Getting Started

[Seek]

Liberation Boost does NOT work with Free Research.

Thal's been trying to make them play nice together, apparently without success.

@Suicide - did you try clearing your cache? It may fix the bulb button problem.

 

[SuicideMW]

Liberation Boost does NOT work with Free Research.

Could of sworn I read that Thal was working on making them play nice together, but see he hasn't done so yet.

@Suicide - did you try clearing your cache? It may fix the bulb button problem.

Each and every time without success. Looks like the bug is still there in the latest beta release.

Also found another bug where a city-state requests you to build a road that connects them to your capital. Apparently upon completing said road, the city-state doesn't recognize it and you're forever trapped in quest limbo.

 

[Ahriman]

I like that direction with the national wonders, and I honestly wish there was more to do with this mechanic.

I think 17 national wonders is just too many.
Most wonders should be World Wonders. World Wonders should be the big powerful things with huge effects.
National wonders should be weaker, and should be about encouraging city specialization and giving some boost to small empires.

I know it’s quite annoying if you currently build one for many turns and have to delay conquering a city just because of that

I'm not sure that encouraging planning is necessarily a bad thing?

What then are the purpose of national wonders?

National wonders are a small extra reward for being small. They aren't there to actually limit growth or expansion. They're just a nice extra, you don't have to have them.
If national wonders are ever so powerful that you have to have them, then they're too good.

Another problem is even if I did have a way to take more drastic measures with happiness to curb expansion, there's no parallel method to prevent the AI from ICS'ing

This means that the problem can't fully be fixed without dll access.
But you should start by fixing things from the human perspective using happiness, and then fix the AI's excessive happiness bonuses later.

I've made two main changes to the economy:
Trading post income
Unit maintenance

Plus: larger cities (less growth required) which means more gold from trade income.
Plus: larger yields on buildings and mine/lumbermill yields mean more stuff gets built faster, including gold boosters.
The cumulative effect of all the boosts have dramatically shifted the economy.

I think the basic point is that National Wonders should not only be appealing to all playstyles (not just builders), but also available to them.

Why? I disagree that national wonders should be available and appealing regardless of your playstyle. That's anti-strategy. Strategy is about choices having consequences, and about some playstyles closing off other options.

 

[alpaca]

Slightly off topic, I've never understood this approach, unless my three cities just happened to be geographically really different. I've occasionally had one of three cities low on hammers, but for me a university in every city of a small empire is a given, because all three cities being super-cities if at all possible is my foremost goal. What's the rationale for the more specialized approach?

Well, I give you the university, which I will also build everywhere. It's more relevant for things like barracks or workshops. If I focus my unit needs (assuming I don't just go for the "manipulate the AI" approach) in one city, it's perfectly fine to only have a barracks there and ignore it in the other cities. Similarly, having a workshop in a city with only maybe 10 hammers is not really worth building this pretty expensive building, so the ironworks will be closed to me.

The advantage to specialisation is that I can focus my science city on farms and scientists, build the national college there, and get +50% for my highest pop city (usually the capital). In my money city, I will have all the money buildings while banks are too costly for what they will gain me in the other cities and I'd rather focus on other things. In my production city, I will usually churn out wonders so won't have a lot of time to build all those pesky buildings I need for the not-so-great national wonders.

Put simply, specialised city building simply makes better use of your resources because you need fewer buildings to achieve the same efficiency level.

 

[Thalassicus]

I started a new game as Babylon and as I was obtaining more and more techs, after obtaining Writing, I was given a Great Scientist, which is the unique ability of the civ. Apparently, pressing the beaker icon is supposed to give you a certain amount of science towards the next tech you're researching, but all it does is absolutely nothing.

Thanks, I found the issue, a file had somehow been accidentally deleted.

Making the AI favor guided missiles is a fiendishly simple way to improve AI military IQ (especially on higher levels). I laughed out loud thinking about it.

Then you'll probably like the V2 rockets I plan on adding later.

Maybe, but removing iron for siege units also change gameplay, and more than my idea I think. Not only you can build any numbers of siege units, and earlier in some case; you can also build more units that need iron (even with the -25%).

The point that there are now more combined siege and sword units than ever is an interesting one, but the change still "balanced" the use of all units.

It's a bit more complex if you think about it...

In vanilla:

• Horse resource over-abundant compared to Iron
• Siege and Swords both used Iron
• Horse provided 2 or 4, Iron provided 4 or 6 per deposit

In mod:

• Horse vs Iron resource ratio mostly unchanged
• Only Swords now use iron
• Horse and Iron both provide 2 per deposit
• Fiddled around with a dozen other numbers and lines of code

The 25% number is honestly a rough estimate because there's nowhere to make a change that simple. The code for resource placement is much more complicated than most other stuff in the game. Basically, my point is we can't really analyze it from a purely math perspective of X units + Y units using Z resources.

The human brain's good at analyzing complex patterns when we can see them though, so the best way to figure out if things are balanced is looking at resource distribution in real games.

Slightly off topic, I've never understood this approach, unless my three cities just happened to be geographically really different. I've occasionally had one of three cities low on hammers, but for me a university in every city of a small empire is a given, because all three cities being super-cities if at all possible is my foremost goal. What's the rationale for the more specialized approach?

Mostly habit from Civ 4 I suppose, it's not as necessary in V.

I'm midway through a first test game at emperor with this latest dev version of BC and find the city spacing set at 3 tiles is an enormous improvement and goes a huge way to check ICS. AI cities are more rationally placed and you don't have those ridiculous parasite cities spawning in coastal crannies, or on desert and tundra. Refreshing.

IMO settlers should be cheap for a mature empire which has enormous resources at its disposal; scaling up the cost as you propose is to my eye too similar to the official-patch penalistic philosophy of "Oh look, it works too well; let's nerf it."

I read all of Thal's mod in notepad to see the nuts and bolts and do a few personal tweaks for pet peeves and liked very much his way of resetting the settlement flavors for the AI--what kind of terrain they will favor. With the 3 tile spacing it really works wonders and avoids being a blunt-instrument nerf.

Try it out with the regular 2-city tile spacing. I've been putting a lot of work into the AI city placement variables, and though it's difficult I've got them to regularly settle about 3 tiles apart without the need to change minimum city distance.

===========
I'll see what I can do about border expansion priorities.

@Xink
Ooops sorry for not documenting that! The new Balance DLC - Inca Spain folder contains a file with an "x" at the front of it. If anyone's using that DLC, remove the X from the file name and some modded effects for those civs will take place. For now, the only change is Terrace Farms upgrade at the same techs as Farms.

@Sneaks
The thing is there's no reason liberation boost shouldn't work with the rest, it doesn't overwrite any of the same stuff. The problem is simply that mod and tech diffusion use the old "ingame.xml" method of including lua files instead of the more recently discovered "content" method in ModBuddy. I tried changing this manually in the files but seem to have missed something.

 

[Breez]

• Option A (new promotion)
  Heal 1hp per turn extra when standing still.
• Option B (free March)
  • 1hp per turn
  • +1hp extra friendly territory
  • +1hp extra in a city
  • +1hp extra from adjacent Medic
    (total max of 4 per turn)
• Option C (new promotion)
  Option A without the 'standing still' requirement (1 per turn everywhere regardless of actions).

I like Option C. +1 healing if standing still OR moving.
- Lets you heal SLOWLY while moving without March
- improves Healing while standing still
- Improves March by increasing healing while moving.

 

[Txurce]

The advantage to specialisation is that I can focus my science city on farms and scientists, build the national college there, and get +50% for my highest pop city (usually the capital). In my money city, I will have all the money buildings while banks are too costly for what they will gain me in the other cities and I'd rather focus on other things. In my production city, I will usually churn out wonders so won't have a lot of time to build all those pesky buildings I need for the not-so-great national wonders.

Put simply, specialised city building simply makes better use of your resources because you need fewer buildings to achieve the same efficiency level.

I'm always intrigued by seeing something totally differently from someone who knows what he's talking about. I build my capital similarly - pop for science and NW's. I can see why a production city for Wonders makes sense... I often don't focus on Wonders, and build them piecemeal in any of my major cities. But I don't understand a gold city except when there are no hammers. To me a bank is a no-brainer once I have nothing else to build, and I would probably make a similar point about almost everything but wonders. That's why I wind up with 2-3 all-around cities apart from the capital.

Hypothetically, what do you do in a city (specialized or not) when you can build a bank, and have built everything else you need except for stuff like watermills? Maybe the answer is units... and here is where like most builders, I keep a small army that doesn't require that sort of focus.

 

[rhammer640]

I agree that lack of city specialization is a huge 'fun' killer and choice killer for me. National wonders are one of my biggest problems with the game because it seems like they add a fun level of city specialization seeing as you can only build one of them. The problem is i never get to build them as i always like to have a medium sized empire. As is if i have only a few cities so i can get a few of them then each of those cities needs to be able to do everything and thus it isn't as fun to have a national wonder in them because they dont end up being specialized. Also like Alpaca, I dont want to build a library in a city that is small as it is a waste and doesn't seem like strategy at all but like a 'game' requirement, which removes the immersion feel.

I dont think the game should limit a cool element to pretty much one play style and make it not fun for other play styles to achieve. I know that this has been stated by others as well but i figured i would show my support for making some change in how national wonders are acquired.

On the flip side, i think a small empire should be able to achieve a science victory as well and that empire size shouldn't limit victory conditions. Some of the smallest countries have achieved the greatest scientific achievements.

 

[Thalassicus]

But I don't understand a gold city except when there are no hammers. To me a bank is a no-brainer once I have nothing else to build, and I would probably make a similar point about almost everything but wonders.

I could give gold buildings a maintenance cost, so cities with X or higher gold income would be a priority for gold buildings. It's even simpler than with workshops, where I've found it penalizes an economy to build a workshop in a city of under ~10 due to the maintenance.

With markets etc it'd be intuitively obvious that if it has -2/turn maintenance at a 25% modifier, 8/turn base income is a break-even point.

 

[Ahriman]

To me a bank is a no-brainer once I have nothing else to build

If you ever have nothing else to build, then hammers and production boosts are too available.

You should always have stuff to build, and a bank should have a low relative value if it only brings in ~2-3 gold per turn.

I don't see any need for adding explicit gold maintenance on gold-boosters though. Its fine for the cost to be opportunity cost.

But the point is; a bank is a priority in a city with lots of trading posts and good gold income. Its not a priority elsewhere.

 

[alpaca]

I'm always intrigued by seeing something totally differently from someone who knows what he's talking about. I build my capital similarly - pop for science and NW's. I can see why a production city for Wonders makes sense... I often don't focus on Wonders, and build them piecemeal in any of my major cities. But I don't understand a gold city except when there are no hammers. To me a bank is a no-brainer once I have nothing else to build, and I would probably make a similar point about almost everything but wonders. That's why I wind up with 2-3 all-around cities apart from the capital.

Hypothetically, what do you do in a city (specialized or not) when you can build a bank, and have built everything else you need except for stuff like watermills? Maybe the answer is units... and here is where like most builders, I keep a small army that doesn't require that sort of focus.

Depends on the situation. Banks aren't no-brainers, they have a large opportunity cost as Ahriman says. If it's a production city, a granary or waterwheel could be more valuable than a bank. If it's a science city, waterwheels and granaries are often interesting anyways, and if I don't want them I'll pull off citizens from the mines and put them to working farms or gold until I get something more useful to build. If it's a money city, I will take the bank. Since we're talking about small-empire games I don't tend to build a lot of units, either (in fact, you can get by with barely any with the cutesy-kitten AI after the 1.1 patch).

City specialization does still pay off quite a lot, it's weaker than in Civ4 but I actually felt that it was too powerful in 4. Building maintenance is a very important point why this is the case. I typically end up with at least a library, university, market and colosseum in each city. If I don't play ICS, also a monument and temple, but they actively hurt in an ICS game due to their maintenance.

 

[Dunkah]

Hey is it possible to build specialists buildings that use say hammers per turn as an upkeep. Then you are trading gold for hammers.

 

[Thalassicus]

It'd be rather easy to do that Dunkah. I think it might overly complicate things to have two types of maintenance though, especially for a mod designed just to balance things.


===========

If no major bugs are found in v2.0.17 beta I'm going to release it to the public, so please point out any issues you find if you're playing with this version (note: lots of bugfixes have taken place from .01 to .17).

In particular, from .15 to .17 I've fixed an issue where wonder splash screens weren't displaying info, and also fixed the Krepost bug.

 

[Txurce]

If it's a production city, a granary or waterwheel could be more valuable than a bank. If it's a science city, waterwheels and granaries are often interesting anyways, and if I don't want them I'll pull off citizens from the mines and put them to working farms or gold until I get something more useful to build...

City specialization does still pay off quite a lot, it's weaker than in Civ4 but I actually felt that it was too powerful in 4. Building maintenance is a very important point why this is the case. I typically end up with at least a library, university, market and colosseum in each city. If I don't play ICS, also a monument and temple, but they actively hurt in an ICS game due to their maintenance.

The first paragraph mostly mirrors how I play, but I wind up with more than a monument, library, market, coliseum and university in every city. To be clear, I can see how there could be an efficiency to limiting what you build. Let me ask about one of your examples: what do you build in the science city when you pull citizens out of the mines? Do you set the city on research or gold? Or, differently, what do you build (units aside) in all the turns following the researching of Banking?

 

[Thalassicus]

I've continued the conversation about national wonders in a new thread here.

 

[VimesUK]

@Xink
Ooops sorry for not documenting that! The new Balance DLC - Inca Spain folder contains a file with an "x" at the front of it. If anyone's using that DLC, remove the X from the file name and some modded effects for those civs will take place. For now, the only change is Terrace Farms upgrade at the same techs as Farms.

Thanks for that. I did not know about removing the "x".

If no major bugs are found in v2.0.17 beta I'm going to release it to the public, so please point out any issues you find if you're playing with this version (note: lots of bugfixes have taken place from .01 to .17).

I can safely say there will be no bugs found..!
Maybe it is because there is nothing to download on your first page

 

[Kirschi]

I can safely say there will be no bugs found..!
Maybe it is because there is nothing to download on your first page

Yea I wanted to download it too... *shock* no download link ^^

---

Some words on beta .16 I was testing in a few games.
I still have no extended info on buildings (but as you said thal, this has been fixed in beta .17).

Next, the AI seems to be very willing to offer there SR ... for free. I had a DoF with Japan... then this happend:

See attached image #2, trading with Japan

Of course, i accepted ^^

---

To the overall gameplay... It seems that in the last few betas (especially this one) the difficulty for players focusing on small empires was increased. As I prefer to play a very tall strategy vs. a wide one (often only one super-city, or two), I noticed that it was substantially harder to keep up with my AI opponents.
I have no numbers to show here, but it felt much harder than some versions ago. Especially in science I am falling behind pretty fast, culture is harder to come by too.
Even though I had the feeling that I had better starting locations (resources, etc.), I had a much harder time to get started.

I don't want to offend anybody, but it seems that those players that say "Hey stop nerfing big empires, to it the other way now!" are playing with big empires and do not like or now about the tall strategy.

Also I like to have most or all of the (National) Wonders in my main city. Those are very important for small empires, otherwise I wouldn't stand a chance. So I think those buildings shouldn't be too easy to get in large empires, as those have already the advantage of lots more hammers and science.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[doktorstick]

I've requested and received free strategic resources if the AI is beyond the age where they need it. Or they feared my words BACKED BY NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

 

[Ahriman]

I've requested and received free strategic resources if the AI is beyond the age where they need it.

This happens in vanilla too. I don't see it as a problem. If everything they could use the resource for is obsolete, why should they care? As long as you have good relations.

 

[LamaGT]

just downloaded the new version, here's my feedback:
-don't know why with my arabia game my GS hasn't the UI left overlay so basically i can't use it! may'be it's a vanilla bug, anyway i'll check later if it fixes with restarting game
-really like the new railyard, always hated the fact that a capital can't be as productive as another city with the railroad
-i liked the +1 in all farms with fertilizer, why has it been removed? it's both realistic and balancing
-Using more oil with modern era units is a nice idea... but aluminium isn't used almost at all