********** Fair Start ***********
This is the main idea of this mod: all civilizations in any starting position should be as equal as possible.
General:
-- No STARTING bonuses for AI at all difficulty levels (no free units, no free techs, zero initial AI city production).
-- No free starting techs for both AI and human. As a result, inflation offset increased, because we have no starting techs and have to spend additional time for researching them.
-- No techs from Goody Huts for both AI and human.
-- No Scouts from Goody Huts for both AI and human.
Terrain (see also "Improvements" for the details):
-- Added Jungle Camp and Lodge improvements to help the Civilizations started in difficult terrain (Jungle or Tundra).
-- Flood Plains give 2 food (instead of 3), but you are able to build special improvement on it - a Flood Plain Farm (+2 food). This is for slowing down the expansion of Civs started near Flood Plains.
-- Oasis - 3 food and 2 gold is too good for the beginning! Now it gives only 1 food and 1 gold, but you are able to build special improvement on it - an Oasis Hut (+2 food), which gives additionally +1 gold with Road and +1 gold/+1 hammer with Railroad. Note that Scouts can build an Oasis Hut.
-- Added Hut improvement (+1 gold) just as a small financial help at the beginning. It gives another +1 gold with the Road, but -1 gold near the river. It somehow makes equal civs started at a riverside and far from a river.
The following changes make the start even more fair.
-- +1 hammer from Palace
-- One free Worker for all players.
-- Mines give 1 hammer less without road or railroad (it slows down the production burst in your capital in case you have a lot of hills near it).
********** New culture levels **********
In Civ, when you build a city, it has zero culture ("Poor" level) and its cultural border is a 3x3 square. Next culture level is Fledging, and the city occupies 21 tiles. And so on.
In this mod the cultute levels are different. When you build a city, it is at "Very Poor" level and its cultural border has a "+"-like form that occupies 5 tiles. Next culture level is "Poor" and is the same as "Poor" level of the original Civ. Such way there are 12 culture levels in this mod (in Civ only 6 levels).
Below is an example of culture levels for Normal game speed (Level name, Culture value, City defence):
Very Poor, 0, 0
Poor, 3, 10
Pre-fledging, 10, 20
Fledging, 30, 30
Pre-developing, 100, 40
Developing, 300, 50
Pre-refined, 1000, 60
Refined, 3000, 70
Pre-influential, 7000, 80
Influential, 15000, 90
Pre-legendary, 30000, 100
Legendary, 50000, 120
Remember that "Enable Slow Culture Borders" in ViSa_v3.ini should be set to true. Do not set it to false!
New cities with zero culture are very vulnerable and citizens have only four tiles for working. Therefore the culture becomes much more important at the beginning of the game. For that
-- Obelisks cost decreased. Double construction speed with Ancient Temples
-- Cromlech: cost decreased even more
-- Heritage (allowing unlimited Artists) moved to Mysticism
-- Creative trait: +1 free culture (was +2)
For developers: getRadius in CvCulturalDecayEventManager.py changed to correspond the new culture levels.
********** New mods **********
-- Unit stack aid promotions (from Promotions & Perks by Zuul) -- However only the weak promotions are left (Aid 1). The Crowded promotion is also removed. To get a stack aid promotion for a unit you have to have another unit (or units) on the same plot and its (their) combat value should be more than a half of the aided unit. For example, to get Ranged Aid promotion for a Swordsman (combat 6) you need two or more Archers (combat 3) on the same plot.
-- Bonus Seeker mod. Now your Scouts are much more precious! This mod gives the ability to see a tiles with a bonuses to Recon units, Settlers, and Workboats. Of course, you can only guess which resource is on a tile. See this link for the details:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=197152
********** Improvements **********
New improvements:
-- Resource Farm: can be built on Barley, Wheat, Rice, Corn and Potato. Available with Tools. A Resource Farm carry irrigation like an usual Farm.
-- Farms do not provide you with Barley, Wheat, Rice, Corn or Potato, but there is a small chance of discovering them in your Farms. The chance is about half of the chance of discovering a bonus in a Mine. If a bonus was discovered in one of your farms, you have to build a Resource Farm instead of Farm on this place to get access to this bonus.
-- Mine on a Luxury Resource: can be built on Gold, Silver and Gems. Available with Bronze Working.
-- Mines do not provide you with Gold, Silver or Gems, but there is a small chance of discovering them in your Mines. For example, if Gold was discovered in one of your mines, you have to build a Mine on a Luxury Resource instead of Mine on this place.
Having a special improvement instead of Farm or Mine slows down the expansion a little bit, because the special improvements become available later than Farms or Mines, and the initial yields of the special improvements are very small. Also yield of Resource Farm and Mine on a Luxury Resource changes during the game in different way, comparing to Farm and Mine. Not speaking that it adds another fun to the game.
-- Jungle Camp: can be built in Jungle, gives +1 gold. With Hunting: +1 food, +1 hammer. With Improvement Farming: -1 food. With Iron Working: -1 hammer.
-- Lodge: can be built in Forest/Tundra, gives +1 gold. With Hunting: +1 food. With Improvement Farming: -1 food.
Jungle Camp and Lodge improvements are to help the Civilizations started in difficult terrain (Jungle or Tundra). They may give you some help in the beginning, but become obsolete very fast. It may be useful to build Jungle Camp or Lodge on a Resource that you cannot use yet (for example, on Banana/Jungle before discovering Iron Working).
-- Hut: +1 gold (a small financial help at the beginning). It gives another +1 gold with the Road, but -1 gold near the river. With Pottery: -1 gold.
It may be useful to build a Hut 1) on a resource that you cannot use yet or do not want to use (for example, if you have Wheat near your city, but do not need too much food, you can build a Hut instead of Resource Farm on the Wheat), 2) to prevent Forest to be grown on a tile, 3) on the outer sides of a river bends (there is no -1 gold there) - together with a road it gives you a 2food/3gold tile at once. Don't forget that Hut becomes almost useless with Pottery.
-- Flood Plain Farm (+2 food). Can be build on Flood Plains. Yield changes the same way as of Farm. Without Flood Plain Farms, Flood Plains give only 2 food. So building Flood Plain Farms on Flood Plains is the only reasonable way.
Usually you experience a huge jump in happiness/health with discovering of Calendar, because it gives you a lot of new resources. One way to decrease this jump, is the following: the Plantation is divided into three types and they are redistributed in Compass, Mathematics, and Calendar. (The another way is tech happy/health balance - see the next section).
-- Plantation moved in Compass.
-- Tropical Plantation: available with Mathematics, provides Banana, Lemons, Olives
-- Fabric Plantation: available with Calendar, provides Silk, Cotton
Other new improvements:
-- Oasis Hut: +2 food, +1 gold with Road and +1 gold/+1 hammer with Railroad. Note that Scouts can build an Oasis Hut.
-- Horse Pasture (+1 hammer): available with Animal Husbandry, +1 hammer and +1 gold with Horseback Riding.
Changes:
-- Pasture moved in Writing, Camp moved in Animal Husbandry.
-- Build Road time doubled. Build Railroad time increased three times. Build roads only where you really need them!
-- Building improvements on Desert or Tundra tiles takes 50% more time (was 25%), on Snow tiles - +100% (was 50%).
-- Workshop gives -1 food and +2 hammers (was -1/+1).
-- Lumbermill improved (to be better than Workshop): gives extra +1 gold with Road (+1 gold, +1 hammer with Railroad)
-- Bonus revealing redistributed a little bit.
-- Terraforming Build Time doubled
-- Forest Plant Build Time increased 50%
Also a lot of changes in improvement yeilds. Look into the game.
********** Happy/Health balance **********
Not secret that in ViSa there are too much happiness and health. I think that the game would be much more interesting if you should make more efforts to get happiness and health in your cities at all stages of the game. For that I have made a lot of changes in Buildings, Techs, Traits, Wonders and so on.
Buildings:
-- Windmill: deleted all Happiness from Bonuses. Instead added +5% food with Barley, Corn, Wheat. Production: +15%.
-- Botanic Garden: +2 health (was +3)
-- Equal Opportunity Act: +1 happy in all cities (was +1 happy and +2 happy in all cities)
-- Tavern: deleted all Happiness from Bonuses and Commerce modifiers. Added +1 happy. Added +10% gold with Wine, Tobacco, Coffee
-- Aqueduct: obsoletes with Sanitation and need 3 Libraries (in Large map)
-- Recycling Center: needed 5 Sewer Systems (in Large map)
-- Market: removed Happiness from Ivory and Pearls
-- Harbor: removed Happiness from Pearls
-- Theatre: removed Happiness from Dye and Hemp. Instead added +5% gold with Dye, Hemp.
-- Forge: removed Happiness from Gems
Techs:
Quite a lot of Happy/Health changes (look into the game). Main principle: if a tech give bust in production or military strength, it sometimes gives some unhappy or unhealth; if a tech give culture or science, it sometimes gives some happy or health. In general, the total Happy/Health get from techs is about zero (plus-minus two-three).
Traits:
-- Charismatic trait: removed +1 happy, added +1 happy from Theatre
Also Happy and Health decreased for all difficulty levels. If you play Noble or higher, you can have only three citizens in your capital (and only two in other cities) at the beginning. This was made also for Religion balance (see "Religion" for the details).
********** Commerce balance **********
Most changes were made to decrease the money income (especially at the second half of the game), decrease the number of trade routes, increase the cities maintenance, increase the units maintenance.
Also "City maintenance / Civic Upkeep / Inflation" rebalanced so that they would be roughly the same, as in the original Civ (in ViSa the ratio is about 1/4/4 that makes Great Palace, Versailles and similar wonders almost useless).
-- Civic Upkeep decreased.
-- Inflation decreased.
-- City Maintenance for the number of cities increased by 100%.
Changed Maintenance Modifier for some buildings:
-- Courthouse: Maintenance Modifier -40% (was -50%)
-- Babilon Code: Maintenance Modifier -60% (was -75%)
-- Iroquois Longhouse: Maintenance Modifier -50% (was -60%)
-- Jurta: no Maintenance Modifier. Instead added +1 food
-- Nubian Stable: Maintenance Modifier 15% (was 30%)
-- Zulu Ikhanda: Maintenance Modifier decreased to -15% (was -20%)
-- Barracks2, Stable2: added Maintenance Modifier +10%
-- Barracks3, Stable3: added Maintenance Modifier +20%
-- Factory: added Maintenance Modifier +10%
-- Tank Factory: added Maintenance Modifier +10%
Also, some Wonders was owerpovered. Changes are as below:
-- Dubay Bay: +3 trade routes (was +5)
-- Marco Polo Embassy: +3 trade routes and +1 trade route in all cities
-- Fort Knox: +1 gold from Merchants, Scientists, and Artists ONLY
Others:
-- Tourism and Advanced Aviation give only 1 trade route (instead of 2)
-- Extra cost increased for many units (see "Units balance").
********** Religion **********
In my opinion, Religion in Civ is a little bit overpowered. Also a player should make more effort to spread its religion. For that
-- Spread Factor for all religions decreased from 100% to 30%.
-- Settler Religion is turned off.
-- Max number of missionaires decreased to 2.
If you were rushing for one of early religions (Buddhism or Hinduism), but could not catch any, you are in a trouble, because you spent a lot of time and money almost for nothing. So
-- +1 Happy added in Meditation and Polytheism
making these techs precious even if Buddhism and Hinduism have already discovered. For happiness balance, happiness decreased by 2 for all difficulty levels (see "Happy/Health balance" for the details).
********** Units Balance **********
The most significant changes:
-- Extra cost increased for many units. In general, +1 extra cost for gunpowder units, +2 for modern units, +3 or +4 for stronger modern unit, but there are many exceptions. See Visapedia for the details.
-- Great Peoples Extra Cost set to -3. It doesn't mean that you will get money from Great Peoples, but just having them decreases gold that you spend for your units support.
-- All Axemen moved to Iron Working. I understand that it is quite a big change, but I think it makes the game more balanced and interesting. (You still have Hyapist and Spearman in Bronze Working.)
-- Collateral damage from all siege units decreased. Actually, I wanted only to decrease the strength of Ranged Bombardment (for example, make a siege unit to bombard only the upper unit - like Strikes of Air units. Unfortunately it does not seem to be possible to implement this through XML or Python).
There is a lot of changes in unit upgrades tree. Main idea was to make unit upgrades more clear (and more beautiful in the unit upgrades chart
).
-- Warrior also upgradable to Hyapist
-- Hyapist upgredable to Medieval Infantry (instead of Maceman)
-- Longbowman upgredable to Musketman (instead of Rifleman)
-- Rifleman also upgredable to Machine Gun
-- Grenader now NOT upgredable to Machine Gun
-- Medieval Infantry, LANDSKNECHT, KNIGHT_TEMPLAR are now NOT upgredable to Musketman
-- Explorers upgradable to Infantry
-- Blimp upgradable to Bomber
-- Marine upgrades to Space Marine
-- Sam Infantry upgrades to Mobile Sam and Advanced Sam
-- Mi26 upgrades to Light Apache
-- Light Apache upgrades to Apache
-- Gunship upgrades to Apache
Also some units were too weak or too strong:
-- Aztec Jaguar: iCost --> 40, iCombat --> 6 (was too weak)
-- Maasai Moran: iCost --> 20, iCombat --> 2, iCityDefense --> 25 (25% vs Melee and 100% vs Animals are good enough)
-- Cherokee Ayastigi: Moves decreased to 1 (was too strong)
-- Sumer Vulture: iCost --> 35, iCombat --> 4 (being able to build it without Copper is good enough)
-- Troy Peltast: Combat increased to 3 (was too weak)
-- Plumed Archer: Moves decreased to 1 (Combat 4 is good enough)
-- Kahn SharpShooter: Combat increased to 4 (to make it better than usual Archer)
-- Plumed Longbowman: City Defense increased to 15
-- Crossbowman: no longer have City Defense
-- Armadillo (MarkV Tank): Combat changed to Armor (was Gun), no need Oil any more, can be upgradable to Tank
And some other small changes:
-- Scouts set support-free (Extra cost = -1). But only four Scouts available for one player. Also Medic promotions are not available for Scouts.
-- Scouts (except Brave) made stronger against Animals (+125%). Also added +50% defence vs Warrior. (There was too few chances for Scouts to survive.)
-- The same for Working Boats (Extra cost = -1, Max number 4). Work Boats available with Boating. You can use them as early recon naval units.
-- Increased the number of free units (both military and domestic).
-- Enabled 100% withdrawal chance.
-- Urban Planner can build only Ranch, City Guard, and WindMill, because only for these buildings there are no Unique Buildings analogue. For example, Australian civilization could build both Market (with Urban Planner) and Bazaar (as UB for Australians) that is not fair.
-- Settlers upgradable to Urban Planner
-- War Elephants can build roads
-- Howitzer moved in Advanced Weapons (there was too short gap between Artillery and Howitzer)
-- Terraformer has +4 Extra Cost. Terraforming should cost you more money.
-- Italian Carabiniere: added upgrades (there were no upgrades for this unit)
********** Promotions Balance **********
-- Promotions tree simplified. Many changes in Medic, Heal, March promotions prerequisites. See Visapedia for the details.
-- Recon units cannot get Medic promotions (the reason is that Scouts are made support-free - see "Units Balance").
-- All Defense promotions improved. In particular, added Collateral Damage Protection in all promotions that have nonzero TerrainDefenses values.
-- Heal promotions no need prerequisites any more. Heal promotions are set to have weak Defence/Heal properties. By the way, AI uses Heal promotions quite often, though it still almost never uses the Defence promotions.
-- Added some more Collateral Damage Protection in Drill promotions
-- Flanking promotions improved a little bit. I like the idea of some units to be almost immortal (with 100% withdrawal chance). This is set so that having all three flanking promotions, Tactics promotion and Mounted Aid promotion, gives a unit 100% chance of retreat.
-- Warmth, Cold and Field promotions is made stronger. (Have you ever used them?)
-- Woodsman3 promotion requires Hunting.
-- City Guard promotion: added 50% upgrade discount - to make this promotion a bit better.
-- Heavy promotion: Withdrawal chance changed from 20% to -20% (seems it was supposed to be so).
-- Stalwart promotions improved.
-- Free Upgrade promotion: upgrade discount set to 100% (it was absolutely useless before).
********** Barracks/Stables **********
Barracks2 give +1 exp point and need 3 Barracks (in Large map)
Barracks3 give +2 exp point and need 3 Barracks2 (in Large map)
Stable2 give +1 exp point and need 3 Stables (in Large map)
Stable3 give +2 exp point and need 3 Stables2 (in Large map)
********** Traits changes **********
Industrious trait: +20% in Wonder production (was +50%). +1 hammer on plots with 4 or more.
Commercial trait: +1 gold on plots with 3 or more (was +1 gold on plots with 2 or more).
Creative trait: +1 free culture (was +2)
Charismatic trait: removed +1 happy, added +1 happy from Theatre
********** Process changes **********
New process - The Taxes. Available with The Wheel. Converts 34% of Hammers to Gold.
Wealth, Research, Culture convert 67% of Hammers (was 100%).
********** Animals **********
-- Bonus vs Animals decreased for all difficulty levels.
-- Combat vs Animals included in all Woodsman promotions.
-- Scouts (except Brave) made stronger against Animals (+125%). There was too few chances for Scouts to survive.
-- Scout Aid promotion has 50% vs Animals as well. So two or more Scouts on one tile are almost unvulnerable against animals.
-- Animal Aid promotion added (+5% strength and +30% vs Animals). You get this promotion if you have your Animal unit in the same tile (see Stack Aid mod explanations for the details).
********** Civic balance **********
-- Reperesentation: +2 sciense from specialists (was +3)
-- Manifest Destiny: Number Cities Maintenance Modifier -75% (was -100%)
-- Slavery: a lot of Improvement Yield changes (see the game). Added -50% Great People rate.
-- Serfdom: Worker speed rate increased to +75%
-- Caste System: upkeep lowered, added +50% Great People rate.
-- Industrialism: +50% production in all cities (was +25%)
-- Environmentalism: moved to Ecology, added some unhappiness. Mines give 1 hammer less.
-- Heritage: moved to Mysticism
-- Regulated H.C.: unlimited Doctor (instead of Merchant)
-- Subsidized H.C.: removed "no unhealth from buildings" and +1 food from Town. Added +1 food from Camp, Desertmill, Oasis Hut.
********** About cities placement **********
Settlers and Urban Planners have free Sentry and Mobility promotions. It is reasonably to spend 1-3 turns in the beginning to find the ideal place for your capital. Remember that Settlers can see yet undiscovered bonuses (see Bonus Seekers mod).
When there are a lot of water tiles in the city radius, but no access to a sea, the water tiles are almost useless. To resolve this problem, I desided to allow Lighthouses being build everywhere. I understand that it is not very realistic, but I cannot see other reasonable way. Naturally some Lighthouse unique buildings need to be done less powerfull.
-- Polinesia Fishery: cost increased
-- Pheonician Becon: removed "+1 trade route"
********** Great Doctor changes **********
-- "Great Doctor Teach Chance" is made dependant on the game speed. So at longer game speed you have less chance for Great Doctor to teach your units a medical promotion.
-- "Teach Random Unit" set to false. So Great Doctor will teach a medical promotion only units in the same stack.
-- Chance of Great Doctor Appearing From Combat first of all depends on how many medic promotions this unit has. The new thing is that it also depends on the map size and the stage of the game. At the beginning of the game and in small maps the chance is higher. (For developers: actually, it depends on the number of your units).
-- "Great Doctor Appear From Combat" in ViSa_v3.ini was ignored. This bug fixed.
********** Tech Leak changes **********
In my opinion, Tech Leak is overpovered at the second half of the game. It should be just a small help, not the main source for the research. Therefore I made two following changes.
-- The target player gets only techs that he can research. For example, a player cannot get points of Sailing, if he does not know Fishing.
-- The tech points you leak to others, does not proportional to the number of the trade routes any more. I put a special coefficient in the formula: when you have a few trade routes, the coefficient is about 1, when you have a lot of trade routes, the coefficient is about 0.5. So at the beginning of the game you receive and send almost as much tech points as in original ViSa, but at the later stages of the game the importance of trade routes in the tech leak decreases.
Also:
-- Tech Leak Sevo's Balancer removed (even without Sevo's Balancer, Tech Leak is a good help to weaker civilizations).
********** City Guard new behavior **********
City Guard no longer gives a unique unit instead of default one, except during the Golden Age (in Golden Age, the chance is 20%). The reason: it is difficult to manipulate your army consisting of a mess of unique units. Instead, chance of getting free promotions doubled.
Also:
-- City Guard do not need Walls (for being able to build it also at the later stages of the game).
-- Fixed bug, when a City Guard cannot give a free promotion to a Shylon or Landknecht.
********** Army Bases and Drill Sergeant new behavior **********
Without a Drill Sergeant, Army Bases are useless. Therefore I have made the following changes in Army Bases behavior.
-- An army (navy, air) base can train one unit at a time up to level 4. If you put a Drill Sergeant in the city with a base, you can train four units at a time up to level 5. Each other Drill Sergeant allows training three more units.
Also:
-- Army Base need more Barracks
-- Drill Sergeant itself need 3 gold per turn for support. As a city specialist it also consumes 3 gpt. (If you want to train a lot of units, you should pay for it!)
-- The Bug, when a unit continue training unlimitedly, fixed (at least I hope so).
********** Other important changes **********
-- See level decreased for all SeeLevel options. This means that you will have more space on the map for expanding.
-- Added +1 Road Movement in Mathematics (now you have +1 Road Movement with Mathematics, Engineering and Asphalt)
-- Tech Traiding is back in Alphabet
-- Migrant mod fixed
********** Other small changes **********
-- Stele: no happyness, +1 science (because Stele gives happiness as unique building for Charismatic civ).
-- Tech Conquest: technology transfer percent decreased. (Actually it works strange and should be fixed)
-- Great Palace: added +3 gold
-- Versailles: added +5 gold
-- Castle: need 3 Walls (in Large map)
-- Barracks: requires Tools tech
-- Oracle: cost increased a little bit
-- King Saga: no obsolete
-- TNT-factory: war wearness set to -10 (was +10), need 3 Musket Manufakturs (in Large map)
-- KGB: no more need Scotland Yard
-- Trade Distribution Network: Maintenance Modifier set to 10 (was 1), deleted Military Production Modifier, iTradeRoutes set to 2, deleted Global Trade Routes, Merchants give extra +1 food (extra +1 gold removed).
-- Stem Cell Research Lab: "no unhappy" removed, +1 Health removed, Spaceship production modifier increased to 10%
-- Mastery victory screen can be displayed just after 5 turns (not after 25% of the game).
-- Health influence of Forest, Jungle and Flood Plain decreased.
-- Bonus vs Barbarians decreased for all difficulty levels.
-- Great Engineer gives 1 hammer more
-- Great Statesman gives 3 gold more
-- Some techs moved from Ancient Era to Classical, making Ancient Era a little bit shorter and Classical Era a little bit longer. Now you cannot skip Classical Era (researching Theology after Priesthood) any more.
-- +1 Sight Across Water moved in Boating
-- Horseback Riding requires also War Art
-- Iron Working requires War Art
-- Construction requires Horseback Riding
-- More Aluminium on the map
-- Max experience from Animals - 20, from Barbarians - 40. Exp from withdrawal - 2.
-- Longer Golden Age (+25%).
- two additional happiness in 1/3 of your cities was good enough, IMHO. In any way, working Aqueducts in Modern times are nonsence, from position of realism.
