Getting Started

[Jaybe]

Many of the discussions in this forum's non-stickied threads seem to be pointing out the excessive ease of gold, research, hammer, and even culture accumulation. Particularly with the addition of Opportunities (and potentially even with disasters ).

Instead of trying to adjust each of these for balance, I submit that a more elegant solution would be to just increase the costs of mid/late game techs & units/buildings/wonders. In addition, the yields of those buildings might be reduced (e.g., +50% science/culture reduced to 33 or 25%, or per-population yields from 0.5 to 0.33 or 0.25).

This would serve to extend the game more towards the turn limit, at least for those who aren't conquering everybody.

 

[skodkim]

Instead of trying to adjust each of these for balance, I submit that a more elegant solution would be to just increase the costs of mid/late game techs & units/buildings/wonders. In addition, the yields of those buildings might be reduced (e.g., +50% science/culture reduced to 33 or 25%, or per-population yields from 0.5 to 0.33 or 0.25).

+1

\Skodkim

 

[Thalassicus]

I moved information about my expansion plans to the first post in this thread.

 

[truetom]

I'm not at war with CSs, what it was they DOF on me together with their allied Nations. After I made peace with the Nations and with CSs I'm still not allowed to enter any of the CSs teritory, while I have a OB treaty with their allied Nations. Err, why?

 

[EmperorFool]

You cannot enter territory of a CS with whom you've been at war recently. I do not know how long this lasts for.

 

[Thalassicus]

It's a vanilla bug we cannot fix.

 

[truetom]

Ok, thanks.

 

[dyolfknip]

Hey... I rarely post here but do read a lot of comments. I wanted to start by saying that I greatly enjoy what this patch has added to the game and it is often the only patch I use (unless I feel like experimenting). I think there may be a rather large exploit with your new happiness based science system. I was playing Korea (which is likely part of the problem) and I discovered that after completing the freedom tree I was able to click specialists on and off (decreasing and increasing happiness) thereby completing the rest of the tech tree in one turn. Any increase in happiness seems to give free techs (trades, city state bonuses, happiness buildings). As well any increase in happiness in any city affects happiness in the capital and thus: more free techs.... Anyway I'm sorry if this was already mentioned, but the exploit seems game breaking.

 

[Seek]

Korea was bugged in v131 and should be fixed in subsequent versions. If you encounter a bug please head over to the Bug Reports forum and report it there, thanks.

 

[Txurce]

Hey... I rarely post here but do read a lot of comments. I wanted to start by saying that I greatly enjoy what this patch has added to the game and it is often the only patch I use (unless I feel like experimenting). I think there may be a rather large exploit with your new happiness based science system. I was playing Korea (which is likely part of the problem) and I discovered that after completing the freedom tree I was able to click specialists on and off (decreasing and increasing happiness) thereby completing the rest of the tech tree in one turn. Any increase in happiness seems to give free techs (trades, city state bonuses, happiness buildings). As well any increase in happiness in any city affects happiness in the capital and thus: more free techs.... Anyway I'm sorry if this was already mentioned, but the exploit seems game breaking.

It is definitely game-breaking, and should be fixed in the v131.7 beta.

 

[dyolfknip]

will do from now on..

 

[Babri]

I feel that Great Wall is game changing. It can make AI hopeless against u & if AI builds it then it gets frustating. I would say change the benefit to something else or maybe shift this bonus to a later wonder when u have options to somewhat compensate for :c5move: cost. Earlier in the game, the one who builds it is pretty much invincible & the other players don't have enough cannon fodder to avoid the damage. I usually avoid attacking an AI with GW till I get artillery & if I build it, then there is no way somebody can take me down. This reminds me of Hmeji + Tradition policy combo.

 

[Giskler]

Something feels really off with technology in the latest versions. It feels like the AI civs are getting techs for free from thin air. I have a superior or comparable science output and lag miles behind other civs.

 

[wobuffet]

I've moved my reply to Babri's comment on the Great Wall and some other army stuff to the Armies thread.

Something feels really off with technology in the latest versions. It feels like the AI civs are getting techs for free from thin air. I have a superior or comparable science output and lag miles behind other civs.

Seems odd. Are they signing lots of RAs? AI Civs get a Culture discount on policies, but no Science discount on techs, as far as I know.

 

[Thalassicus]

The AI bonuses are:

• A few extra units at start of the game.
• Units gain extra experience and sight range.
• Production % modifier.
• Research % modifier.

For example, on Emperor difficulty the AI:

• Starts with 1 warrior, 1 worker, and 2 archers.
• Units spawn with 18 + 9 per era, and see 1 tile farther.
• Units/buildings cost 23% less, and get +15% per era.
• +15% rate + 15% per era.

The per-era modifiers are not read by InfoAddict because it only reads vanilla data, and the per-era modifier is added by Vem.

 

[Jaybe]

Also, per Unofficial Patch and Vanilla Enhanced (v 131.14 beta)/VEM-VanillaEnhancedMod/WWGD/HandicapInfos.xml: Handicap_AI_Standard
(note these haven't changed since v 126)

RouteCostPercent=50
UnitCostPercent & BuildingCostPercent=67
PolicyPercent=67
ImprovementCostPercent=50 (double worker improvement build speed)
AIUnitUpgradePercent=50 (but as I recall, it's the same as in vanilla)

How the following would apply to the AI I wouldn't know:
AITrainPercent=130
AIWorldTrainPercent=130
AIConstructPercent=130
AIWorldConstructPercent=130
AICreatePercent=130
AIWorldCreatePercent=130

 

[wobuffet]

Thal, I think you forgot the AI's 33% Culture discount on all Social Policies and reduced costs for maintenance. Although I might be reading the HandicapInfos file wrong.

edit: I'm not seeing the free starting units here, so I'm probably just missing another relevant file or something.

 

[Thalassicus]

The only relevant values in Handicap_AI_Standard are:

• HappinessDefault = 8
• NumCitiesUnhappinessMod = 100
• PopulationUnhappinessMod = 100

This makes the AI happiness identical to human happiness. It gets all other values from the human player's difficulty setting. Yes, this is confusing and was organized poorly... it's mysterious why Firaxis would place these three values separately from the human difficulty settings, instead of creating "AIHappinessDefault" etc values in the human settings.

 

[wobuffet]

This is totally unrelated to anything here, but so long as mountains are unworkable and almost always worthless, is it possible to make obtaining them (whether by or ) extraordinarily cheap?

 

[Seek]

That would be immersion-breaking for me, and I don't think it would be good for gameplay: off the top of my head it would mean easier access to resources on the other side of mountain chains and if there's an enemy it provides vision for artillery.