Quo's Combined Tweaks v7.0.19 BETA

[Guynemer]

Thanks for explaining. It sounds like the Wonder itself is just overpowered in the context of this mod. The wonder was added by one of the recent DLCs I think, so it wasn't part of the balancing when I first wrote the "influence token from wonders" code. I'll need to think about how to update it.

Indeed, it was part of the Alexander/Cyrus DLC, along with the Mausoleum, which is a powerful wonder but no more or less so in the context of your mod (free Great Admiral, all Great Admirals and Great Engineers get an additional charge).

 

[Guynemer]

Just out of curiosity, was the inspirations-for-suzerains bonus to Pericles an attempt to buff him due to him being perceived as weak, or was it a trial balloon to further differentiate leaders with synergistic bonuses, and he was just the first? Because, if it is the latter, I had some idle thoughts about possibilities.

 

[Guynemer]

Is he an AI civ or a player? The mod does give Gilgamesh the Code of Laws civic free on turn 1. He was in a recent game of mine (sans Immersive Eras mod) and seemed to be doing fine.

I'm not entirely sure if he is actually not advancing, or if it is just a UI issue with the civics tree display. I'm having the same issue, where at the bottom of the civics tree he's at the very beginning; I am not using the Immersive Eras mod. According to CQUI, he's making over 20 culture per turn, so clearly he must have more civics; once I can find him on my map, hopefully I can confirm he is advancing.

 

[glaciem]

I'm not entirely sure if he is actually not advancing, or if it is just a UI issue with the civics tree display. I'm having the same issue, where at the bottom of the civics tree he's at the very beginning; I am not using the Immersive Eras mod. According to CQUI, he's making over 20 culture per turn, so clearly he must have more civics; once I can find him on my map, hopefully I can confirm he is advancing.

That's a relief, I thought I was the only one.

 

[glaciem]

I'm not entirely sure if he is actually not advancing, or if it is just a UI issue with the civics tree display. I'm having the same issue, where at the bottom of the civics tree he's at the very beginning; I am not using the Immersive Eras mod. According to CQUI, he's making over 20 culture per turn, so clearly he must have more civics; once I can find him on my map, hopefully I can confirm he is advancing.

So yeah. I just checked my save, and cheated to see Gilgabro. He hasn't progressed through past the 'Code of Laws'

 

[glaciem]

Is he an AI civ or a player? The mod does give Gilgamesh the Code of Laws civic free on turn 1. He was in a recent game of mine (sans Immersive Eras mod) and seemed to be doing fine.

I just double checked him. He hasn't progressed past Code of Laws. His Tech tree is working fine, but no Civics.

 

[isau]

Just out of curiosity, was the inspirations-for-suzerains bonus to Pericles an attempt to buff him due to him being perceived as weak, or was it a trial balloon to further differentiate leaders with synergistic bonuses, and he was just the first? Because, if it is the latter, I had some idle thoughts about possibilities.

I wouldn't say that he is weak, but that the focus of the mod has been to make each of the leaders very strong in one particularly threatening way or the other. Pericles was already pretty good before changes. It was only after seeing Greece/Macedon that I felt like I could justify bumping him up a little, mainly because when I'd tried him in the past I could barely make use of his ability. I'd be willing to listen to ideas for him if you have some. He's not a leader I play often personally, hence why I changed him a little, to make him a little more interesting. The extra Policy card of course is very attractive, just kind of "vague" in terms of what kind of threat it represents. If you look at how I've mostly buffed other leaders, they all represent a fairly specific type of threat, and in a lot of cases I've buffed them enough that it can be really risky to you as a player if you ignore it (as I learned recently when Norway destroyed my coastal empire.)

I just double checked him. He hasn't progressed past Code of Laws. His Tech tree is working fine, but no Civics.

Very weird. The AI must be getting "stuck" for some reason. I will try to hotfix this if I can figure out what's causing it.

 

[Guynemer]

I wouldn't say that he is weak, but that the focus of the mod has been to make each of the leaders very strong in one particularly threatening way or the other. Pericles was already pretty good before changes. It was only after seeing Greece/Macedon that I felt like I could justify bumping him up a little, mainly because when I'd tried him in the past I could barely make use of his ability. I'd be willing to listen to ideas for him if you have some. He's not a leader I play often personally, hence why I changed him a little, to make him a little more interesting. The extra Policy card of course is very attractive, just kind of "vague" in terms of what kind of threat it represents. If you look at how I've mostly buffed other leaders, they all represent a fairly specific type of threat, and in a lot of cases I've buffed them enough that it can be really risky to you as a player if you ignore it (as I learned recently when Norway destroyed my coastal empire.)

Oh, heavens no, didn't think he is weak at all. I just wasn't sure if he was a "step one" of a roll-out of new leader bonuses or not.

 

[Guynemer]

Oddity in my current game. No one--not a single AI--has built a commercial district. They are building harbors, though notably, England is only building harbors, and not the RNDY.

In my previous game (the one as Pericles) using the latest beta and the same mods, I remember Kongo, at least, was building commercial districts, so maybe it is a map oddity.

And Gilgamesh is definitely not advancing his civics. His lands are covered with farms and ziggurats, and he does have plantations and mines/quarries on resources. But no other improvements or districts. Not even roads.

 

[isau]

Oddity in my current game. No one--not a single AI--has built a commercial district. They are building harbors, though notably, England is only building harbors, and not the RNDY.

In my previous game (the one as Pericles) using the latest beta and the same mods, I remember Kongo, at least, was building commercial districts, so maybe it is a map oddity.

And Gilgamesh is definitely not advancing his civics. His lands are covered with farms and ziggurats, and he does have plantations and mines/quarries on resources. But no other improvements or districts. Not even roads.

Yeah I can verify the Gilgamesh bug. Tried some fixes and nothing has worked yet. Planning to look closer at it when I get some time to look into an alternative method for giving him his free civic. May change the approach to the one currently used by India to award their free Pantheon on turn 1.

 

[glaciem]

Oddity in my current game. No one--not a single AI--has built a commercial district. They are building harbors, though notably, England is only building harbors, and not the RNDY.

In my previous game (the one as Pericles) using the latest beta and the same mods, I remember Kongo, at least, was building commercial districts, so maybe it is a map oddity.

And Gilgamesh is definitely not advancing his civics. His lands are covered with farms and ziggurats, and he does have plantations and mines/quarries on resources. But no other improvements or districts. Not even roads.

Plenty of Civs have Commercial Districts in my game.

 

[isau]

Hey guys, I'll be hotfixing Gilgamesh soon. Meanwhile I'm wondering about your opinions about which civs stand out right now as needing changes? Here is current personal outlook on some things. Note however that as a designer instead of a player, I do not have the same sense of balance that players do.

• I've looked at Egypt a few times and thought about changing her, because the "faster building on rivers" ability to me seems contradictory given the civ's desert bias, which would reward placing districts on otherwise worthless desert tiles. Unfortunately the river discount ability is largely hardcoded rather than relying on a RequirementSet, which means I don't have a lot of control over which tiles provide it, its an on or off kind of thing. In previous civs, Egypt was good at building wonders and I'm not sure if that's the case here.
• Scythia was nerfed to heal 25 HP per kill on the basis of player requests, but I never gave Tomyris any buffs to compensate. I'm not entirely sure its needed, but I hate for the dominant feature of a modded civ to be "Weaker than Vanilla version." Of course, the horse ability and the healing is still so powerful that maybe that's okay.
• None of the DLC civs have any changes made to them, except the Aztecs. I feel like all of them are very powerful already, with lots of varied bonuses. Am I wrong?
• Kongo is such a unique civ that I've not touched it. It seems to me to occupy its own very powerful and unique gameplay experience. Am I judging correctly? Note that I will not be changing them to make them viable for a religion victory--I like that there are some civs with drastically different playstyles. (In some ways, Kongo inspired my changes to Arabia). But if there is other stuff about this civ that could use a tweak I'd be willing to consider it. One option is giving them the same friendship bonus Arabia has, which bumps Great Prophet Points for the friend. But I am worried that having 2 civs with this characteristic might make getting religions too trivial, especially if both Saladin and Mvemba are in game.

We also know we have at least two, maybe three new leaders headed our way in the next few weeks, so I will be keeping the mod up to date with them as they role in.

Also, for people curious about the blending with the Civ 6 Improvements Patch, I've run into some issues with combining XML and SQL in a single mod in a way that makes me happy with the stability. I'll likely have some announcements about the progress on that front in the future.

 

[Guynemer]

Hey guys, I'll be hotfixing Gilgamesh soon. Meanwhile I'm wondering about your opinions about which civs stand out right now as needing changes? Here is current personal outlook on some things. Note however that as a designer instead of a player, I do not have the same sense of balance that players do.

• I've looked at Egypt a few times and thought about changing her, because the "faster building on rivers" ability to me seems contradictory given the civ's desert bias, which would reward placing districts on otherwise worthless desert tiles. Unfortunately the river discount ability is largely hardcoded rather than relying on a RequirementSet, which means I don't have a lot of control over which tiles provide it, its an on or off kind of thing. In previous civs, Egypt was good at building wonders and I'm not sure if that's the case here.
• Scythia was nerfed to heal 25 HP per kill on the basis of player requests, but I never gave Tomyris any buffs to compensate. I'm not entirely sure its needed, but I hate for the dominant feature of a modded civ to be "Weaker than Vanilla version." Of course, the horse ability and the healing is still so powerful that maybe that's okay.
• None of the DLC civs have any changes made to them, except the Aztecs. I feel like all of them are very powerful already, with lots of varied bonuses. Am I wrong?
• Kongo is such a unique civ that I've not touched it. It seems to me to occupy its own very powerful and unique gameplay experience. Am I judging correctly? Note that I will not be changing them to make them viable for a religion victory--I like that there are some civs with drastically different playstyles. (In some ways, Kongo inspired my changes to Arabia). But if there is other stuff about this civ that could use a tweak I'd be willing to consider it. One option is giving them the same friendship bonus Arabia has, which bumps Great Prophet Points for the friend. But I am worried that having 2 civs with this characteristic might make getting religions too trivial, especially if both Saladin and Mvemba are in game.

We also know we have at least two, maybe three new leaders headed our way in the next few weeks, so I will be keeping the mod up to date with them as they role in.

Also, for people curious about the blending with the Civ 6 Improvements Patch, I've run into some issues with combining XML and SQL in a single mod in a way that makes me happy with the stability. I'll likely have some announcements about the progress on that front in the future.

The biggest problem with Cleo is that with her desert bias, and her bonus to building districts on rivers, and being allowed to build districts on flood plains, she's practically encouraged to remove the only desert tiles that are worth anything. I honestly don't know how to solve that. I think Scythia is fine; I haven't played as Persia yet, but my current game is as Macedon, and wow they are powerful. Definitely do not need any further buff. Kongo is great as is as well, I think.

 

[isau]

The biggest problem with Cleo is that with her desert bias, and her bonus to building districts on rivers, and being allowed to build districts on flood plains, she's practically encouraged to remove the only desert tiles that are worth anything. I honestly don't know how to solve that.

This is exactly my thinking. Building districts on flood plains isn't wise, since those are the best tiles for farms, and the desert tiles are useless for anything but districts. Even a Sphinx there usually isn't a great idea.

It's not terribly hard to give a city a bonus based on whether its adjacent to a river, so it's an option, if I can think of something that doesn't require a ton of Modifiers to accomplish. Unfortunately, in general Wonder bonuses tend to require lots of Modifiers (often one per Wonder).

Speaking of the Sphinx, even with the buffs I still rarely find occasion to build one. Maybe I can think of something cool for them. I can count the number of Sphinxes easily enough in Lua, maybe a chance every turn to earn something special based on the number of Sphinxes in the empire?

 

[Guynemer]

This is exactly my thinking. Building districts on flood plains isn't wise, since those are the best tiles for farms, and the desert tiles are useless for anything but districts. Even a Sphinx there usually isn't a great idea.

It's not terribly hard to give a city a bonus based on whether its adjacent to a river, so it's an option, if I can think of something that doesn't require a ton of Modifiers to accomplish. Unfortunately, in general Wonder bonuses tend to require lots of Modifiers (often one per Wonder).

Speaking of the Sphinx, even with the buffs I still rarely find occasion to build one. Maybe I can think of something cool for them. I can count the number of Sphinxes easily enough in Lua, maybe a chance every turn to earn something special based on the number of Sphinxes in the empire?

So, instead of a bonus to building districts on river tiles, a bonus to building districts when the city center itself is on a river tile? That sounds ideal.

 

[Guynemer]

Also, you could give Cleo +1 production on desert tiles (like Peter with tundra), and (if this code even exists) allow her to build farms in desert tiles (or maybe limit it to tiles bordering oases).

 

[clack]

This is exactly my thinking. Building districts on flood plains isn't wise, since those are the best tiles for farms, and the desert tiles are useless for anything but districts. Even a Sphinx there usually isn't a great idea.

It's not terribly hard to give a city a bonus based on whether its adjacent to a river, so it's an option, if I can think of something that doesn't require a ton of Modifiers to accomplish. Unfortunately, in general Wonder bonuses tend to require lots of Modifiers (often one per Wonder).

Speaking of the Sphinx, even with the buffs I still rarely find occasion to build one. Maybe I can think of something cool for them. I can count the number of Sphinxes easily enough in Lua, maybe a chance every turn to earn something special based on the number of Sphinxes in the empire?

Hello, a couple of questions.
1. The code was changed about half the cost of unique buildings in Poland (Sukiennice) and Macedon (Basilikoi Paides)?
2. You can change the cards with the production units (naval units, cavalry, melee units) and with the production of wonders of the world, so that the bonus was tied not from any particular era, for example, from the Renaissance to the Industrial Era, but inclusive up to a certain era.
For example, to the last card of the wonders of the world gave a bonus to all the production of any wonders of the world. This is the logic - when a civilization builds skyscrapers, it will build the Pyramids in two days.
The same is done for the production of units.
For example, the bonus to the production of melee units to all units, including up to Atomic Era.

 

[isau]

Hello, a couple of questions.
1. The code was changed about half the cost of unique buildings in Poland (Sukiennice) and Macedon (Basilikoi Paides)?
2. You can change the cards with the production units (naval units, cavalry, melee units) and with the production of wonders of the world, so that the bonus was tied not from any particular era, for example, from the Renaissance to the Industrial Era, but inclusive up to a certain era.
For example, to the last card of the wonders of the world gave a bonus to all the production of any wonders of the world. This is the logic - when a civilization builds skyscrapers, it will build the Pyramids in two days.
The same is done for the production of units.
For example, the bonus to the production of melee units to all units, including up to Atomic Era.

Thanks for the ideas.

I haven't made any changes to either Macedon or Poland. Mainly its because I feel like the DLC civs are already very strong and unique, and less in need of "tweaks" than the Vanilla civs. But I can think about the building costs.

RE: item #2. I do plan on reviewing Policies at some point. Originally I was just going to pull in the policies from the Improvements Patch, but the more I look at them in the context of this mod, the less I think it will work out. So I'm exploring options. I agree that its very silly that if you advance down the Policy tree too quickly you start getting policy cards that don't apply to your own units.

But also, I'm looking at the spread of units across the tech tree. I think the "jumps" right now are too large. E.g. from Warrior to Swordsman. In past games there was usually a jump between the two (in Civ 4, there were two). Part of me is hoping someone else already wrote a mod that took care of this and I can just get in touch with them and bring it in. It's tricky business because I'd need new unit models.

 

[clack]

Thanks for the ideas.

1. I will give the problem and solution in one review. I hope that the translator does not change the essence.

Spoiler Review :

If you break forward on cultural development, you open a political course to accelerate the production of units of the industrial era, replacing the course to accelerate the production of units of the Renaissance. At the same time for scientific development, you still remain in the era of revival, as a result, you lose the old bonus, and you can not quickly produce new units.
The problem is easy to solve: bonuses of all such political courses should extend to units and wonders of the current era and all preceding epochs. In fact, can not we quickly build a primitive pyramid if we already know how to build 150-story skyscrapers?

2. I once wrote that the "TECH AND CIVIC RESEARCH SPEED" function needs further work. With a significant increase in cost, the spam of great people begins. It is required to introduce the cost of raising great people.
I propose to abandon the realization of the idea in "Civ6 Improvements" and look at the "8 Ages of Pace" mode, the SlowerEras file. Very concise and simple solution to the problem.
3. AI does not use airplanes, because it never builds airfields. I propose to remove the demand of the population for this construction. In particular, a good realization of the idea in the mod of "TCS Improved Aerodrome".

 

[clack]

isau,
How are your modifications progressing at this time?