BeBa - Beyond Balance

[albie_123]

This is a promising mod Albie but you're getting carried away with stuff that isn't needed.

Rejinaldo UA: Units have +10% Strength in melee combat and may move after attacking.

This is...massively OP.

I fail to see how. This isn't blitz - you can't attack twice a turn.

STATIONS:
Stations now spawn slightly later.
Stations spawn further away from cities and outposts, but closer to other stations.

Stations are mostly unwanted because of the laughably overpowered state of the other trade routes.

No, one of the biggest problems people have with stations is that they invariably take the best spot for your second city. The AI especially has problems with this.

As for the bug, I'm working on it. Please be patient.

 

[Ryika]

STATIONS:
Stations now spawn slightly later.
Stations spawn further away from cities and outposts, but closer to other stations.

Stations are mostly unwanted because of the laughably overpowered state of the other trade routes. If you fix the real issue, ie that trade routes are imbalanced, then there is no need to mess around with spawn times and ranges of Stations.

I disagree. See: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=536611
Just making stations stronger wouldn't change anything about how annoying that is.

Their vanilla timing just interferes with early expansion strategies and there's really not much you can do about that - it's a 50:50 bet, and that's just bad design.

 

[Jimbo30]

I've played a ton of games and only once have I seen the AI take the "best spot" with a Station. It wasn't even that good - it was just a safe spot that I might have moved in to.

Even so, I don't see how that's a bad thing if it happens irregularly. That's a lot more desirable than shoving stations out of the way just because they don't suit early expansion, at a time when "early expansion" is basically breaking the game along with internal trade routes.

 

[Jimbo30]

I fail to see how. This isn't blitz - you can't attack twice a turn.

What about attacking defenders then moving out of say, city bombardment range? It's extremely unlikely that the AI will be able to make use of such an upgrade, but a human player will - with very strong melee units.

 

[Jimbo30]

Let's look at the station move another way.

Consider I'm playing full industry, OCC. I *want* nearby stations - the closer the better. What does this change do for me except make my already difficult task much harder?

Now I'm not saying you should break the game by accommodating my personal OCC wishes - but what you are doing is breaking somebody's OCC game preference because of what is, tbh, a very minor issue of random station placement. A better thing would be to build the station on turn 2 and give the player the choice of playing a *different* game instead of their usual city/trade spam, wouldn't it?

Let's say Stations spawned on turn 2, you would know where they were before it was an issue and you would be able to change your gameplan before it became an issue. By moving them further away or making them spawn later (how do you know when *I* like to build my 2nd city btw?) you actually just break the game for everything that isn't the current Prosperity-colony-spam meta.

 

[albie_123]

v0.111 up. Bug (presumably) fixed. AI wonder bug also probably fixed.

 

[Ryika]

I've played a ton of games and only once have I seen the AI take the "best spot" with a Station. It wasn't even that good - it was just a safe spot that I might have moved in to.

Even so, I don't see how that's a bad thing if it happens irregularly. That's a lot more desirable than shoving stations out of the way just because they don't suit early expansion, at a time when "early expansion" is basically breaking the game along with internal trade routes.

It's bad because you still have to get that settler if you want to be efficient but can't really do anything about that station. Either it lands and costs you 5-10 turns, or it doesn't. No skill involved. No decisionmaking (even with 10 turns delay, it's still the strongest choice). Just annoying rng.

But I agree, it could be solved both ways. Making them drop much earlier would allow you to change your plan and for example train some soldiers first if you really want that spot. Or just move into another direction. But making them land during the time you're likely to expand is just bad.

 

[tyranny12]

Having spent the last couple hours attempting to figure out how to troubleshoot a mod in Civ5/BE, I am amazed at the (perceived) difficulty in actually grabbing the source of a mod and helping. First time I've dived in to Civ5 modding in detail in years - last time was before the SDK was this advanced.

The barrier of entry is immense. Guess no play time until I get back home in a week or so.

 

[albie_123]

For what it's worth, I barely use the SDK. I just use Notepad+ outside of modbuddy.

 

[Aeraesoria]

There is apparent issues with the AI and how stupid they are (examples of this is, "Your stealing resource pods or ruins, ect, ect near our boarders" when the AI does the same exact thing when near your boarders.), pretty much a copy pasta of Civ5 leader AI that is spotting in some areas.

One thing I don't see the AI using is said stations that pop up near them. There are other things as well that could use improving. Alien sea units block resources you have on sea tiles even if you are blue (friendly) with them, this is an annoying oversight by the development team. I'm forced to eliminate said Alien sea units because of them disrupting those tiles.

 

[TrinityJayOne]

v0.111 up. Bug (presumably) fixed. AI wonder bug also probably fixed.

I was in game when it was pushed, but just before getting the in-game update button I had a game where my turn 0 explorer had the 'add miasma' button on the half-there UI. Clicking it made them fortify

Anyways I started two games with the update in place and went a few turns in with zero issues so I think you might've got it.

 

[albie_123]

Fantastic.

It's almost definitely a problem with the way promotions work in Beyond Earth.

 

[Breszul]

Thanks so much for this mod. It makes BE playable for me, I really appreciate it!
There's something that bugs me that happened in all 3 games I played with BeBa. I haven't tried the latest version yet though (I tried the one with the UI bug and removed it) and I won't be able to try the new one since I will be away from home for the next few days. Also keep in mind that what I'm about to post might not be an issue with BeBa itself but with the game. The 3-4 games I played without BeBa were my first ones so I was not very familiar with the game.
Here's the issue: The AI has a hard time time/doesn't expand after 3 bases. In all 3 of the BeBa games I ended with 7,8+ bases and all of the AI players (maybe except 1) had 3. I did not notice anithing like this with my vanilla games. I usually play small maps with high sea level but there was still lots of real estate left for them until the endgame to expand.
As I said before this might have nothing to do with BeBa itself but i'll just leve it here incase it helps

 

[albie_123]

If you were playing the older version then it wasn't BeBa, as v.101 and v.102 did not affect the AI at all.

 

[Breszul]

Yeah I know, I'm clueless about civ moding and I was just wondering if the AI uses some sort of braindead conditions for expanding (like #of traderoutes) that broke. Anyway it's probably nothing, goodluck with your exams!

 

[Aeon221]

Move after attacking allows you to dance gunboats (close, attack, retreat) outside of an enemy city, then capture it with nil losses very early in the game. Later in the game you could cycle can units to hit an enemy multiple times in a row without exposing your units to counter attacks.

It also breaks a lot of the military play and rules as currently established. You aren't punished for making a risky attack or leaving a soldier out of position. Over the course of an aggressive game, it'll save you loads and loads of hammers.

10% combat power is already pretty beefy. If you absolutely must buff them, go with discounted military support.


I llike the idea of making outpost development slower because outposts are a good location for interesting interactions between the player and aliens.

I think you should definitely focus on negative health penalties before attacking either wonders or the early game. Making health a little less accessible is good, but I've had plenty of -20 or lower expansion periods without being seriously slowed down. Growth should definitely stop at -10, and maybe aliens need to start spawning if it gets to -20.

Finally, the win conditions need work. Someone just posted a vanilla 168 turn contact win on r/civ, which is insane! I'm not sure how to gate that one (at least x of any affinity? Need to build more super tacos?) given that there are still plenty of free tech slingshots, but that needs a look in.

 

[Ryika]

Move after attacking allows you to dance gunboats (close, attack, retreat) outside of an enemy city

You can already take most cities in 1 turn with boats... ^^ But I agree that the bonus sounds heavily overpowered when played by a human player.

 

[Stalker0]

TECHNOLOGY:
Clear Miasma moved earlier to Ecology.
Miasmic Repulsor moved later to Terraforming.

Don't see the balance need for this one, both techs do their job just fine.


I've also heard a lot of Tall vs Wide balance debates. I think its clear that BE is meant to be a wide game, its not Civ 5. The TR nerfs already weaken new cities a fair amount...but I think trying to push a tall balance is pushing towards a gameplay change.

 

[luraz]

Thanks so much for this mod. It makes BE playable for me, I really appreciate it!
There's something that bugs me that happened in all 3 games I played with BeBa. I haven't tried the latest version yet though (I tried the one with the UI bug and removed it) and I won't be able to try the new one since I will be away from home for the next few days. Also keep in mind that what I'm about to post might not be an issue with BeBa itself but with the game. The 3-4 games I played without BeBa were my first ones so I was not very familiar with the game.
Here's the issue: The AI has a hard time time/doesn't expand after 3 bases. In all 3 of the BeBa games I ended with 7,8+ bases and all of the AI players (maybe except 1) had 3. I did not notice anithing like this with my vanilla games. I usually play small maps with high sea level but there was still lots of real estate left for them until the endgame to expand.
As I said before this might have nothing to do with BeBa itself but i'll just leve it here incase it helps

Try playing on very hard mate, so one difficulty below Apollo. I just got my ass kicked with this mod on very hard. Standard game speed with standard map size and the AI developed more than 3 cities(Some even 5 cities). I have also noticed that the AI created some smart moves in a war, for example first bomb the hell out of a city/units with air units and then all in with ground warfare. I don't know if it has something to do with this mod, but I liked the way AI was fighting a war.

 

[albie_123]

TECHNOLOGY:
Clear Miasma moved earlier to Ecology.
Miasmic Repulsor moved later to Terraforming.

Don't see the balance need for this one, both techs do their job just fine.

This change was made for three reasons:

1. Clearing miasma is universally useful and is currently located on a Harmony tech - despite the fact that harmony are the one faction that has no need for miasma to be cleared.
2. The miasmic repulsor is awfully cheap and makes miasma (which is already a bit of a joke) a non-issue, and rather than altering its production values or weakening it I'd rather just push it back a little bit to a less-useful tech.
3. It melds better with changes I would like to make to miasma in the future. Miasma, however, does not function like any other feature (code-wise) and so this might be a pipe-dream.

I've also heard a lot of Tall vs Wide balance debates. I think its clear that BE is meant to be a wide game, its not Civ 5. The TR nerfs already weaken new cities a fair amount...but I think trying to push a tall balance is pushing towards a gameplay change.

I absolutely agree. Beyond Earth wants us to go wide and I have no issue with that, and while right now wide may be better it's not so much better that tall isn't viable or in some cases beneficial. For now, at least, I do not see it as an issue of balance or choice and so it's well and truly beyond the scope of this mod.