Buffed AI for BNW

[joosegoose25]

Thanks for the clarification. I started playing and have another question, though--how can you tell the buffs and nerfs are taking effect? There's no promotion on my archers, and the damage calculator doesn't show a -20% nerf or any such thing. Is it something the game knows and the damage calculator won't necessarily reflect?

 

[glider1]

At the moment the only way of knowing is by comparing with the base game or doing the maths based off the xml data. The interface shows you the real numbers, but it won't mean much unless you knew what the originals were. Here is a graphic that demonstrates the difference:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13294752&postcount=106
(this link is also useful because it links to an explanation of the games combat mechanics)

If we ever finish beta testing this mod, I'll probably have to look into adding proper graphical icons and the like before releasing it on Steam, but at the moment it is of little concern to me because it doesn't affect game play and after a while, you tend to play by feeling anyway once you get used to the changes (it becomes automatic). All I look at now in the bottom left corner is to see what promotions the enemy has, and sometimes the other modifiers.

EDIT: There are also not a lot of people playing this mod yet to make it worth the substantial effort of adding icons etc.

 

[dhialuck]

Hi Glider, thank you once again for making the game playable again for me. I have a small concern/request concerning peace treaties, I believe they are simply put: broken (not because of your mod don't worry)

Issue #1: When at war with an A.I in which it is definitely winning the war, if the peace option becomes open and you ask the A.I what will make this deal work, it will ask for a lot (gold, cities, luxuries etc.) which is consistent with the course of the war, but then if you immediately offer a blank peace it accepts!!
I have had this happen to me every single game consistently because I am usually last in military but never lose a city because I always manage to hold off the attack until the peace option becomes open, typically with my city having 10% HP and surrounded by the A.I who asks for 2 cities and gold for peace but accepts a blank peace treaty
A solution to this would be to.. never mind actually I think this has to be a bug that you can spot in the code

Issue #2: The A.I seems to have a cool-down of certain turns before opening the peace negotiation option even if it is threatening its entire existence it will refuse to negotiate until that period elapses.
Well I understand this can be for balance purposes/avoid exploits as in to prevent a bullying player from declaring war every 10 turns and extracting a tribute for peace. But there is a simple solution for this which is allow negotiations right away if the A.I is significantly weaker but have the A.I accept no less than a blank peace for the first turns of the war until the said cool-down period elapses.
Again this happens to me every game pretty much, usually when I declare war on a weak A.I without a conquest goal in mind and would like to offer blank peace, but the A.I refuses to negotiate and keeps suiciding his army and resources on me until that period elapses and it comes begging me for peace offering his wife and kitchen sink while I would have offered a blank peace had he allowed me

I have more issues and solutions but lets see what you think of these first.

EDIT: I started a beta 9 emperor game btw, if you have a question or requests let me know. I will also post some observations or updates if you want!

 

[joncnunn]

This mod is basically set and forget. Pick your normal difficulty level and go. After a while, you don't even realise that there is a difference between this mod and the standard game. Try different things out. You don't always have to play the science race game.

The current Beta version appears to have gotten Immortal right , the previous versions on Immortal had played a bit closer to standard Emperor.

(I'm actually in last place on number of techs midway thru Rean. era) I've bypassed some so I'm not doing as bad as the number of techs would indicate. I'm in fact expecting a slingshot when more of the RAs I've signed complete and I go back to get them. (This is closest to what Immortal would be if you played against Persia clones, I've chosen Persia since in my experience in BNW they do the best job with science. Both good and bad AI flavors stand out like a sore thumb in base game on Immortal.)

AIs picking different techs than you would is actually a good thing due to trade routes and also a minor discount when you research those. (Or not so minor if the world congress adopts scholarship)

Rationalism could still be useful as part of your strategy. It still can be good, just no where near as good as the base game.

With the mod, the main benefit on opening Rationalism is building PT. With more competitive AI in science, RAs more much more valuable than in base game. (As long as you sign RAs with multiple AIs, the more the better)

And at least on Immortal, on the section that isn't adaptive if you don't put enough effort on science, the AI can get a higher rate (from the increasing per era bonuses) even if the adaptive part turns itself off.

If you are going for science victory, you'll always want (most of) Rationalism ASAP and this tends to be true for Diplomatic as well, but there can be Cultural games in which you win faster by faster aesthetics completion with the mod. (Depends upon the timing of those policies.) Still after you've completed Aesthetics, if you haven't opened an ideology yet, Rationalism is bound to be the be the polices that would most speed up your victory. I can't really see this changing without junking the Rationalism tree entirely, and swapping each of the science sub policy out with one each from several other trees.

(As a side note, BE is including a Knowledge virtue, so it's likely to be just as OP in BE that Rationalism is in Civ V. It will be somewhat of a lesser extent though since some of the research bonuses are in other virtues.)

 

[joncnunn]

Thanks for the clarification. I started playing and have another question, though--how can you tell the buffs and nerfs are taking effect? There's no promotion on my archers, and the damage calculator doesn't show a -20% nerf or any such thing. Is it something the game knows and the damage calculator won't necessarily reflect?

That's because the base strength factor shown already includes it.

Hi Glider, thank you once again for making the game playable again for me. I have a small concern/request concerning peace treaties, I believe they are simply put: broken (not because of your mod don't worry)

Issue #1: When at war with an A.I in which it is definitely winning the war, if the peace option becomes open and you ask the A.I what will make this deal work, it will ask for a lot (gold, cities, luxuries etc.) which is consistent with the course of the war, but then if you immediately offer a blank peace it accepts!!
I have had this happen to me every single game consistently because I am usually last in military but never lose a city because I always manage to hold off the attack until the peace option becomes open, typically with my city having 10% HP and surrounded by the A.I who asks for 2 cities and gold for peace but accepts a blank peace treaty
A solution to this would be to.. never mind actually I think this has to be a bug that you can spot in the code

Issue #2: The A.I seems to have a cool-down of certain turns before opening the peace negotiation option even if it is threatening its entire existence it will refuse to negotiate until that period elapses.
Well I understand this can be for balance purposes/avoid exploits as in to prevent a bullying player from declaring war every 10 turns and extracting a tribute for peace. But there is a simple solution for this which is allow negotiations right away if the A.I is significantly weaker but have the A.I accept no less than a blank peace for the first turns of the war until the said cool-down period elapses.
Again this happens to me every game pretty much, usually when I declare war on a weak A.I without a conquest goal in mind and would like to offer blank peace, but the A.I refuses to negotiate and keeps suiciding his army and resources on me until that period elapses and it comes begging me for peace offering his wife and kitchen sink while I would have offered a blank peace had he allowed me

I have more issues and solutions but lets see what you think of these first.

EDIT: I started a beta 9 emperor game btw, if you have a question or requests let me know. I will also post some observations or updates if you want!

Both of these issues occur in the base game even without the mod.
#2 is a design decision that's been in since the beginning [but note that it's only about 5 turns unless the war is from an alliance], but #1 appears to have only started appearing in the game with the current fall BNW patch. Unfortunately, with BE scheduled for release next month, I'm thinking that future patches to Civ V are unlikely.

 

[glider1]

Dhialuck, Issue #2 is silly I agree. I'll put it on the TODO list because it seems like it shouldn't be very hard to fix. Thanks for that. Haven't experienced issue #1.

I remember why I didn't give the AI attack bonus to AI cities, just their units. I wanted to give the player the option to raid the AI with low unit counts, without being devastated by hits from the city attack alone. It really makes for lame game play to be killed off only by city ranged attack.

There is a little bit of hope for one more patch to BNW I personally believe. If BE is basically the same AI engine, they might well port over the AI improvements they make to BNW and release a patch after Civ6 is announced, so as to reinvigorate interest in the civ community and sales for Civ6. Only a theory....

Joncnunn, glad to hear that you are getting an improvement on immortal. I am on emperor as well. I have never had feedback from other players about other difficulties so just don't know about them. I buffed quite a few of the difficulty levels in beta #9, but have not actually tried them out.

On the topic of passive buffs verses adaptive buffs, As Joncnunn has noticed, If I push up the passive buffs too much, that puts the emphasis back onto science too much because the passive buffs are science sensitive. If I withdraw the passive buffs too much, that puts all the emphasis on population, because the adaptive buffs are population sensitive.

So if you are noticing that you have to prioritise science over population, that will indicate that the passive buffs are too high.

On the topic of improving the AI. This mod is an ideal platform, because the passive buffs are set to be lower than normal, so that the adaptive buff system kicks in. The better the AI get's, the more the adaptive buffs will turn off. So the handicapping system should be set and forget. In the mean time while there are no deep AI improvements, game play remains consistently high. That is the aim.

In my own game, I'm really noticing improvements in the tactics of science and the worthiness of RA's and espionage. One unintended effect that I think is really nice, is that the player is better off beelining down a particular path rather than just progressing steadily through the entire tech tree. The reason is, that not only do you get the benefits of beelining, but it appears to the adaptive buff system, that you are not teching as fast because your total quantity of techs is actually quite low. So the unintended benefit is that it encourages strategic thinking through the tech tree, and it emphasises taking risks.

 

[joncnunn]

I just entered the modern era in my game. Immortal in this appears to be approaching base game's Deity level as far as science goes in the mid Industrial.

It looks like "-8" is the current Immortal level while "-6" was the previous Immortal level beta version, maybe "-7" would be closest to base game's Immortal level?
I suspect this means that Deity should be at "-10" (also half way between the current & previous versions)

On other changes, if it's not too difficult I'd have the AI only place spies on the players they don't like instead of their friends. Humans really get mad when a friendly AI steals their techs.

continuation of above game:

170: Carthage build Forbidden Palace
Rome proposes Banning Cotton. I'm getting that thru my city state ally. I'm not seeing any other sources, but with so much of the world not explored yet ...

171: Spain wants to be friends. OK

173: Great Prophet born -> Holy Shrine

174: America completes Globe Theater. No, I wasn't building it at the time, I'm actually in the middle of building Leaning Tower, but had intended to choose Globe Theater as my free wonder.
Spain steals Printing Press. We have an active friendship

175: America completes H Castle

177: I complete Leaning Tower -> GE

178: I meet a city state, no more left

180: Carthage wants to be friends. OK

181: I complete Sistine (via the above free GE)
I discover Lake Victoria. 1 left

185: I open Rationalism, not wanting to triger a GA only 100 points away from one nor wanting the free Great Artist yet

188: Carthage declares war on Incas.

189: GS born -> academy next turn

190: America & Greece enter Industrial era

191: I discover Grand Mesa, no more natural wonders left.

192: RA completes

193: Carthage enters Industrial Era
I enter Industrial Era via Industrialization (I chose this to avoid having another Great Prophet born which would have if I waited until Sci Theory)

Beginning of Industrial Era status

Me: 36 techs. #1 pop, crops. Last science

Rome: 38 techs. Rean

Ott: 39 techs. Rean. Last is most categories. At war with Carthage. Friends with me & America

Incas: 39 techs. Rean era. At war with America & Carthage

America: 40 techs. Industrial era. #1 man goods, land, science. At war Incas. Friends with me, Ott, and Carthage

Carthage: 39 techs. Industrial era. #1 troops, approval. At war with Ott & Incas. Friends with me & America

Greece: 39 techs. Industrial era. #1 GNP

Spain: 39 techs. Rean era. Last in approval. Friends with me.

194: Rome enters Industrial era.
World Congress welcome city states.
While I could deny Carthage the chair, it would make them a lock to propose resolutions so I vote for myself.

195: America completes Taj Mahal
RA completes
As expected, Carthage became host.

196: Spain enters Industrial era
I use first faith based GE to rush Uffizini. (Lots of AIs have at least 1 sub policy into it while none have sub policy into Rationalism)

197: Carthage completes Red Fort

200: Incas enter Industrial era
Carthage captures city from Inca. It's on Incas starting landmass.
I add Flourishing of the Arts, extending a GA that just started by 10 more turns.

201: I vote for Arts Funding

202: Ottomans enter Industrial era
Arts funding passed 10 - 2
Banning Cotton fails 8 - 7

203: Carthage proposes embargo of Incas
Greece proposes banning Cotton

205: I complete PT. Free GS - > Academy

206: RA completes.

207: Carthage enters Modern era. Carthage adopts Autocracy

208: Carthage captures Inca's capital. Incas have two cities left, but this kills the luxury deal.

210: I add Artistic Genus (to fill Ufizini)

211: Spain declares war on Ottomans.
RA completes

212: Greece enters modern era. Greece adopts Order

215: America adopts order

216: Rome denouces me.
Ottomans enter modern era.
World Congress expands infrastructure
I actually don't want anyone that could get it since they've all adopted an ideology that I won't be. I vote for myself
I denounce Rome

217: Ottomans adopt Freedom
Carthage remains host.

218: Carthage & Incas sign peace treaty.
I complete Oxford and choose Radio to advance to modern era.

Beginning of modern era status

Me: 46 techs. Last in science.

Rome: 49 techs. Industrial era

Ottomans: 48 techs. Worst in troops. At war with Carthage & Spain. Freedom Civil Resistance wanting Order. Overall -2. Modern era

Incas: 47 techs. #1 approval. Worst in population, crops, man goods, and GNP. At war with America. Industrial era

America: 51 techs. #1 pop, crops, GNP, land, science. Worst happiness. At war with Incas. Content with their Order, but their overall happiness is -5. Modern era.

Carthage: 50 techs. #1 man goods & troops. At war with Ottomans. Autocracy, but has dissents wanting Order. Overall happiness +4. Modern era

Greece: 51 techs. Content with their Order. +12 global happiness. Modern era

Spain: 49 techs. At war with Ottomans. Industrial era

I'm in best position for a cultural victory, biggest threat is that there is a chance someone could launch the spaceship.

Attached are screenshots of beginning of Industrial & Modern eras.

 

[glider1]

The endgame is really difficult to balance. If the AI falls into unhappiness, their tech rate can really drop off big time and you could catch up quickly. Thanks for the suggestion on the passive buff number, I'll give it serious thought.

EDIT: problem is if you were to have a fertile start same map, you might have done a lot better? Do you think you made a mistake in your strategy somewhere along the line that caused you to be last in tech? Should you have been more militarily aggressive? Just throwing ideas around. Maybe you focused too much on population growth?

 

[joncnunn]

EDIT: problem is if you were to have a fertile start same map, you might have done a lot better? Do you think you made a mistake in your strategy somewhere along the line that caused you to be last in tech? Should you have been more militarily aggressive? Just throwing ideas around. Maybe you focused too much on population growth?

Possible, but the only more fertile maps than this that included two cows are grassland bias civs.

No, I took the best tech path allowed with the combo of NC not allowed to be constructed until Education but only needing a regular library.
I'd have needed there to NOT have been two barb camps on opposite sides at the start to have been able to spend the turn count on Great Library.

No, my territory was much better than Romes, our UUs are similar times but Romes is much better so it's better to fact them after.

No, there really wasn't any defendable 5th city sites near me.

Anyway I'm abandoning the game in the modern era, Rome & America DOWed me the same turn and looks to have been an alliance. While I could fight off Rome and America wasn't a factor to the war itself (other than an auto-killed trade route), it canceled an RA so to recover I'd have to back track to whichever turn I had signed it which was before America adopted their ideology.

The war itself was actually going in my favor as I had defeated Rome's invasion force, but its obvious from which wonders have been taken that some AI will launch the spaceship (most likely America) before I can win culturally. (I saw Rome going to attack a mile away and had castles ready)

Actually, my guess is my biggest mistake was using the Leaning Tower's Great Engineer for Sistine, there were very few turns I had that theming bonus as it directly competes with Uffinizi, I should have held onto it longer after America built Globe Theater while I was building Leaning Tower. This in turn would have meant I had the 2 faith based GEs for Effiel Tower + Broadway instead of just one of them.

 

[glider1]

Wow, what a turn of events from previous betas. The fact that you were dowed is an indicator of the increase in the AI declare war probability, and possibly the negative modifier for rapid tall expansion.

Ways forward:

• Do nothing, try again
• Remove the AI-AI research bonus
• Scale back passive buff?
• Reduce the tech funnel width by one which also decreases the tech catch up strength and increases the diversity of teching rates
• Decrease the AI declare war prob?

That you were almost winning a battle indicates to me that the combat buffs are about right.

EDIT: In your game the AI tech spread seemed good (the AIs have different numbers of techs).

 

[glider1]

The AI declare war prob of 130% is perfect for emperor. It doesn't cause dogpiling on the player so long as the player does the diplomacy right (might well need religion to keep the peace). It is possible to run a very small military even with two powerful neighbours that both resent my tall expansion on 130%.

 

[glider1]

I'm now last in tech on emperor, like you were on immortal. This mod is now the reverse of the unmodified game You start out equal with the AI in tech and then start falling behind in tech from the renaissance onward!

EDIT:
Beta #9 I think has two issues:

• The per-era immortal passive buff was set too high as Joncnunn observed
• The tech funnel is too successful at keeping the AI's too far ahead of the player in tech.

I think I noticed that the range of game options hinging on science, are most interesting when half the AI's are roughly equal or a couple of techs ahead of the player. I'll adjust the tech funnel for that goal so that it keeps it like that, unless the AI pulls ahead or falls behind for other reasons.

I think I'll also level off the AI declare war prob at 130%, which seems to be a good balance between docile AI's and AIs that gang up on the player too aggressively.

 

[joncnunn]

The AI declare war prob of 130% is perfect for emperor. It doesn't cause dogpiling on the player so long as the player does the diplomacy right (might well need religion to keep the peace). It is possible to run a very small military even with two powerful neighbours that both resent my tall expansion on 130%.

I'm actually thinking that AI Rome had been wanting to go to war with me for a few thousand years earlier but was afraid to do so until it got backing since my military stayed close enough. If I had adopted Order, Rome wouldn't have gotten America to join.
But with cause of my defeat not being military but instead failure to get enough of the required wonders for cultural victory, it wasn't a factor.
(Rome didn't build any of those wonders and in fact had a low tourism per turn count [few great works to acquire] so it wouldn't have helped much if I had conquered them)

I'm now last in tech on emperor, like you were on immortal. This mod is now the reverse of the unmodified game You start out equal with the AI in tech and then start falling behind in tech from the renaissance onward!

EDIT:
Beta #9 I think has two issues:

• The per-era immortal passive buff was set too high as Joncnunn observed
• The tech funnel is too successful at keeping the AI's too far ahead of the player in tech.

I think I noticed that the range of game options hinging on science, are most interesting when half the AI's are roughly equal or a couple of techs ahead of the player. I'll adjust the tech funnel for that goal so that it keeps it like that, unless the AI pulls ahead or falls behind for other reasons.

I think I'll also level off the AI declare war prob at 130%, which seems to be a good balance between docile AI's and AIs that gang up on the player too aggressively.

If you're also facing tech issues at Emperor, I think the funnel shouldn't be symmetric around 0 (growing in both directions equally when eras advance).

In below section + means that AI is that many techs ahead while - means that AI is that many techs behind.

How about Ancient +1 to -2
Classical +1 to -3
Midevil +2 to -4
Rean +2 to -6
Industrial +3 to -9
Modern +3 to -12
Atomic +3 to unlimited (I was thinking -15 as a real value, but there's probably not 15 techs remaining in the tree from when Atomic era entered)
Information +3 to unlimited (Might not even be 12 techs left to discover from there)

Between this turning off this portion of the bonus earlier when the AI is too successful and lowering Immortal's per era one and Diety's two I think this will do it combined with the ones a bit further behind getting a boost to avoid dropping out entirely.

On the turning off past +3, I figure that's the most extra techs the AI could have with the human still having a decent shot at a spaceship victory. It also is about the limit that the AI could be ahead in total number of techs in which the human could still have a lead in one area of the tree if several AIs are at it.

Meanwhile, it's Rean era and especially Industrial eras in which some AIs tend to fall out of it completely, so that's why I'm thinking the lower bounds should start growing a lot there.

 

[glider1]

Ok, I've coded the tech funnel as you have said (because I agree).

I've left the AI declare war prob where it is because you said that the reason you were double dowed was not really because of AI dogpiling (I also think that 135% should not trigger dogpiling). However, I do like how the AI will be more willing to DOW player and therefore disrupt trade routes and research agreements (which slows player progress down).

I've toned down the passive per era buffs for immortal and deity to (-7, -10).

I've toned down the AI science catch up rate a bit. In my game, Shaka was outside the tech funnel until he was sucked into it 6 techs behind in the ind/modern era and within 12 turns was 2 techs ahead!

EDIT:
I'll give beta #10 a test and upload later today.

 

[joncnunn]

Ok, I've coded the tech funnel as you have said (because I agree).

I've left the AI declare war prob where it is because you said that the reason you were double dowed was not really because of AI dogpiling (I also think that 135% should not trigger dogpiling). However, I do like how the AI will be more willing to DOW player and therefore disrupt trade routes and research agreements (which slows player progress down).

I've toned down the passive per era buffs for immortal and deity to (-7, -10).

I've toned down the AI science catch up rate a bit. In my game, Shaka was outside the tech funnel until he was sucked into it 6 techs behind in the ind/modern era and within 12 turns was 2 techs ahead!

EDIT:
I'll give beta #10 a test and upload later today.

A couple of the AIs may have been dogpiled though it that game. (Another AI seeking they are weak while fighting another war.) But in one of these two cases it's arguably the victim's fault for denouncing an AI.
(Something else to consider for AI enhancements, perhaps it's best to avoid denouncing someone who's stronger than you.)

Cool

 

[glider1]

The AI declare war prob is only on humans. AI declare war on each other as per normal except that they can resent other AIs tall expansion which is the only difference from the base game.

Beta #10 is going great! Really nice control with the new algorithm. I've loaded up into my game and low and behold the AI tech lead has dropped to +3 with some overshoot and diversity.

The meaningfulness of decisions in this mod is much higher because trade deals and agreements all matter.

EDIT: The algorithm allows for any tech funnel boundaries we want +\- for whatever era we think.

 

[Xaviarlol]

I've toned down the AI science catch up rate a bit. In my game, Shaka was outside the tech funnel until he was sucked into it 6 techs behind in the ind/modern era and within 12 turns was 2 techs ahead!

EDIT:
I'll give beta #10 a test and upload later today.

Can you pls update beta 10 when you get a chance? Mongolia has 350 science in a 10 pop city and we are only in the industrial era!

 

[glider1]

Sorry Xaviorlol! I've been playing solidly beta #10 for probably 10 hours today and didn't get around to uploading. At least you know it has been well play tested!

Beta #10 is playing a nice game for me on emperor that is keeping me on the one-more-turn thing all the way to the end, hope so for you too.

Replace beta #9 with #10 and keep playing. You might notice as I did in my #9-#10 game, that in about 10-30 turns the AI's tech rate should settle back to being 0-3 techs ahead of you. Not necessarily all the AI's but the competitive ones. The AI's that have fallen behind can rapidly catch up in tech towards the end of the game so watch out for that.

Important note for this mod: Don't look at the AI's science rate, look at its tech rate. You can see how many techs the AI has got in the score breakdown and compare it with yourself. If you look at the AIs science rate you are going to be shocked, because the adaptive buff in this mod is aggressively boosting and withdrawing science yield from the AI to keep it teching competitively. So the AI science rate changes a lot because of how this mod works....If you see that the science rate is huge, it is probably only going to stay like that for a dozen turns or so while the AI catches up or is held up, so that at the end of the day, it will be competitive with you not in science, but in tech.

Beta #10 notes:

• The accuracy of the tech funnel is +/- 1 tech, so when Joncnunn said for the AI to have a +3 tech lead, it can be +4. Likewise, if an AI is really huge with lots of cities, it might even stalemate at one tech below +3. So I have adjusted Joncnunn's values a little bit to reflect the overshoot error in the tech funnel.
• The passive per era bonus on emperor (-5) combined with the adaptive buff is working really nicely on emperor. AIs are able to defend themselves so make sure you bring plenty of units if you want to capture a 150 strength city. The AI fights back hard.

EDIT:
I honestly think that this mod is balanced up until the atomic/information age on emperor (for experienced all-round players that is). The endgame balance is going to be really interesting to see how you find it. I'm really not sure whether people will think the endgame is still too easy, or even that it is too hard....

 

[Xaviarlol]

Sorry Xaviorlol! I've been playing solidly beta #10 for probably 10 hours today and didn't get around to uploading. At least you know it has been well play tested!

Beta #10 is playing a nice game for me on emperor that is keeping me on the one-more-turn thing all the way to the end, hope so for you too.

Replace beta #9 with #10 and keep playing. You might notice as I did in my #9-#10 game, that in about 10-30 turns the AI's tech rate should settle back to being 0-3 techs ahead of you. Not necessarily all the AI's but the competitive ones. The AI's that have fallen behind can rapidly catch up in tech towards the end of the game so watch out for that.

Important note for this mod: Don't look at the AI's science rate, look at its tech rate. You can see how many techs the AI has got in the score breakdown and compare it with yourself. If you look at the AIs science rate you are going to be shocked, because the adaptive buff in this mod is aggressively boosting and withdrawing science yield from the AI to keep it teching competitively. So the AI science rate changes a lot because of how this mod works....If you see that the science rate is huge, it is probably only going to stay like that for a dozen turns or so while the AI catches up or is held up, so that at the end of the day, it will be competitive with you not in science, but in tech.

Beta #10 notes:

• The accuracy of the tech funnel is +/- 1 tech, so when Joncnunn said for the AI to have a +3 tech lead, it can be +4. Likewise, if an AI is really huge with lots of cities, it might even stalemate at one tech below +3. So I have adjusted Joncnunn's values a little bit to reflect the overshoot error in the tech funnel.
• The passive per era bonus on emperor (-5) combined with the adaptive buff is working really nicely on emperor. AIs are able to defend themselves so make sure you bring plenty of units if you want to capture a 150 strength city. The AI fights back hard.

EDIT:
I honestly think that this mod is balanced up until the atomic/information age on emperor (for experienced all-round players that is). The endgame balance is going to be really interesting to see how you find it. I'm really not sure whether people will think the endgame is still too easy, or even that it is too hard....

Thanks! Will try it out.

The civ that had 330 science in one city was already one of the tech leaders (so not catching up). Unsure if that means anything. Seems like in my game (immortal difficulty) that everyone is teching up really fast - I'm in the 13th century about researching riflemen, and the AI's are a few techs ahead.

 

[glider1]

No probs. The passive buffs were set too high in #9. That will also be because of the tech funnel shape in #9. It was a symmetrical funnel so that AIs would be boosted either if they were behind or ahead in tech. In #10, the tech funnel shape is asymmetrical. It draws back AIs that are behind in tech harder and faster than it boosts AIs that are ahead in tech.