono, I want it to give way less. I don't know if it's balanced in standard, but I know for a fact it's overpowered in marathon speed.
 
You put this very nicely. I completely agree.

Yep, nice post Tomice!

The percentage-yields solution seems to me the best solution of all the proposed so far. It solves a lot of problems with a very simple and easy to understand change.

I still think that a flat base yield (eg, base ITRs send 2F/P and receive 1F/P) which are modified by buildings, virtues and wonders as I suggested a few pages back is the simplest and easiest to balance. It also provides a good way to making relatively weak buildings more valuable (for example, I build the Recycler for the bonus production from ITRs even in late-game cities, while I ignore many of the other basic "+2 [yield]" buildings).

%-based TRs could work, but I suspect it will be more difficult to code and balance, and could lead to even more citizen micro more than the current TR mechanic. I do like the idea of bread basket cities and production centers, though - maybe national wonders could help fill this role?
 
Just been looking into the food issue a bit more, and why it spikes so crazily around 10 pop. Anyway here's the formula for the size of the foodbox for the next city size, where:

a = BASE_CITY_GROWTH_THRESHOLD (default 15, Civ V BNW 15)
b = CITY_GROWTH_MULTIPLIER (default 8, Civ V BNW 8)
c = CITY_GROWTH_EXPONENT (default 2.0, Civ V BNW 1.5)
n = current city population

foodbox size = a + (n-1)*b + (n-1)^c

So to get from size 4 to 5, it's 15 + (8*(4-1)) + (4-1)^2 = 15+24+9 = 48

The exponent of 2 is crazy high (BNW has a value of 1.5), and I made a couple of quick graphs to show just how much it spirals out of control from the teens onward. Granted, there's much more food available earlier than in Civ V (although aqueduct equivalents are less available), but I think the balance of the game would be much improved by flattening that curve somewhat.
I've also compared it with the 'No Fest' mod, which I think swings the pendulum too far the other way (it uses 60, 5 and 1.1 for a, b and c respectively).
Anyway, I haven't tested this yet, but I would tentatively suggest a first try might be values of 30, 8 and 1.6, which offers a slower start, but intercepts the current values at city size 11*, and is less punitive on growth from then on. It still requires more food for every city size than BNW.

* EDIT: note that this doesn't necessarily mean that they both take the same time to get to size 11 - I would guess that the actual intercept for number of turns required (rather than total food number) would probably be about 15 on average

EDIT2: Also, with starting foodboxes of 15, BE cities will generally grow from 1 to 2 to 3 MUCH faster than Civ V cities (even without trade routes), since a BE city founded on grassland gives 4 food on the city tile, while in Civ V it gives 2 food.
 
%-based TRs could work, but I suspect it will be more difficult to code ...

I'm not insistent on percentages.
I only want logical results from TR connections.

For instance: When a small backwater is connected to the capital, the backwater profits more. Or: When a city grows stronger, the yields from its TR's increase.
I want to avoid stupid stuff like needing to avoid production in the capital so that the connected TR's yields more ... production :rolleyes:

... and balance, and could lead to even more citizen micro more than the current TR mechanic.

I strongly doubt it would lead to more micro. When I want production for a city, I connect it's TR to my best production city. If I want food, I connect it to my food basked. If I want energy or science, I send the TR to another civ that is technically or financially strong.(*)
My suggestion is all about logic.

The micromanagement that boosts TR yields is simple, logical city specialization!


Regarding balancing: We can always change the % value to 8 or 12 or whatever. I don't see a problem in that.



(*) I believe this behavior is what the devs intended, but they screwed up. The direction of the TR overrides the "yield difference" calculation. As of now, if my production hub sends a TR to my bread basket, it doesn't result in production for the food city and food for the production city (as you'd expect). It results in a ton of food AND production for the receiving city. We really have to get rid of directional TR's, the results must be independent on who the sender is!
The second thing they screwed up is the erratic importance of "yield difference" for the calculation. If two powerful cities trade, both equally strong in food and production output, the current calculation makes this TR very weak. It should be strong!
 
Tried putting the files SiphonEnergyCovertOperation and StealResearchCovertOperation into the Lua folder from Simba to BeBa and on marathon turn 331 I gained 6048 x3 energy. I expected around 600-1200. Then I tried using his mod and same result. Can't wait for the update..

Thanks for this report. Looks like I didn't change enough to fix what's going on here. I'll fire up the chainsaw and have another update in a bit.
 
We really have to get rid of directional TR's, the results must be independent on who the sender is!
The second thing they screwed up is the erratic importance of "yield difference" for the calculation. If two powerful cities trade, both equally strong in food and production output, the current calculation makes this TR very weak. It should be strong!

Oh, that'd be interesting. Certainly take away a good deal of the headache from trade route micromanaging, atm I only allow "big" cities to send internally to get smaller cities lots of food and prod to catch up, and use smaller cities to get science/gold/diplomacy benefits from those outside the empire, with middling cities being a case by case.

I think I saw some files in this mod that would make messing with that real easy, I'll edit this post in a few minutes after I confirm they work.

Edit: Haha, well, sortof... I managed to make the traderoutes the same regardless of which city technically 'owns' the unit... but in the process equalized the recipient/senders yields regardless of city size. Big city to little city, both get 6 food 7 prod. little city to big city, both get 6 food 7 prod. Desired effect was that Big city to Little city or vice versa, little city gets bulk of the yield. Flatlining them wasn't really what I had in mind, and it unintentionally equalled out gains coming and going for international trade routes too. So I'ma just heed the wisdom of "Don't #&(* With things you don't understand" and stop breaking things. Gods, but my trying to figure out why only a FEW cities had a variance of 1 production or food when it was from the buildings effecting trade was funny once I figured it out, though. I'm still giggling xD

That said, the way the Reciever and Originator variables are in there, I would KILL to know the actual formula. The variables CALLED Reciever and Originator are 30 and 60 respectively, but the recipient of the trade route in internal trade basically always gets more. So it's backwords? and making them both 45 makes sense for what it did, but it's like the formula... has no concept of which city is actually the bigger or smaller, it just rips out the total prod/food available and then divides it up based on those ratios. Which sounds really freakin bizarre. So I mean, you could switch them and make it so the one MAKING trade routes tends to get most of the benefit instead of the one recieving, but the effect that had on international I'm definitely gonna bow out and let someone who actually knows how LUA works play with this.
 
We really have to get rid of directional TR's, the results must be independent on who the sender is!

This seems like the biggest required change to internal trade routes. Currently the ITR yield depends entirely on the difference between growth and production in each city -- and the target city always gets the large boost. It creates the bizarre situation where a brand new 1 pop city can be sending 6 food and 12 hammers to your 20 pop cap. Shouldn't be possible -- the smaller city should get the bigger boost regardless of which one is the target/sender.

With properly mirrored ITRs, they would basically only be used to boost new cities to catch up in growth/production, but cities that already have high growth/production wouldn't benefit much from ITRs. To keep big cities growing bigger you'd need to do it the old fashioned way, with buildings and improvements.

Honestly if this was fixed I doubt the -50% internal TR yield would be needed.



Speaking of not overnerfing... I'd really like to see the Trade Depot give 1 trade route and the Autoplant give another 1 trade route (not as a quest, but as the central feature -- get rid of the autoplant specialists). Makes the TRs a little more dynamic, and gives you a real reason to research & build autoplants.


Edit: Ultrasonic fence quest definitely needs to go -- my suggestion would be a choice between +1 effective range and extra city HP.

Double edit: The suggestion to make Trade Depot give 1 route and Autoplant 1 route would, I think, work out similar to the trade route per pop suggestion, since you would still have to scale up your cities to built the Autoplant and get the 2nd route, and you would not be able to get 2nd routes going until later in the game once you have Robotics researched. (Maybe make it so you can't buy Trade Depots / Autoplants to reinforce necessity for organic growth.) But compared to the TR-per-pop version splitting routes between Trade Depot and Autoplant would probably be a lot simpler to code.
 
I think with the toning down of trade routes and such this mod brings, I feel really pushed to rush spy agency.

My suggestion would be to make spy agency give +2 spies down from 3.
 
@Albie 123
Hi mate. Excellent mod. I will start a new game and I have a mod list. If you or anyone can tell me if any of the below mods is not compatible or is redundant with your mods I will remove them as I like your mods the best:

  1. Aliens - Unlimited Exp (v.1)
  2. Stronger Explorers (v.1)
  3. Trade Route Duration - 80 (v.1)
  4. Units - Exp Cap Remover (v.3)
  5. Flexible Starting Locations (v.1)
  6. Free Road and MagRail(v.1)
  7. Simple Clock (v.1)
  8. North European Space Organization (v.6)
  9. Eurospace (v.2)
  10. BeBa - Beyond Balance (v.1)
  11. Cities 4 Tiles Away (v.1)
  12. Colorful Tech Web (v.9)
  13. JDF's The Iron Pact (v.1)
  14. New Albion Republic (v.3)
  15. Player Colour for Units (v.3)
  16. Previous Route in Red (v.1)
  17. InfoAddict (v.3)
  18. Enhanced Loadout (v.5)
  19. United Commonwealth of Nations (v.7)
  20. Siege Range Increase (v.1)
  21. Advanced Game Option (v.1)
  22. Visiually Distinctive Terrains - Arid Biome (v.1)
  23. JDF's (but really LastSword's) Galactic Polish Empire (v.1)
  24. JDF's The Holy See (v.2)
  25. Nuevos Aires Coalition (v.3)
  26. USAF Stargate Command (v.4)
  27. User Interface Tweaks (v.1)
  28. The Brotherhood of NOD (v.1)

Thanks in advance mate.
 
It always annoys me (a little) that, you can create production and food by establishing internal trade routes. It would find it much more logical and exciting if we could only distribute material goods (production and food) between cities, not create it by trade. that's something I would really love to see.

I think this change would promote to create specialised powerhouse cities. I would want to have a city with a massive food surplus, to kickstart my newer cities growth, same with production. This gives me an interesting conflict of how much do I want to grow my powerhouse city, and how much food do I want to send to the smaller one. Just a typical short-term vs. long term decision. Same with production. A change like that would probably require to have some of the buildings for enhanced food or production buffed, in oder to compensate the net "loss" of overall food/production. Which is in turn something, that I personally see positively, because a lot of the buildings just feel weak and a little underwhealming.

What do you guys think about that?
 
Also I really dont think it is possible but IMHO resource logic in Civ 5 and BE is flawed. You have an oil well for 50 turns and later you make something that requires oil and you are out of oil. Why the hell you do not store it?
If the resources would make a pool and you use it thru that pool it would really rock and make much more sense. If you are making the armor of a unit from firaxite why would you keep paying firaxite each turn. To pay oil it makes sense as it is fuel.
 
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