Getting Started

[Dhaeman]

IRT water tiles: Add +1f around a little after civil service. Also make a cheapish building that adds +1g to all water tiles late Medieval/early Renaissance. It makes puppet states weaker (which they need to be) to maximize gold output as it's unlikely to build this since it seems to favor Barracks and Culture buildings.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think there are two things at work here.

The Dutch were imbalanced in Civ IV given a heavy water map, and comparing anything balanced and especially "toned down" as it is in Civ V is not a proper comparison. The other thing to note is that the Financial trait was straight OP. The sheer weight of this trait made any civ that had it one of the better civs.

That said, I agree that the oceans are much more vital to our world than represented in the game. How one fixes that is difficult, however. If you give the water tiles +1 then you make them equivalent to a river grassland without modification. Add a lighthouse and you have a pre-civil service irrigated grassland. I don't think it is beyond reason therefore to add +1.

Where you get into possible is when you add gold. Commerce is so vitally important in this game that adding a gold to the water changes the game for coastal civs more than adding a food would be. Perhaps not (the tile with a lighthouse is 2 food and 2 gold the same as a TPd grassland), but extra gold for free early in the game would lead to some interesting options.

You have some very good points there, it'd been a year or so since I heavily played IV so I'd forgotten how overpowered financial was for the whole run of IV. In comparison, the civs in V are actually rather well-balanced. That said, I preferred the Dutch on standard Continents and Fractal maps, with normal coastal possibilities. The bonus was simply that island cities were quite fun to settle and develop. I feel no motivation to do that in V.

Like you say, the water tiles are underwhelming, and I agree that it's very difficult to balance. Even Lighthouse feels a bit early... I was thinking slightly later in the tech, possibly Optics or a Harbor, could give +1. It would simultaneously make Harbors worthwhile for setups other than archipelago maps, and fits thematically with their existing benefit. This perfectly fits with what you said too Dhaeman, as the Harbor is a late-Medieval building. Though it wouldn't weaken puppet states, as they tend to spam harbors on the coast.

 

[QES]

I have turned the Gradual Research off. I play on "Epic" settings, and I was only developing the railroad around the year 2000.

-Mitigation of Vanilla request-
Also, I would ask that someone make a decent mod to mitigate the Happiness cheating the AI utilizes. I've seen AI's with massive empires and also the happiest citizenry. As they conquer, they gain acess to more luxury goods, sure, but i have my doubts as to the sheer level of happiness being utilized. As it stands, someone said they get a happiness boost of 10 over the player. And at higher difficulties, there is a AIUnhappinessmodifier somewhere that makes them even more advantages in higher difficulties. I went in myself and modified the file, to give a progressively harsher penalty to AI's at lower levels and middling to beneficial modifiers at harder levels. (At prince, i've redone the modifier so that AIunhappiness is 150% of normal. Meaning that for every 2 unhappy people they normally produce, they have 3. This means with 20 empire wide unhappiness (assuming they get that far), they're actually at 30 - at this point they break even with the hardcoded boost I cannot find. Anything smaller and they have an advantage, anything higher and they're at disadvantage. But the AI does well with steam rolling, this minor rubber-band effect is easily mitigated by difficulty level.


Finally, I have some thoughts on Autocracy. I read around that it's not worth taking, and frankly "saving policy points for later" is kind of a let down and delayed gratification. I think that more late game policies should be up for grabs. The likelyhood of people winning through culture is still unlikely unless aimed at, but here's a subtle idea.

Trade-off buildings/wonders/nationalwonders.
The tradeoff building trades something bad for something good. Most building trade off are maintenance. But we have other options. Also - is it possible to restrict some buildings to certain policy holders? It would be nice to see buildables reflect the social policies established throughout a game.

Buildings (destroyable on conquering):

Local Government- ? , requires Liberty or Freedom.
Available at some point of the Industrial era.
+1 per 3 population of that city
+1 specialist slot of each kind of specialist.
-20%

National Park - ? , requires Tradition or Piety
Available at some point in the industrial era
-25%
+1 per specialist
+1 per civilization
+1 produced in each other civilization (they get angry faces)
(this becomes a competition, each park fends off the effects of enemy civilizations' parks, whoever has more gets a happiness boost while others get a unhappyness penalty)

Skunkworks - ? , requires Honor or Rationalism
Available at some point in the industrial era
+25 exp for all units
+1 per specialist
-3 per specialist (except artists)


Labor Union - ? , requires Order or Patronage
Available in the industrial era, Requires Factory
+1 per 3 population
+2 per 3 population (rations)
-25%

State Media Center - ? , requires Autocracy or Commerce
Available in the industrial era
+50% to social policy rate (culture for social policy purchases empire wide) (yes these stack)
+10%
+1 per 3 population of that city

This would make Autocracy much more appealing as going for it and or commerce could lead to a money-and-means warmongering state. As late game, grabbing state run media could net more and more policies - quickly running down the commerce and autocratic trees. 10 cities with media-centers would give a total of +500% to social policies purchasing. However, this would also mean +1/3 faces of that population. Keeping anger under control would be difficult, except that the autocratic tree helps mitigate some of this and the money saved from the autocratic and commerce trees could be funneled into happiness structures. Also it would make warmongering for resources more likely. Then using that money to buy more troops. This effectively would be the "late game *boom* technique." Where as elected liberal governments would tend towards smaller armies and more cash, and communists would run full on production.

I think that the autocratic policies themselves make sense, however fascism seems misguided. Fascism is the protection of corporate and private interests by the government. It's the extreme right of the economic political spectrum from communisms extreme left state-run enterprise. Perhaps Facism should not focus on "strategic" resources, but instead "luxury" resources as well. Perhaps each unique luxury resource should produce gold or hammers in every city? I dont know. But the link between corporations and the government should be obvious and beneficial under fascism. Perhaps All Merchant specialists should produce +1 hammers. Then spamming merchants would be doubly useful.




Also, and this is just a side note, Factories changed the world. I personally have factories set for +100% production and can make 3 engineers instead of one. They're expensive and take a long time to make, but they made smaller nations able to compete with bigger nations. A small industrialized nation should be able to conquer much of the non industrialized world (The Empire of England for example). I also Raised wealth to 60% eff. to go along with this.


Last Building, for "urbanization" in the modern age.
Grocer:
+1 per citizen
-1 per city in the empire (paying for food transport and competition)



EDIT: Another thought is that you could scrap all of the above, and make autocracy investment itself (the point of this post) both likely and desirable. Perhaps have autocracy have a progressive cheapening rate.

In this case I'd do the following:
Autocracy: -33% Unit Maintenence Costs, gain a free social policy.
Militarism: (prerequisite: Autocracy)-50% cost for buying units.
Police State: (prerequisite: Militarism) -50% Unhappiness in Annexed Cities. -1 per 3 population per city
Populism: (prerequisite: Autocracy)+25% damage from damaged military units. -33% Unit Maintence Cost. -1 per specialist. Gain a free social policy.
Fascism: (prerequisite: Populism) Double number of strategic resources, Merchant specialists produce +1 , -33% Unit Maintenance costs (total -99%), -1 per 3 population per city
World Conquest: (prerequisite: Police State, Fascism) -75% empire wide, +33% bonus for all Military Units


With this set up - one can run down the autocracy tree quickly, but at the end, one is bent on domination with nearly no unit maintenance. Getting other policies however becomes less likely with the culture grinding to a halt.

 

[evanbgood]

Just started playing with all these in the past couple of days and... yeah, I'm going to have trouble ever going back to the base game, I think. Brilliant work. The speed at which you made these is incredible.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Thalassicus, I cannot tell you how much more enjoyable this makes the game feel to me-one can only hope that the developers do the *sensible* thing & incorporate this into a future patch! Kudos on your *excellent* work-definitely won't be going back to Vanilla!

Aussie.

 

[Thalassicus]

Long marathon of updates today! I got all the improvements-based components wrapped up into one mod with the AI enhancements, and it includes a readme file (with pictures!) explaining details, rationale, placeholder for future update history, and gives credits. I also updated various threads and links to reflect this change. In addition, the bug fixes (to Free Thought etc) have been combined into a Balance - Fixes component, threads updated there too.

@evanbgood, @Aussie_Lurker
Thank you! I'm glad it's making the game more fun, that's my goal. That, and game modding's been a hobby for like 20 years for me (used to just be called hacking!). Love the Civ series more than any other games because when I was a kid I played lots of tabletop war boardgames with family, and Risk. We'd always fiddle with the rules then too to add even more fun to the experience.

@QES
I'll read through your post in depth as soon as I can tomorrow, crashing to sleep for now.

 

[MasterDinadan]

If I do anything to change cultural victories, people would be screaming bloody murder.

I could do it as a separate non-balance mod though, like the gradual research thing.

I didn't really want to derail the thread, so my early comment was just a short way of expressing something that's been on my mind.

And that is that culture victories have to be reworked... As it is, it's absurdly difficult to balance culture mechanics so that small civs do not easily coast to a culture victory AND large civs still pick up enough traits to get some interesting use of the mechanic. A lot of the trees like Autocracy are useless because the only kind of civ that could use it effectively would never get enough culture to really make it work (and will just opt for Honor instead).

Ideally a culture system should be designed so that having a larger empire doesn't necessarily make it harder to get a culture victory, but it doesn't make it especially easier (the current implementation fails, as it's much harder with a large empire). All other victory types encourage a large empire. I'm okay if culture wins "negate" this concept, but I don't want them to "reverse" it.
It would also have to allow large empires who aren't culture focused to actually take enough policies to give them significant flavor. Right now you just beeline for certain specific policies depending on the victory you are going for.

The kind of drastic change I'd like to make doesn't seem to be possible with XML modding, but I've got a few ideas which shouldn't be terribly hard to implement and may alleviate the issue slightly:
-Artist Specialists give more culture. Monument gives more culture (like the other improvements in your Greater People mod)
-Base policy cost reworked. It increases more slowly at the start and increases more quickly at the end.
-Utopia Project requires six policy branches completed.
(The combination of the above should be balanced so that culture victories are approximately the same difficulty as they currently are for small civs)
-The cost increase for extra cities is reduced and standardized across map sizes (it doesn't make any sense that it's lower on a bigger map)
-Reworking of Free Thought and Cristo Redentor, which encourage massive pooling of culture (boring! not sure exactly what to do with them though)

The combination of these factors means that a small culture-focuses empire doesn't see much change. They need more policies, but they earn more culture, and the costs are rebalanced as well, so it takes approximately the same amount of time. They just have more choices along the way.
A large culture-focused empire is a bit more viable than it was before because of the cost increase change. Currently, it's too hard, so making it a bit easier is a nice change I think.
A large non-culture-focused empire would get a lot more policies (because earlier policies are a lot cheaper) but can't stumble their way to a culture victory (because later policies are too expensive... You won't get enough without trying hard).

Two other changes I'd like to see, but I don't think are possible without much more advanced modding:
-Some means to get to a one-time "refund" on your policies and respend them. Probably a new wonder, such as Magna Carta.
-No means to reduce the cost of policies just by giving away your cities. This one probably isn't such a big exploit with the above changes though because you will be encouraged to buy policies as you can afford them.
-Significant bonus to culture production when a new era is reached, to help "jump start" progress into newly opened branches. Costs would be balanced with this jump start in mind.

The general feel of these last few changes is that players should never feel like they must pool culture in order to unlock a deep policy in a branch as soon as it becomes available. They can still save up to "slingshot" it, but the extra boost with each era will give them a temporary surge in policy rate that can help them obtain it in a reasonable amount of time even if they have spent every culture they've earned before this point.


Anyway, I feel like I've gone WAY off topic, but those are my thoughts for making the culture victory a little less odd.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm curious, why does the granary improve the yield of Bananas, Cows, Deer, Sheep, but not wheat?

 

[MasterDinadan]

I'm curious, why does the granary improve the yield of Bananas, Cows, Deer, Sheep, but not wheat?

It's because Wheat is improved with a farm.
Farms receive bonuses for Civil Service and/or Fertilizer. Pastures and Plantations never get better by default.
Giving them an extra food for granary is a way of making them balanced with wheat.
If wheat got all of the farm bonuses AND a granary bonus, wheat heavy starts would be a bit too powerful.

 

[Flying Bread]

These balances are great, there's no way I can go back to the original game's settings.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It's because Wheat is improved with a farm.
Farms receive bonuses for Civil Service and/or Fertilizer. Pastures and Plantations never get better by default.
Giving them an extra food for granary is a way of making them balanced with wheat.
If wheat got all of the farm bonuses AND a granary bonus, wheat heavy starts would be a bit too powerful.

Thanks. That makes sense - I figured there'd be a balance reason for it.

It's just a bit strange to see the resource that is realistically probably most affected by the granary not on the list. I can agree with the balance change, but I don't feel it's very elegant/intuitive.

 

[CYZ]

You have some very good points there, it'd been a year or so since I heavily played IV so I'd forgotten how overpowered financial was for the whole run of IV. In comparison, the civs in V are actually rather well-balanced. That said, I preferred the Dutch on standard Continents and Fractal maps, with normal coastal possibilities. The bonus was simply that island cities were quite fun to settle and develop. I feel no motivation to do that in V.

Like you say, the water tiles are underwhelming, and I agree that it's very difficult to balance. Even Lighthouse feels a bit early... I was thinking slightly later in the tech, possibly Optics or a Harbor, could give +1. It would simultaneously make Harbors worthwhile for setups other than archipelago maps, and fits thematically with their existing benefit. This perfectly fits with what you said too Dhaeman, as the Harbor is a late-Medieval building. Though it wouldn't weaken puppet states, as they tend to spam harbors on the coast.

We're also missing a building that gives exp to naval units atm. I'm sure that could be fit in somewhere to make certain buildings more worthwhile.

 

[Lazy Knight]

Thalassicus, the zip file currently contains v2 and v3 of the Improvements mod, is that intended? Also, the readme as html is bound to cause issues depending on browser settings, e.g. mine won't load the icons unless told to. Why not make a pdf?

Also, thanks for mentionning me in the credits!

Thanks. That makes sense - I figured there'd be a balance reason for it.

It's just a bit strange to see the resource that is realistically probably most affected by the granary not on the list. I can agree with the balance change, but I don't feel it's very elegant/intuitive.

You should check this thread, where it has been discussed.

Like you say, the water tiles are underwhelming, and I agree that it's very difficult to balance. Even Lighthouse feels a bit early... I was thinking slightly later in the tech, possibly Optics or a Harbor, could give +1. It would simultaneously make Harbors worthwhile for setups other than archipelago maps, and fits thematically with their existing benefit. This perfectly fits with what you said too Dhaeman, as the Harbor is a late-Medieval building. Though it wouldn't weaken puppet states, as they tend to spam harbors on the coast.

I agree water tiles and the harbor building could be improved, although the fish ressources are already very powerful (4, 4, 2 fully improved). One could consider changing only ocean or coast tiles, to not make the bonus too large.
One could also consider adding a new Improvement, like Fishing Village. I don't know if that is possible, but it could give +1 +1 on the tile, and +1 on adjacent water tiles. Graphically, one (I can't) could cut the harbor Model and the Trading Post Model together.


Oh, and why not start a new thread about reworking the cultural victory?

 

[BjoernLars]

I downloaded your balance mod and installed everything except for the experimental AI balance. Experimental gives me the Hibee-jibees!

Things seem to be going smoothly though I think I am getting a bit of lead on the AI pretty early on; I'm playing America, Large, Oval, Prince level, Standard speed.

Almost all of the AIs are expanding at a nice rate (except for Napoleon). Lots of production rates are much better, but some are a bit too fast.

Lots of Classical military units are being produce in decent size cities in 5~9 turns. Not too shabby.

I'll keep playing and keep my eye on how things develop.

So far me likies... though some more AI and Happiness balance are needed.

Keep me updated on more balance updates as they come out!

 

[Spendoza]

Hey guys, quick question:
How do I know these mods are working while in-game?
Example: the Colossus gets +2/sea tile and is no longer obsoleted by anything, however the Civilopedia/tech tree does not reflect the change.
starting a game and teching/building the wonder to find out whether it worked or not seems ridiculous, as well as testing for some of the more... ethereal mods

 

[CYZ]

Does anybody know if the version in this thread is also updated?

ingame modbrowser still doesn't work properly for me...

 

[Appassionato]

This really looks great so far. I have been trying to make som simple mods myself and failed miserably, so I guess I have to depend on the work of others to increase my game experience. Therefore I hope some of the changes I wanted to make could come under consideration for your mod collection.

1. It is way too easy to conquer cities early on. Two spearmen healing 2hp per turn quickly overpowers a city (1hp regenerated per turn). Perhaps increasing the city rate of regeneration would balance this out?
2. In terms of game flavour I definately think that libraries, universities and monastaries ought to provide a bonus towards unlocking social policies - would it be possible to give each of them a non-city-specific culture bonus.
3. As specialists provide 3 point towards a great specialist, wouldn't it make more sense for gardens and national epics to increase this by 33% rather than 25%? (definately combined with major decrease in great scientist useability). Perhaps add in + one food. Increase production cost if nessecary.
4. I would really like for some building to give happiness as well as culture.
For instance:
Temple: 2 1
Opera House: 4 1
Theatre: 1 3
5. +1 more for wonders.
6. No wheat and sheep in desert tiles.
7. Great artist and great engineers give 2 culture/production. Perhaps change merchant to three gold. Un-modded game favours scientist too much.

 

[Dhaeman]

@Thalassicus - It's certainly not necessary to weaken the puppet states (just added bonus!). Adding that ability to the harbor would work for now but long term I think a separate building would be best.

@QES - Buildings for policies would be a great addition. I don't have a huge issue with happiness though - I can hover between 50-100 happiness in the modern era (holding about 20 cities) if I focus on it. I do agree that large empires not having access to as many social policies can make the game less fun and autocracy even more useless for the reasons you pointed out.

@Spendoza - The changes need to be finalized before modding the Civilopedia. This is all still in testing mode as far as balance goes and it's not the best use of Thalassicus's time to modify the Civilopedia for every update. Once more finalized versions release I'd expect that to change.

 

[The Boz]

Appassionato, the game doesn't round. With 25% of 3 you still get the full bonus.

 

[Appassionato]

Ok. Great. I was unsure about that. Most other figure in the game is presented in unrounded numbers (production, food, gold), so it seemed strange for the great person point to be presented as rounded.