Getting Started

[Ahriman]

I agree that too-much-gold is a bit of a problem, not sure what the best fix is. I wonder if building maintenance costs and unit maintenance costs should be increased slightly?

I think Big Ben and the Commerce policy might also need a nerf, particularly together its just insane; its a bit like a +100% production boost.

Also in light of recent real-world events involving bankers, it does seem a little odd that the only prerequisite for Banking is Chivalry

Well, makes a lot of historic sense; crusades -> banking. There was a need for crusades to be able to deposit wealth at home, take the dangerous voyage to Outremer without their wealth, and then withdraw the wealth to buy stuff while on crusade, so institutions (templars in particular) catered to that need.

Move +1 on water from terrain to the Lighthouse.

I don't see a need for this. Coast tiles are 1 food 2 gold without lighthouse, not very valauble.
If the concern is fish, then reduce 1 gold from the various water resources and add +1 gold to fishing boats with the lighthouse.

Move +1 on rivers from terrain to the Watermill.

Thats much too much power for a building that does other stuff too.
I think I'd tinker with increasing gold costs rather than making the watermill an absolute must-have no-brainer.
Alternatively, reduce trade route gold, I think its still too high.

I can adjust the Border expansion tile selection priorities.

Interesting. What do you have in mind?
I think its important to keep in mind the reason why they did it the way they did, to try to encourage hills, forests, mountain ranges and rivers to become natural borders between civs, like in the real world. This makes war more interesting too, when the border can be fortified.

I prefer the game-by-game imbalance of nearby horses vs iron that leads to variety in game play, and would opt for fewer resources if forced to choose, for the same reason. Your having made a resourceless army viable ought to guarantee that no start is unacceptably bad.

I like having to choose which cities get the coal, which units get the oil, and what to do with my uranium, so the current levels work for me. Clearly this is all a matter of gameplay taste.

Agreed.

 

[doktorstick]

I think its important to keep in mind the reason why they did it the way they did, to try to encourage hills, forests, mountain ranges and rivers to become natural borders between civs, like in the real world. This makes war more interesting too, when the border can be fortified.

That. And hillbillies aren't very cultured... even when they move to Beverly Hills.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think Big Ben and the Commerce policy might also need a nerf, particularly together its just insane; its a bit like a +100% production boost.

I agree, done. Don't forget the Autocracy tree too... all combined it's -83% purchase cost! I left the Autocracy one alone since that tree does need more relative value (and is rather late in the game).

Regarding border expansion, I think it's this right now for each ring:

• 2 flatland
• 3 flatland
• 2 hills
• 2 coast
• 3 hills
• 3 coast

I could switch this so the 2nd ring is prioritized over the 3rd for all terrain types (not counting resource yield bonuses).

 

[Ahriman]

I could switch this so the 2nd ring is prioritized over the 3rd for all terrain types (not counting resource yield bonuses).

Maybe make it so 3rd ring flatland is equal to 2nd ring rough terrain?

So priority is:

1. 2nd ring flatland
2. 3rd ring flatland, 2nd ring hill/forest/coast
3. 3rd ring hill/forest/coast, 2nd ring ocean.
4. 3rd ring ocean, 2nd ring mountain
5. 3rd ring mountain.

And a bonus resource, luxury or strategic resource pushes you up 1 level in all cases.

I don't think we want 2nd ring hills prioritized over 3rd ring flatland, but maybe if they were equal, so you'd have an equal probability of getting either.

 

[VimesUK]

Thal...

I am not sure if any other file has been updated but as the hotfix patch (1.0.1.167) has just applied I can see that has changed...

CIV5UnitPromotions.xml
CIV5Traits.xml

just a heads up for you in case they have any implications with your mod.

EDIT:

Just noticed that Zyxpsilon has posted a more complete list of changes...

Root Executables & DLLs as usual
GlobalDefines.xml
CIV5Traits.xml
CIV5UnitPromotions.xml
OnlinePanel.lua
VictoryProgress.lua (That actually fixed the previously missing SS-Parts secondary popup)
Upgrade1Textures.fpk (Spain/Inca fine-tuning probably)

I have noticed that the Unofficial patch uses VictoryProgress.lua

 

[alpaca]

Ring influence cost doesn't have any effect according to my tests. You could increase plot influence cost for flatland by something like 50 so the inner ring forest or hill tiles are taken before the outer ring flatland tiles at least.

 

[Ahriman]

Do we know how much we'd have to increase them by in order to get them to have exactly equal cost to inner hill/forest tiles?

Would this also impact the gold cost of purchasing tiles? I'd be inclined to reduce the rough terrain ones rather than increase the flatland ones, if it also affected gold costs.

 

[alpaca]

Do we know how much we'd have to increase them by in order to get them to have exactly equal cost to inner hill/forest tiles?

Would this also impact the gold cost of purchasing tiles? I'd be inclined to reduce the rough terrain ones rather than increase the flatland ones, if it also affected gold costs.

They shoul cost exactly the same. However, tiles with higher yield are taken before tiles with lower yield so if you have a river, the flatland tiles will be chosen first. It shouldn't affect plot buying iirc. The plot influence for forests is in the features file, the cost for hills is in global defines afaik

 

[bwoww78]

First off, excellent excellent work. I've been away from civ since civ3 and after a few vanilla ciV games to adjust, I have to say that Thal's (and testing colleagues') work on this mod is extraordinary and makes a great game even better. I just have a few things to note after following this thread for a while:

1. This is really just a side request (and I'm not sure if it's already been detailed in the thread) but thal, if you wouldn't mind listing what other mods you are using during testing and otherwise along with the combined balance group, I'd really appreciate it. It sounds like you're packaging the mod a little differently in the next version anyways and I'm curious to see what other mods/elements I might be missing.
2. This is just a shot in the dark, and I'm no modder so it could be out of the question in difficulty or just plain too late in terms of the current testif phase, but reading through the thread I got the idea of making coastal building upgrades more strategic in nature. For instance, would it be possible to make all water tiles of a city with a lighthouse cost less to movement for units? This could be for both embarked or naval units just the same, and I'd assume the equation could be either positive or negative (ie +1 movement, -1 movement for enemies, etc.) as I said, I'll leave the modding to the experts, but the idea is that you could buff naval focused players or even civs (e.g. England) who enjoy playing on archipelago maps or giant maps. Lighthouses or seaports (or tie it to a tech bonus) pick whatever you think would be more balanced. Just an idea.

3. Lastly, I'd just throw my two cents in that the strategic resources direction you are going with (re horses v iron location/abundance) is right on track. Likewise maintaining uranium's niche status is important as well. I'm playing now with Gedemon's TSL Yet not another earth map and the combination makes for a great experience if you're looking to play with a realistic/historic feel.

Ok that's all. Again, thanks for your hard work!!

 

[Polycrates]

• Increase military unit purchase/maintenance/upgrade costs.

• 
  But then I'll just rush-buy a whole heap of buildings instead. At the end of this last game I had +100 happy (with theocracy, admittedly) in a large map/continent sized empire because I had nothing better to do with the money than just buy theatres/stadia everywhere. Personally, I think you're better off just reducing the amount of gold in the world - and the one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is the extra trading post gold at optics/economics. You've done a fantastic job making production properly worthwhile, and I can't help but think that this kind of undoes it.
  
  

  [*]Move +1 on water from terrain to the Lighthouse.

  I don't think coastal gold is a problem - at 1f2g they're not really desirable tiles without a lighthouse anyway so I don't think it's really necessary.
  
  

  [*]Move +1 on rivers from terrain to the Watermill.
  I was discussing with my brother about the difficulties balancing the Watermill over the past half-year, and he suggested make it benefit from longer, more powerful rivers. Yield bonuses on rivers are a very close approximation, have precedent with the Hydro Plant, and might be a way to balance rivers while also boosting the watermill! I'm going to try it out. Alternatively, I could simply remove the river bonus and leave it up to improvements.

  That's actually a really cool idea! It would make the watermill very powerful though; you'd need a fairly high maintenance cost to balance it out, I think. Maybe get rid of the hammer the patch added too, so it's not too schizophrenic. Definitely worth a try!
  
  

  The only tech tree changes are a few link adjustments (and organizing to prevent overlap) so this is vanilla stuff. I'm hesitant to redo the tech tree much since it's A) difficult to do with the limitations and B) can significantly alter the game with small changes.

  Perhaps I'm too used to epic speed - it just seemed like this unbroken run on the bottom of the ladder where I started at Steel and the next minute ended up at cannons and rifling. Good spot for an expansion pack to stick a tech or two, perhaps.
  
  

  The Solar Plant is now +25% for 150, comparable to the windmill at +20% for 100. I could boost it to 30% to make them equally cost-effective.

  But the windmill gets a lot longer to pay itself back. Solar plants are really late and iirc the only thing on that tech? And by the time you get them, you're realistically going to have +50% from railroad, maybe +50% from factory, and all these other huge boosts from other stuff so that +25% just looks a bit anemic. It's not that it's bad, it's just unexciting for something so very late (and which is terrain-dependent to boot).
  
  

  Update:
  I've been checking through AssignStartingPlots.lua and discovered start locations / resources do take rivers into account, regardless of whatever yield they may or may not have. This means rivers can safely be altered without affecting start location or resource placement.
  
  Looking through CIV5AICityStrategies.xml, it appears settling near rivers is a basic AI strategy that also ignores yields, so this looks promising!

  Cool! Gives me another potential idea - riverside trading posts/plantations give the +1 gold from the start, watermill gives the +1 gold to riverside farms. Makes the watermill less overpowered than +1 gold on all riverside, and keeps it kind of thematic as something food-related. And riverside mines/lumbermills are powerful enough without gold, I think.

 

[antdog]

Thal, I'm using the developmental mod right before your latest 2.0 update. I've come across a bug where the Roman empire was signing research agreements without having the necessary funds. They were even signing agreements while they had negative funds. This bug began happening right after they game me around 600 coin as a cease-fire agreement, but has since seemed to remedy itself. If I have the chance to try your current beta I'll let you know if I run across the same problem. :

 

[Ahriman]

Personally, I think you're better off just reducing the amount of gold in the world

Agree strongly.

and the one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is the extra trading post gold at optics/economics. You've done a fantastic job making production properly worthwhile, and I can't help but think that this kind of undoes it.

Alternative solution: reduce the base trading post gold to 1. So its 1 gold, +1 gold with fresh water with optics (or compass, or whatever), +1 gold to non-freshwater with economics. Its odd that TP gives 2 resources base while every other improvement gives +1 base.
Then reduce merchant gold back down to 1, and reduce gold yields by 1 for every gold-yielding bonus/luxury tile.
Better alternative solution: reduce trade route income further.
Or increase maintenance costs, but do so across the board (ie including buildings).

But the windmill gets a lot longer to pay itself back. Solar plants are really late and iirc the only thing on that tech? And by the time you get them, you're realistically going to have +50% from railroad, maybe +50% from factory, and all these other huge boosts from other stuff so that +25% just looks a bit anemic. It's not that it's bad, it's just unexciting for something so very late (and which is terrain-dependent to boot).

Agreed. Another thing I'd like to see it do: boost yield of desert tiles.

Gives me another potential idea - riverside trading posts/plantations give the +1 gold from the start, watermill gives the +1 gold to riverside farms. Makes the watermill less overpowered than +1 gold on all riverside, and keeps it kind of thematic as something food-related. And riverside mines/lumbermills are powerful enough without gold, I think.

I think the position of the fresh water boosts works really well now.
I think it would be a big mistake to move river gold onto a specific building.

On the rest, my thoughts above, won't repeat.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Xink
Thank you for listing those files. It appears they fixed the parts issue and dead civs getting counted for diplomatic tallies, but forgot to fix the issue where the barbarian civ gets counted.

It's a little harder to determine what undocumented changes exist in other files, since the original versions are overwritten... I don't have anything to compare to. Now that I think about it I'll start backing up each versions' XML directory.


@bwoww78
Welcome to CivFanatics!

1. I've attached everything I'm using to this post in MODS.7z for you, just extract it to your Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS folder.
2. That's a rather interesting idea... basically like a localized Great Wall wonder with different effects? Also similar to a defense/offense building (such as walls) that affects more than the city center tile. It would be rather easy to do by adding/removing bonuses to units in the area, the only downside is there's no way to let the AI know what's going on with current tools we have available. I'll put it on my todo list to explore for when we have the full sdk.
3. Glad you like the strategic resource changes!


@Polycrates
Yep, that's basically the idea for watermills... experimenting with some sort of on-river-tiles bonus, and rebalanced cost/effects.

Good point about solar plants, I'll buff them up to 50%, perhaps... like a factory that requires desert.


@antdog
That's very strange! I don't really know what could be causing an RA-specific issue... though I've found there is a vanilla-game bug with diplomacy if demands for tribute are refused, and might be similar with capitulation.


@Ahriman
Reducing base TP yield wouldn't work too well since food, gold and production are not equally valuable.

 

[Thalassicus]

I just found a fantastic discovery!

I noticed the latest hotfix patch seemed to remove the line displaying unit maintenance from tooltips. (This is rather odd because they don't use it anyway... someone must have been cleaning up code and deleting it.) Investigating this file led me to discover something rather superb though: an easy way to automatically display how many specialist slots a building has right there on the top half of the tooltip!

I can apply this to any other value in the files too, absolutely anything, anywhere in the database can be automatically included on tooltips and automatically updated when data changes. They only did this for a very small number of values, why didn't they do it for all major stuff in the first place!

This is probably something most UI modders discovered a long time ago, but is very exciting for me because it'll look so much better and save lots of time, greatly reducing tedious tooltip editing and reduce chances for errors to occur. This is something I've been wanting since day one!

 

[Txurce]

I just found a fantastic discovery!

I noticed the latest hotfix patch seemed to remove the line displaying unit maintenance from tooltips. (This is rather odd because they don't use it anyway... someone must have been cleaning up code and deleting it.) Investigating this file led me to discover something rather superb though: an easy way to automatically display how many specialist slots a building has right there on the top half of the tooltip!

I can apply this to any other value in the XML files too, which will greatly reduce tedious tooltip editing and reduce chances for errors to occur. This is probably something most UI modders discovered a long time ago, but is very exciting for me because it'll dramatically simplify modding.

I cringe whenever I think about how much work you do on these mods for our behalf, so if it saves you time, I'm very happy!

 

[Thalassicus]

Well I've got self-interest in it too, I enjoy it a lot! Civ II is actually where I first got my start in modding, and programming in general, back in 96. Sid Meier's always encouraged a level of 3rd-party development support that's unprecedented in the gaming industry, even compared to Blizzard.


...and this kind of stuff looks great in portfolios to development studios...

 

[Polycrates]

Alternative solution: reduce the base trading post gold to 1. So its 1 gold, +1 gold with fresh water with optics (or compass, or whatever), +1 gold to non-freshwater with economics. Its odd that TP gives 2 resources base while every other improvement gives +1 base.
Then reduce merchant gold back down to 1, and reduce gold yields by 1 for every gold-yielding bonus/luxury tile.
Better alternative solution: reduce trade route income further.
Or increase maintenance costs, but do so across the board (ie including buildings).

I do like this idea, and I would definitely be interested in trying out a really "low gold" world just for the sake of trying it out, where each gold coin really makes a difference. Could be a fun and different game, and I suspect a world with significantly lower gold than in vanilla might actually fix a whole bunch of balance problems with things that are "too cheap". Or it might be awful and tedious

But the reason I keep harping on about rivers is because it's really kind of "incidental" gold. You settle on a river anyway because riverside is by far the best spot to put a city, regardless of whether it's going to be a science, production or a gold city. So you're getting all this gold just because you're doing your thing, not because you've specifically decided to focus on gold. Whereas trading posts mean you've researched trapping and devoted valuable worker turns to them; similarly with trade routes and resource specials, and coast needs the lighthouse investment to make the tiles worthwhile. In a lower-gold environment, river gold would be even more egregious, I think.

1 automatic gold from rivers was from a time when gold was something that was overlaid over all productive tiles anyway (Civ I roads), and was continued in a setting where gold was primarily a driver of science. As much as anything else, river gold was a buffer against tech stagnation and total bankruptcy. Now, every point of population already gives at least 1 science and usually more than 1 gold simply for existing (plus more gold from working more trading posts) - and population growth is fastest alongside a river. So I'm not sure there's any more need for such a buffer. I'd even go so far as to say I suspect riverside gold is now a bit of a driver of ICS, since every additional city that's on a river can pretty much fund itself and then some, right off the bat.

I'm totally in favour of trading posts (and plantations, and the city tile itself) giving an extra gold along a river, because you have to decide to use one of your valuable riverside tiles in this way, and then you have to have to actually improve the tile. Your gold then comes from a gold-focused city working to produce that gold, rather than a production city that can fund itself and then some without even thinking about it because it's stuck on a river. Gold for riverside farms with a watermill would require investment in tile improvement as well as the hammers for the building, and it's then offset by the maintenance to perhaps only give a net profit of ~ +0.5 gold per tile. So not an automatic build by any stretch, and not right off the bat either.

 

[Ahriman]

@Ahriman
Reducing base TP yield wouldn't work too well since food, gold and production are not equally valuable.

Sure, not at the moment, but why not try to make it so?
I agree that this would be a very big change though.

* * *
I'd be ok with removing the gold from rivers, as a test.
Much more reasonable to do this when every improvement gets a yield bonus for being adjacent to a river, with some tech. [But make sure it also applies to pastures, plantations, camps, GP improvements, with appropriate tech.]

But I wouldn't just add it back with a building. If you're going to remove it, remove it.

Another thing this would do though; it would make lakes-adjacent tiles almost identical to river-adjacent tiles (only differences: watermill and hydro plant). Would this be a good thing?

 

[Thalassicus]

Since the yield is already at 1, the only way to get a value between 0 and 1 is creating a way where the bonus is situational, such as moving it to a building or tech (or other similar alternatives delaying the bonus).

The reason I'm interested in this is I suspect removing the bonus entirely would have the same effect on morale as the idea I had to remove aluminum, so moving it to a building is a middleground option.

 

[zambies]

There's definitely waaay too much money in the game now. I've managed 100+ gpt by turn ~175 in three straight games now without doing anything special to get there.

Apropos of nothing, I also managed to win a culture game by 1950 using (I think) the .26 dev game using Darius on Prince level. Wouldn't be notable except I did it after founding ~15 cities and only have 2 puppets for the majority of the game. I started the game thinking REX towards science victory and then spent the last 150 turns or so thinking to myself that there's no way I should be able to do culture with this many cities and constantly astonishing myself how quickly the policies were coming my way.