K-Mod aims to build on standard Beyond the Sword game-play without changing the flavour. The focus is on fixing flaws in the game-mechanics for some of the weaker elements of the game, and improving balance and the AI. I'm quite happy with the results. I think this mod is a great improvement to the game and I wouldn't go back to playing unmodded BtS. But these kinds of changes are subjective, so I'd appreciate your feedback. The download page has most of the details.
Latest version: 1.46
Last updated: 6/May/2018
Download, and feature list
Major features of K-Mod
Any questions / comments / suggestions / bug reports / criticisms, etc. are welcome.
I mostly play on normal or large map size, (Using the Not too big or small map script), and on normal speed. But I have tried to make sure the scaling of the formulas is right for all speeds & sizes. I'd appreciate any feedback about whether or not it works as expected.
Regarding the in-game translations. I think I've put in translations for all of the new game text. But I only speak English, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translations. If you happen to see some translated text that you think is wrong (or english text that's wrong), please let me know.
For improved graphics, here is a Blue Marble tile pack which can be unzipped directly into the K-Mod assets folder. This graphics pack will not break multiplayer compatibility or change any of the game mechanics. It's what I use.
Latest version: 1.46
Last updated: 6/May/2018
Download, and feature list
Major features of K-Mod
- Greatly improved AI. The AI has been taught to understand the new K-Mod game mechanics; but it has also been taught to understand many of the standard BtS game mechanics which were overlooked in the original AI, such as the difference between 'revealing' a resource and 'enabling' a resource. It has new military strategies, new victory strategies, and a bunch of changes just for personality. The K-Mod AI originally used the BetterAI mod as a starting point. It is now noticeably stronger than both the standard AI, and the AI from the BetterAI mod. Each new version of K-Mod comes with further AI improvements.
- Speed improvements. I've gone to some effort to tune how the game runs. Although some of the internal calculations of K-Mod are more complex than in standard BtS, K-Mod actually runs much faster than the unmodded game.
- User-Interface improvements. K-Mod includes most of the of features from the famous BUG mod, as well as lots of additional UI improvements. For example, units will no longer automatically attack when you move them into the fog of war. And units can paradrop as a group now, rather than only one at a time.
- Completely new Global Warming system. In standard BtS, global warming is a bit of a joke. It is triggered by the wrong things, you can't really do much to prevent it, and it hits the world in a harsh and unintuitive way. I've completely changed it. The new system is driven by population and pollution-causing buildings, and offset by forests and jungles. The world has a "sustainability threshold", above which global warming will start, and will gradually pick up pace as more pollution is created. ... There is a new Environmental Adviser screen. Global Warming has become a significant and interesting part of the game; but also a less painful one!
- Under-the-hood rebalancing. I've tweaked many of the numbers in the game. Stats of buildings and things like that; but that's just part of the balancing. The more significant balance changes are 'under-the-hood'. For example, I've changed the way culture spreads from cities. This isn't the kind of change that the average player would notice, but the affect is that culture is a more important, more powerful, and more intuitive.
Any questions / comments / suggestions / bug reports / criticisms, etc. are welcome.
I mostly play on normal or large map size, (Using the Not too big or small map script), and on normal speed. But I have tried to make sure the scaling of the formulas is right for all speeds & sizes. I'd appreciate any feedback about whether or not it works as expected.
Regarding the in-game translations. I think I've put in translations for all of the new game text. But I only speak English, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translations. If you happen to see some translated text that you think is wrong (or english text that's wrong), please let me know.
For improved graphics, here is a Blue Marble tile pack which can be unzipped directly into the K-Mod assets folder. This graphics pack will not break multiplayer compatibility or change any of the game mechanics. It's what I use.
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