[MOD - BtS] v4.0 of NEW BALANCE (New Balance is back)

[Dearmad]

New Balance v4.1
8 Apr 08
by Peter Shafer
Works with Civ IV BtS

INTRO:
This mod lengthens the game. TECHNOLOGIES drive the pace of the game- they come slower. You can mess with units more before the next tech obsoletes them. Other things are slowed down a too: city growth, etc... proportionally better than the vanilla EPIC/MARATHON game.

IMPORTANT
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This mod is DESIGNED for the NEW BALANCE speed- make SURE YOU SELECT IT! when you make a new game. Also NOBLE difficulty is exactly equal for the player and the AI.
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USE:
UNZIP to the civ4\...\mods\ folder like any other mod. So you should have a "New Balance" folder right under your MODS folder in your main CIV directory.


The file is at:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=8952


I've played through a few games with this and find it quite challenging. Give me feedback in this thread. Do not expect that I will make huge gamechanging "fixes" which have been argued into the ground regarding my mod:

1. Jungles WILL remain until the later tech.
2. The ECONOMY WILL hurt financially until you figure out how to balance your books better
3. Resources WILL remain unusued in the jungles sometimes until later techs...

Enjoy!

 

[mice]

I remeber New Balance. I had some great games with it. That jungle thing is hard .

 

[Kalimakhus]

The zip file only have the contents of the XML folder of the mod. Extracting it into mods folder won't create a working mod.

 

[Dearmad]

Oops! Grrr... uploaded the RIGHT file this time. SORRY!

 

[Dearmad]

IMPORTANT: v4.1 is uploaded now in place of 4.0. Apparently Firaxis had a bug in BtS that caused a CTD when certain combinations of techs occur and a city gets razed and there are no units to conscript- CTD!

Fixed this. It is NOT savegame compatible with v4.0, sorry...

 

[negelborsch]

Thank you Dearmad, for renewing the New Balance Mod for BtS.

Some question:

When I play on New Balance Speed, I will have a culture victory with 3 cities with 45.000 Culture points each.
A bit less I would say. Three times I had already a culture victory already and I didnt even reach modern age. With playing on high difficulty.

So I switch over to Epic Speed. But then the timeline is not counting correct I think. I reached the Rennaissance Age and was still in 2000 BC. Also on high difficulty. The timeline is only counting 10 years a round, even in the Stone Age. So if I would continue, I think around 1 AD I would reach Modern Age.
So, up to now I prefer to play your mod in Marathon Speed.

Ok. One more. Where are the massive Barbarians in the new World? I remember, when I played your Mod in Warlords, it was really a challenge to conquest the new continent against the Barbarians. Hundreds of them attacked me before. Now they are totally weak.

So, last one. Is it possible to play normal (vanilla) maps with your mod now?

2 times I had a CtD with old maps during playing them with your mod. Both were in Rennaissance Age.

Finally again my thanks for You doing that work again.

Hope You can give some reply. Thanx

Uwe

 

[Subaru WrXxX]

Was wondering if New Balance was going to make an appearance for BtS. Good to see u back Dearmad & the mods return. Just combined a 34civ dll. w/ the mod lastnite (something u may want to include ) & going to get back to playing Civ later tonite hoepfully. Civ vanilla just doesnt do it 4 me when the world is reaching flight & rifling by the 1400s. Really had some great games only made possible by this mod in past versions as its the perfect balance for Civ w/o ruining the game itself w/ to many extras/gameplay changes & new "bugs" like some other similiar mods. Again thx 4 the update & will post some feedback asap.

 

[ilteroi]

thank you very much, i think this is the best mod around! and i like the jungle thing too

 

[Subaru WrXxX]

Finally got a chance to civ this morning & have a good game going. 25civs, 220x208 something map, new balance speed. Not sure yet about the culture victory problem, havent gotten far enuff yet but there are a few very minor bugs if u even want to call them that. 1st the AI seems to always go for the artic promotion for there archers but something seems off. It will have 4 or 5 occurances of the 1st promotion & it appears all in a lonnng list. 2nd I think this has been changed from the older warlords or civ4 version but tech trading is wayyy to early IMO. I had civs vassaling others in bc years & giving up there techs to help them out. 3rd is almost a useless request but the jungle thing is killing me. Altho i agree w/ u that jungles shouldnt be clearable until biology, its one of the gr8 things about the mod, civs were using the resources in jungles 1000s of years before then ie. bananas, gems, pigs etc. Improvments w/ resources in the jungles should be allowed because there was harvesting of fruit, hunting of animals & gem etc mines setup 1000s of years ago but the jungles not clearable until biology should stay.

All in all this mod has even improved since the last version I had & this is the 1st game Ive played in awhile that Ive enjoyed. Will update later, Im only at 477AD & just learned construction, much needed as my vast armies of horsearchers, axemen/spearmen arent advancing as well now that my enimies have longbowmen. Elephantmen will change that.

 

[Dread]

Just started a game....and first tech is 11 turns ?
I thought would be slower or altered
Also don't have sevopedia ?
Please advise

 

[ilteroi]

has anyone had success running this mod with the latest bts 3.17 patch? i get a crash even before the main screen is displayed ...

 

[Puer]

has anyone had success running this mod with the latest bts 3.17 patch? i get a crash even before the main screen is displayed ...

Just finished another New Balance mod game - everything works & no crashes.

I noticed a little bug: Calleon can enter to the land if calleon is build in the city and rally point is set somewhere near coast land.

There is a crossing river BUG too. I described this already here too: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=239310

 

[ilteroi]

Just finished another New Balance mod game - everything works & no crashes.

I noticed a little bug: Calleon can enter to the land if calleon is build in the city and rally point is set somewhere near coast land.

There is a crossing river BUG too. I described this already here too: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=239310

ok, it seems the crash was due to a customized gameoptioninfos.xml i had put there ... it's no part of new balance proper, but worked fine with 3.13. with 3.17 though it is very strange cause even the vanilla 3.17 version from bts/assets makes the game crash when you copy it to the mod folder.

just wanted to clear that up, it's not the mod's fault

 

[Dearmad]

I think it is NOT compatible with 3.17.

I'm rebuilding the mod from the ground up for 3.17. So I don't know if it's compatible with that patch or not. My guess is NO, because there were some core XML changes to the generaldefines.xml.

I'll have the next version out in a bit.