New Version - December 18th (12-18)

[Gazebo]

Ho ho ho!

What's this? A new version? Before Christmas? My, you must all be good children! Or perhaps you are extremely naughty. Either way, new version inbound! We're going for a full release because - frankly - the scaling on happiness late game for humans sucks on the current release candidate. It's much better now. Here we go!

General

• Tactical AI - significant performance improvements and much better decision-making
• General bug-fixes for Github issues, etc.
• Major improvements to AI deal logic for resources, maps, etc.
• Return of AI demand logic (fixed bugs breaking mechanism)
• AI policy and belief selection tweaks and improvements (should see more diversity in branches, and more tile-based pantheon choices)
• Modding - modders: fixed some CSD legacy code for diplo units by adding a new promotion element that grants influence directly, instead of manipulating the GM code)

Balance

• Difficulty
  • Removed AI happiness bonus at all levels - is now 100% same as player
• Policies
  • Fealty
    • Nobility - now grants happiness and food bonuses to Armory as well
    • Divine Right - now 100% of happiness to culture (Was 50%)
    • Burghers - now +4 science/culture from TR to other civs (was +2)
    • Serfdom - +50% internal TR power, Plantations gain Pasture bonus (+1g/p), now +1 culture per 4 non-specialists (was 5)
• Freedom
  • Avant Garde - added -10% unhappiness from boredom (was only ideology without a need modifier)
• Promotions
  • Bombardment (naval) - now +10% CS, +25% v. Cities (was 5%/20%)
  • Fixed bug in targeting giving scaling bonus versus units (now 10% flat per level)
• Civs
  • Denmark
    • Runestone - pillaging bonus now resource tiles only - +10 gold for land, +10 culture for sea
• Wonders
  • Temple of Artemis - increased local % bonus for ranged units to 25% (was 15%)
  • Prora - pillage bonus now land resource tiles only.
  • Fixed missing policy requirement for Taj Mahal, removed requirement from Red Fort
  • Text fixes for non-global attributes
• Resources
  • Back to a base value of 1 happiness (scaler remains the same)
• Processes
  • Now reduce need of the appropriate yield type by the % value of the production conversion (so 25% for all VP processes)
• Happiness
  • Continued work on smoothing unhappiness modifier curve
  • Increased specialist unhappiness back to .34 (was .25)
  • Adjusted the models that underpin the population and tech modifiers
  • There are now just FOUR things that increase needs modifiers in cities:
    • Empire size - currently 'founded cities X 2,' scaling with map size (only applies to large/huge for scaling)
    • City pop - is just the flat # of citizens, converted to a % (so 10 citizens = 10%)
    • Capital status - if capital, +25%, otherwise it doesn't apply.
    • Tech level - % of techs you've completed (out of total # of techs), divided by 2. So caps at 50% by the end of the game.
    • These values are 'staticized' for cities, so you'll know exactly what growth will do when it happens.
  • Added UI elements for more transparency in city screen.
  • Breaks down positive and negative needs modifiers so you know what's up
  • Made some adjustments to need modifiers from buildings/policies based on changes above - balance is roughly the same on these
  • Reduced all 'global' need modifiers from wonders (these were causing some major skew by themselves)

Now, on the impossible chance that my profound testing leaves something to be desired in human hands, I added a failsafe:

Go to:

C:\Users\~\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\(2) Community Balance Overhaul\Modular Elements\Happiness Mod

Find the line that updates BALANCE_HAPPINESS_POP_MULTIPLIER with a number. It is currently zero. If you find your empire is descending into a nightmare of unhappiness, make this number negative. -10, -20, whatever you need it to be to get things on track. And let me know!

Online as of 12:00AM EST. Midnight oil, ho!

Link: https://mega.nz/#F!DMsxkDYI!zSpR9CHpmAfWyIvMXaN3pw

Obviously not savegame compatible. Start over, nerds!

Cheers,
G

 

[Enginseer]

fealty very strong now

 

[Phuc Nguyen]

Awesome. Just when I need to start a new game.

 

[Txurce]

It all looks very promising, especially the happiness. But the strategic decision to remove all AI happiness bonuses is a PR masterstroke.

 

[Minh Le]

Wow fealty maybe too strong now, I mean fealty was not underperform, it was just weird. Maybe the other policies, opener and finisher need a nerf.

 

[chicorbeef]

Well... I was advocating for small tweaks for Fealty... I think we have swung on the other end and overbuffed it now lol.

Happiness changes look fantastic.

About Denmark... admittedly I haven't tried the new Denmark but I think this is overnerfing it. I really would like to go back to the Gold/Culture from pillaging tiles, and just remove the base +2 from the Runestone. This also apparently inadvertently nerfed Prora...

I like everything else here. Thank you for the never ending work on AI/bug fixes...that goes a long way. The AI has been noticeably better the past few months...

 

[Stalker0]

All looks great! I've argued I don't think fealty needs buffs, but if we are going to do it, I like trying out ITR buffs.

My only "boo" moment was luxuries now only give 1 happy base again. It may be the price of a better happiness scaling, but I wonder if luxuries are back in the "I don't care" camp.

 

[Gazebo]

Well... I was advocating for small tweaks for Fealty... I think we have swung on the other end and overbuffed it now lol.

Happiness changes look fantastic.

About Denmark... admittedly I haven't tried the new Denmark but I think this is overnerfing it. I really would like to go back to the Gold/Culture from pillaging tiles, and just remove the base +2 from the Runestone. This also apparently inadvertently nerfed Prora...

I like everything else here. Thank you for the never ending work on AI/bug fixes...that goes a long way. The AI has been noticeably better the past few months...

Runestones are strange in that I want to potentially overnerf them to find their 'floor' and then go up from there.

Fealty, on the other hand, I pushed up a bit to get more play from it, see how it feels. I got the impression that it was ignored quite a bit as it was.

All looks great! I've argued I don't think fealty needs buffs, but if we are going to do it, I like trying out ITR buffs.

My only "boo" moment was luxuries now only give 1 happy base again. It may be the price of a better happiness scaling, but I wonder if luxuries are back in the "I don't care" camp.

It was needed (the nerf).

G

 

[chicorbeef]

Runestones are strange in that I want to potentially overnerf them to find their 'floor' and then go up from there.

Fealty, on the other hand, I pushed up a bit to get more play from it, see how it feels. I got the impression that it was ignored quite a bit as it was.

G

Makes sense then (though I don't know if Fealty was ignored). How would you feel about removing the +2 from the Runestone? It's the exact same bonus Carthage gets on their Lighthouse from the Cothon and I think early static on unique buildings is really overused (I also think the Paper Maker would feel better if it lost +1 and its 1 maintenance).

 

[toxyy]

AI always usually have at least one settler ready to go in their cities, I noticed it early on but they never made any more, it's just ready. All the land has been taken for some time. Is this a strategy or a bug?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

*Denmark:
"OK, let's invest all your strength and power into Chinese share holdings, sell them to Indonesian banks to deal with them in Mongolian sheep's aaaaaaaand.... It's gone...."

*Fealty:
"hey, look, AI is already picking this tree in 75% of cases, Iam sure it's too weak, let's invest in it. Oh, here's all the money from the Indonesian banks....."

 

[ryanmusante]

AI always usually have at least one settler ready to go in their cities, I noticed it early on but they never made any more, it's just ready. All the land has been taken for some time. Is this a strategy or a bug?

What do you mean? All the land has been taken by what time? What game speed, era, difficulty, map size, map type, AI opponents?

 

[Moi Magnus]

*Fealty:
"hey, look, AI is already picking this tree in 75% of cases, Iam sure it's too weak, let's invest in it. Oh, here's all the money from the Indonesian banks....."

This didn't come from G. (The exact change did, but not the motivation)

Multiple people playing at high difficulty level complained that fealty was worthless since 1) the need of religions by oncreincreby 1 the number of religions 2) The nerf of city strength boost by changing crime into distress.

It didn't get a lot of attention, but I've seen it discussed in both the strategy subforum and the general balance subforum.

 

[CrazyG]

*Denmark:
"OK, let's invest all your strength and power into Chinese share holdings, sell them to Indonesian banks to deal with them in Mongolian sheep's aaaaaaaand.... It's gone...."

*Fealty:
"hey, look, AI is already picking this tree in 75% of cases, Iam sure it's too weak, let's invest in it. Oh, here's all the money from the Indonesian banks....."

How about you join in the discussions with players, rather than making this thread about yourself every time? This isn't G, its basically everyone else who felt this way. If you want to disagree, take it to a different thread

 

[pineappledan]

Modding - modders: fixed some CSD legacy code for diplo units by adding a new promotion element that grants influence directly, instead of manipulating the GM code)

Can I get a bit more explanation for this, please?

Does this mean any modmods which include promotions which give influence need to be modified? So instead of having base 100, and you subtract from that for the unit, you now just give the exact amount of influence you want?

I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly.

 

[Owlbebach]

Avant Garde - added -10% unhappiness from boredom (was only ideology without a need modifier)

If any Ideology needed that - it is Order. While Freedom is only Ideology without modifier - there was no need for it imo.

Otherwise looks cool, i'll definitely try a game with new Fealty

 

[kkkitten]

Thank you very much to you and others for taking the time to work on this release. Fealty looks like the go to for warmonger now! So excited to play

 

[civplayer33]

Removed AI happiness bonus at all levels - is now 100% same as player

Is this concerning HappinessDefault (which gives the AI a small happiness bonus on all difficulties except settler) or about AIUnhappinessPercent (which reduces Unhappiness for the AI) or both or something else entirely?

Edit: also, I've been meaning to ask about the starting units of the AI; AIStartingExploreUnits and AIStartingDefenseUnits are in addition to the settler and pathfinder everyone gets, correct? So on Emperor the AI gets the settler and pathfinder and in addition another pathfinder, a warrior and a worker?

 

[Stalker0]

How about you join in the discussions with players, rather than making this thread about yourself every time? This isn't G, its basically everyone else who felt this way. If you want to disagree, take it to a different thread

To be fair, the community was divided on fealty. G said his recent AI test showed fealty underperformance which is why the changes were made.

But that doesn’t invalidate the point, Bite you have got to stop being such an instigator, it makes it very hard to listen to you when you go off on rants like that.

 

[Gazebo]

Makes sense then (though I don't know if Fealty was ignored). How would you feel about removing the +2 from the Runestone? It's the exact same bonus Carthage gets on their Lighthouse from the Cothon and I think early static on unique buildings is really overused (I also think the Paper Maker would feel better if it lost +1 and its 1 maintenance).

Static culture on the runestone gives the building some amount of value at peace or if the Danes start somewhat isolated.

Can I get a bit more explanation for this, please?

Does this mean any modmods which include promotions which give influence need to be modified? So instead of having base 100, and you subtract from that for the unit, you now just give the exact amount of influence you want?

I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly.

There’s a new promotion variable, yes. I’m away so I can’t list it but look at the CSD promotions and you’ll see it. You just give the promotion the amount of Influence you want to have. Don’t know why I waited this long to fix it.

Is this concerning HappinessDefault (which gives the AI a small happiness bonus on all difficulties except settler) or about AIUnhappinessPercent (which reduces Unhappiness for the AI) or both or something else entirely?

Edit: also, I've been meaning to ask about the starting units of the AI; AIStartingExploreUnits and AIStartingDefenseUnits are in addition to the settler and pathfinder everyone gets, correct? So on Emperor the AI gets the settler and pathfinder and in addition another pathfinder, a warrior and a worker?

1.) the latter. I left the former in place to give the AI a slight edge on rapid expansion. The latter was causing the primary issues though.

2.) yes.