How do YOU customise CBP?

[Wario Mario]

The great Gazebo has made customizing CBP pretty easy, by sorting many options into neatly labeled columns in friendly SQL and XML files. I know many of us have to go in and change CBP back to our preferences after it updates - so what are the changes you keep putting back in again and again?

As for me, here are the changes I personally like:
Minimum City Range increased to 4 on small/standard maps, and 5 on large/huge.
(Duel/Tiny and city states left alone). Because forget settler spam.

Barbarian Max XP set to -1 (which means no maximum). The restriction always felt arbitrary.

'CULTURE_COST_FIRST_PLOT', 'CULTURE_COST_LATER_PLOT_MULTIPLIER', and 'CULTURE_COST_LATER_PLOT_EXPONENT'; reduced from 20,15 and 1.3 to 10, 7.5, and 1.15. Because borders should eventually cover the map.

Policy precent halved on all difficulties, and for the AI as well. Because policies are fun darn it! (I would actually increase the number of trees you need to complete to get an ideology early to compensate, but I can't find where that value is)

 

[Llednar Twem]

I always remove the minimum era requirement from ideologies, since it kind of undermines the whole philosophy behind unlocking them with enough finished policy trees. Units, buildings, improvements, yields...science already has enough going for it in every other aspect of the game. It doesn't need to be a pre-requisite for policies too. That was the idea behind unlocking next-era trees by finishing current-era trees as well.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I buffed Stonehenge once and removed the necessity of discovering technologies for certain resources (basically to have the game be more like Civ 5 BNW vanilla in this regard - I find it to be currently quite random in which resources are discovered when)...

But since then there were many updates and I was too lazy to change the files over and over again so now I basically run regular CBP. I occasionally nerf certain civs though but only if, during a beta/patch, they become way too weak/strong (like Arabia in the previous beta, I nerfed it hard. I think I will still need to go to the files and nerf it again)

And Luigi is the best Mario character.

 

[Funak]

I always remove the minimum era requirement from ideologies, since it kind of undermines the whole philosophy behind unlocking them with enough finished policy trees.

This rarely seems to be a problem now anyways (unless you're playing Poland I guess) even with my last game where I had great culture output I still managed to hit industrial era on the same turn I filled my third policy-tree.

But since then there were many updates and I was too lazy to change the files over and over again so now I basically run regular CBP.

This is pretty much the reason I'd never invest time into trying to personally change something

 

[ExpiredReign]

Question slightly off-topic:
Is it possible to expose through the DLL access to files in the "My Documents" so we can move the settings from the various *.sql files to a permanent file in our individual settings?
Each install requires changing all these files again.

 

[Llednar Twem]

This rarely seems to be a problem now anyways (unless you're playing Poland I guess) even with my last game where I had great culture output I still managed to hit industrial era on the same turn I filled my third policy-tree.

True, I guess it's really just something I do out of principle at this point. The only other thing I do is raise the barb exp cap though and that was already mentioned in the first post.

 

[Enginseer]

Question slightly off-topic:
Is it possible to expose through the DLL access to files in the "My Documents" so we can move the settings from the various *.sql files to a permanent file in our individual settings?
Each install requires changing all these files again.

You could just make a mod with those various .sql changes using update statements and then making the mod have a dependency on them...


I customize CBP easily with having no resources start up and barbarian healing 15 instead of 10. With the CSD, I make sure they are aggressive to the maximum in getting city-state influence.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

What I've done is change the Luxury Resource Reveals to 2nd Tier Ancient Era Techs and reveal those instead of Bonus Resources.

 

[ExpiredReign]

You could just make a mod with those various .sql changes using update statements and then making the mod have a dependency on them...


I customize CBP easily with having no resources start up and barbarian healing 15 instead of 10. With the CSD, I make sure they are aggressive to the maximum in getting city-state influence.

That is actually an inspired idea. Brilliant. So wish I had of thought of that.

 

[Kolaris]

You could just make a mod with those various .sql changes using update statements and then making the mod have a dependency on them...

Excellent advice! I have a list of ~20 odd things I change and it gets very tiring updating to a new version

What about .xml files though?

I also like that idea about requiring 3 completed Policies for Ideologies, though that would mean quite a few AIs would never make it. Think I'll give it a try though.

I do a lot of tweaking to Barbarians. No XP limit and no combat bonus against them. Much higher spawn rate and roam range, but they don't loot or ignore terrain anymore. It makes them a serious threat and hampers "land grabbing" aggressive expansion.

I also tweak the XP granting buildings. I don't like how if you want to hit the level 4 promotions, you have to get Alhambra. So Orders, Brandenberg Gate, and Elite Forces all grant 20 XP instead of 15. That way you only need 2 of them to hit 100 XP.

 

[Enginseer]

It's the same database using either SQL or XML, but SQL is preferred for less novice mistakes. For example, eh I think unit maintenance is too low, lemme make it high.

Imagine the coding for the XML:

<GameData>
	<Defines>
            <Update>
                <Where Name="UNIT_MAINTENANCE_GAME_MULTIPLIER"/>
                <Set Value="1000000"/>
            </Update>
        </Defines>
</GameData>

Now, I could make several mistakes such as typing error or punctuation. When a simple SQL statement is like this, there are much fewer mistakes.

UPDATE Defines
SET Value = '1000000'
WHERE Name = 'UNIT_MAINTENANCE_GAME_MULTIPLIER';

But whatever floats your boat.

 

[joosegoose25]

'CULTURE_COST_FIRST_PLOT', 'CULTURE_COST_LATER_PLOT_MULTIPLIER', and 'CULTURE_COST_LATER_PLOT_EXPONENT'; reduced from 20,15 and 1.3 to 10, 7.5, and 1.15. Because borders should eventually cover the map.

Ooh, I might have to try this one, borders are expanding a little slowly for my taste. Its weird for me to see civs with ideologies that don't have the bonus resources in the 3rd ring of tiles inside their borders yet.

Policy precent halved on all difficulties, and for the AI as well. Because policies are fun darn it! (I would actually increase the number of trees you need to complete to get an ideology early to compensate, but I can't find where that value is)

Might have to try this one too, from my experience I see ideologies reached via tech far more than from completed policy trees.

As for my own personal tweaks, lately I've been decreasing the unit upgrade cost multiplier per era. Upgrades get so expensive late in the game that it's often a better idea to buy a completely new unit outright. Unless you need to disband some units anyways or you have a unit several eras behind, I personally like the logic to favor upgrading units you already invested in vs buying new ones a bit more.

Also, more randomly I've been adding like 2 culture to Old Faithful. I spawned by it one game and thought the 6 science seemed very underwhelming compared to others, and I've been changing it since. Toying with removing the Mt. Kilimanjaro promotion as well, it's fun but too much micromanagement for my taste.

 

[Tomice]

- Changed min city distance on large maps back to 3
- Changed horse archer movement malus to combat malus on rough terrain
- Will probably speed up tile aquisition rate a bit

Other than those small issues, the mod is AMAZING. My sincere thanks to all contributors.

 

[shader301202]

...Barbarian Max XP set to -1 (which means no maximum). The restriction always felt arbitrary....

Where can I change the max XP from barbarians?

 

[Finarvi]

I swap visible resources from luxury to common.

Common resources visible make much more sense (why would primitive people recognise silver or incense but not deer or sheep?). You don't need luxuries at the beginning, while common resources are important when settling capital.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I swap visible resources from luxury to common.

Common resources visible make much more sense (why would primitive people recognise silver or incense but not deer or sheep?). You don't need luxuries at the beginning, while common resources are important when settling capital.

Is there an easy way to swap/change/remove resource visibility requirements? I remember having done that several times but it was a pain (had to remove several lines of text from a file - and of course new version made the work in vain)

 

[Gort]

I don't.

 

[legoras]

I only change two things:

1: unlimited exp for barbs
2: no maintenance for roads.

 

[Finarvi]

Is there an easy way to swap/change/remove resource visibility requirements? I remember having done that several times but it was a pain (had to remove several lines of text from a file - and of course new version made the work in vain)

Yes, you have multiple opions in files:

MODS\(1) Community Patch (12-18)\CommunityOptions.sql
and
MODS\(2) Community Balance Patch (12-18)\CommunityOptions.sql

Changes to res visibility are in first lines of this second file.

 

[Crimson13]

A bunch of stuff honestly, it takes me some time to work things back the way I like 'em when this updates.

Making a mod so that I don't have to do that work is a great idea but unfortunately I have little clue on using ModBuddy or even just plain making a mod from scratch. Which sucks because I want to do something else besides a revert mod for CBP and I'm having a Hell of a time.