Mod that adjusts difficulty over time?

[TheNiceOne]

Hi,

I just started playing CiV for a bit again, and immediately started thinking of the one mod I would really like to have: A mod where the difficulty changes during the time of one game.

I'm more of a builder than a warmonger, and really enjoy the early phases of CIV when I discover the land and build it up, so I prefer not playing on a too high difficulty then (Prince or King) to avoid starting with a great disadvantage. However, with those settings the game is interesting and competitive for a while, but becomes quite easy from around the middle age, and way too easy by the time I reach the industrial era.

So what I'd want is a mod where you could set up the typical AI bonuses such as happiness, gold, production and science, to be low when the game starts, but then slowly grow over time. Ex: AI Building cost (which is 100% on Prince or below, and 50% on Deity) could be set to 100% at game start, and 50% at a certain turn (close to the end turn), and then slowly decrement for each turn, thus be around 75 at the middle of the game.


I don't think such a mod exists, so I guess I'm asking if such a mod is possible to create, and if an experienced modder could give me some hints for where to start. I've never modded for any Civ game, but I'm a professional software developer and have extensive modding experience from one game (Oblivion), so I should be up to the task if it is at all possible.

Thanks

 

[Spatzimaus]

I don't think such a mod exists, so I guess I'm asking if such a mod is possible to create, and if an experienced modder could give me some hints for where to start.

No, no mod like that exists. Yes, it can be done, but no, it wouldn't be easy.

To actually make an explicitly scaling difficulty system, you'd basically need to use a Lua function that adds or subtracts bonuses as you go. It can be basically done in three ways:
1> Add or subtract yields directly from the player/city. This is the least user-friendly method, but it's also the least problematic in terms of implementation.
2> Create a series of hidden buildings that add empire-wide bonuses or penalties, and then on each turn apply as many of these as you want to adjust the yields. I did this in my own mod for my "head start" period, where if you choose to start in the later eras it gives you a steadily declining bonus for the first few techs to get you up to speed without any of the Firaxis-made cost reductions that can become so unbalanced in a long game.
3> Create a series of hidden Policies that add empire-wide bonuses or penalties, and then use Lua to adjust which one (and ONLY one) of these is in effect at any given time. I use this method in my Mythology mod; it's by far the most user-friendly of the methods and the least abuseable by a smart player, but it requires a large amount of modification to the game (both in the XML and in the UI).

The better solution is to figure out exactly what you think is wrong with the game balance in those later eras, and fix that directly. The game isn't very well-balanced in the later eras, leading to that situation where it's basically over by the time you reach the Industrial and all that's left is a mopping-up period.

For instance, IMO a big part of the imbalance is due to overspecialization; a player might go straight up a chain of buildings to make a pure research city, a pure production city, a pure culture city, and so on. The AI's Flavor system doesn't allow for that sort of thing, which ends up giving a significant advantage to the player. Likewise, consider Happiness; a player often won't care how far above zero he is, but will try very hard to stay above zero, while the AI isn't that absolute in either direction.
So one way to "fix" this is to simply make every building a bit less absolute. Take my own mods, for instance. That Stadium you always depended on for late-game happiness now goes from 4 Happiness to 2 Happiness, 2 Culture, and some gold. That Museum now adds a bit less Culture and a small amount of research. That Opera House now adds a bit less culture but adds a few more Great Person points. The Monastery and Temple now add 1 Happiness apiece at the cost of some of their culture, while the Garden adds 1 Happiness. But to make up for this, unhappiness went from 3 + 1.0*population to 4 + 1.2*pop in my mod, the culture cost equation changed a bit, and so on. By making buildings' bonuses be spread across multiple categories like that, it helps the AI more as it basically encourages the player to develop his cities horizontally, instead of vertically, just like the AI does.

Those aren't the ONLY imbalances, of course; a big one is that the AI simply won't annex cities, and will just puppet everything. As the world slowly consolidates from a dozen empires down to three or four, this starts to make a really big difference. There are plenty of other small balance issues; the way AIs value strategic and luxury resources, the way certain resources are distributed, the way military units move, the way that it's much easier to attack than defend, the way workers develop land, and so on. There are several balance mods (such as my own) that try adjusting a large number of different areas to get a more playable game overall ("playable" in this sense meaning that the AI isn't so crippled in the later eras).

The point is, you should try the various balance mods (start with Thalassicus' Unofficial Patch/Vanilla Enhanced Mod) and see if you still feel the balance is completely off in the later eras. Obviously I'm biased and prefer my own mods' balance, but quite a few different mods have come up with ways to make the late game more playable.