SimBa - Simple Balance mod

[kirbdog]

Steam Workshop Link

Changes made:

Trade Routes
* Limited to 1 Per City, 2 In the Capital (may be extended by other mods)
* Reduced value of internal trade routes and international trade routes
* Autoplants quest modified to +1 energy/+1 production
* Profiteering, the Industry virtue, renamed to Health Network. Grants 1.5 health per trade unit, up from 0.5, to compensate for the reduction in their number.

Spy Operations
* Siphon Energy and Steal Research have reduced yields. They are now proportional only to agent skill and game speed (game speed multipliers 0.67, 1, 2.25, and 4.5, respectively).
* Steal Tech and Coup now take twice as long.

Health Changes
* Eudamonia down to -15% unhealth, from previous -25%. Reasoning is that this is still quite strong and part of a strong tree with three other health bonuses. Do not want Prosperity to feel completely mandatory.
* Shaky now has a -25% growth modifier in addition to Vanilla effects.
* Troubled now has a -50% growth modifier and -50% outpost growth modifier in addition to Vanilla effects.
* Panicked now has a -90% growth modifier, -90% outpost growth modifier, 100% intrigue malus (stacking with Troubled), -25% production penalty, -25% culture penalty, and -25% science penalty.

Affinity Unique Unit Military Rush
* Changed to become an affinity 6 military rush, up from affinity 4, with the units being extremely powerful against older tech and still dominating the infantry level 3 of the era.
* Marine strength bonus increased to +6, up from +4, for 16 strength marines.
* Infantry level 3 bonus increased to +12, up from +10, for 28 strength infantry 3.

Other Unit/Technology Changes
* Planet Carver orbital moved to the tech Orbital Automation, deeper in the tech tree.
* Additional science yield to arrays has swapped in its place, at the web node above it.

Starting Options: Colonists
* New Colonist type, Medic. Offers +1 Health per city.
* Bonus health removed from Aristocrats and Artists.
* Aristocrats have their yield increased from +3 energy to +4 energy.
* Refugees have their yield increased from +2 food to +3 food.

Starting Options: Cargo
* Free Clinic buffed to become free Trade Depot in the first City, providing interesting strategic options not present in just getting the hammer cost of a clinic upfront.
* Free Soldier buffed to become free Ranger, again providing interesting strategic options not present in just getting the hammer cost of a soldier upfront.

Please download and test the addon! I would love your feedback.

Future work may focus more on the AI side of things, which is an interest of mine, while still making necessary balance chances.

As the title suggests, I want to keep the balance changes simple but effective. Extensive changes to wonders, improvements, sponsors, or building quests are left to be picked up in other mods, whether mine or somebody else's. (I have plans particularly for a separate improvement / building quest mod, wonder mod, and sponsor mod of my own.) Nailing the very annoying balance problems with a "less is more" attitude is the goal here.

Possible upcoming changes:

* Fix abuse of the AI for "infinite gold" through GPT tricks.

This is a fork of albie_123's BeBa. Delnar_Ersike wrote the AI modifications.

 

[kirbdog]

I believe the mod should appear here eventually. (It's up! I had to accept their agreement...)

For now, you can download it as an attachment to this post.

To install from this attachment, drop the ZIP file into the "MODS" folder of your CivBE installation, unzip, and then find it among the Mods after loading CivBE.

Thanks for trying it.

Version 0.11 release notes:

Spoiler :

Fixed a bug. Changes to covert ops Siphon Energy and Steal Research now working. The rewards are proportional only to agent experience and game speed.

The covert ops Steal Technology and Coup now take twice as long.

Changes to Health:

Stable is now unchanged from Vanilla.

Shaky now has a -25% growth modifier in addition to Vanilla effects.

Troubled now has a -50% growth modifier and -50% outpost growth modifier in addition to Vanilla effects.

Panicked now has a -90% growth modifier, -90% outpost growth modifier, 100% intrigue malus (stacking with Troubled), -25% production penalty, -25% culture penalty, and -25% science penalty.

Original release notes:

Spoiler :

Trade Routes
* Limited to 1 Per City, 2 In the Capital (may be extended by other mods)
* Reduced value of internal trade routes and international trade routes
* Autoplants quest modified to +1 energy/+1 production
* Profiteering, the Industry virtue, renamed to Health Network. Grants 1.5 health per trade unit, up from 0.5, to compensate for the reduction in their number.

Spy Operations
* Siphon Energy and Steal Research previously included a strange "scaler" multiplier, with very odd results on Marathon. It has been removed. Steal Research has been changed from being based on a percent of the tech being researched to being independent of that. Both are now based on the number of turns elapsed in the game so far, which was part of the existing code and already scales across game speeds. The yields are now reduced for these actions, but they are still a highly viable strategic option for spies.

Health Changes
* Eudamonia down to -15% unhealth, from previous -25%. Reasoning is that this is still quite strong and part of a strong tree with three other health bonuses. Do not want Prosperity to feel completely mandatory.
* Stable health will now offer 50% outpost growth, up from 20%.
* Shaky health will now also provide a -10% city growth modifier
* Troubled health will now provide a -50% production modifier, increased from -10%
* Panicked health will now provide a -90% growth modifer, which should stack with Shaky health. Increased from -50%.
* Panicked health will now provide a 100% intrigue malus against your own cities, which should stack with the existing 100% intrigue malus from Troubled health.

Affinity Unique Unit Military Rush
* Changed to become an affinity 6 military rush, up from affinity 4, with the units being extremely powerful against older tech and still dominating the infantry level 3 of the era.
* Marine strength bonus increased to +6, up from +4, for 16 strength marines.
* Infantry level 3 bonus increased to +12, up from +10, from 28 strength infantry 3.

Other Unit/Technology Changes
* Planet Carver orbital moved to the tech Orbital Automation, deeper in the tech tree.
* Additional science yield to arrays has swapped in its place, at the web node above it.

Starting Options: Colonists
* New Colonist type, Medic. Offers +1 Health per city.
* Bonus health removed from Aristocrats and Artists.
* Aristocrats have their yield increased from +3 energy to +4 energy.
* Refugees have their yield increased from +2 food to +3 food.

Starting Options: Cargo
* Free Clinic buffed to become free Trade Depot in the first City, providing interesting strategic options not present in just getting the hammer cost of a clinic upfront.
* Free Soldier buffed to become free Ranger, again providing interesting strategic options not present in just getting the hammer cost of a soldier upfront.

 

[kirbdog]

And, naturally, here is a link to the Beyond Balance mod, from albie_123, to whom I owe a deep debt and give all credit. Credit also goes to Delnar_Ersike for his AI modifications.

You can also see where these projects have diverged, with features added and subtracted, for a different experience depending on your preference.

My own work can be carried back into BeBa or forward into other projects, if anyone wants.

 

[kirbdog]

I was visiting at the hospital so I have been away for several hours... Popped back in before heading for bed and saw that I just needed to e-sign some stuff for Valve. The mod is now on the Steam Workshop!

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Nice work so far!

Some comments on your changes.

Changes made:

Trade Routes
* Limited to 1 Per City, 2 In the Capital (may be extended by other mods)
* Reduced value of internal trade routes and international trade routes
* Autoplants quest modified to +1 energy/+1 production
* Profiteering, the Industry virtue, renamed to Health Network. Grants 1.5 health per trade unit, up from 0.5, to compensate for the reduction in their number.

I think 1 TR in every city (including capital) is enough. They have too much influence in the early game otherwise.

How much did you reduce the value?

Autoplants could have +2 energy/+1 prod. So its still a no brainer.

Profiterring is way too powerful. Seems to be the best health value in the game. You get 1.5 per city and 3 from the capital. Even 1 would be very strong. I would try 0.75.

Health Changes
* Troubled health will now provide a -50% production modifier, increased from -10%
* Panicked health will now provide a -90% growth modifer, which should stack with Shaky health. Increased from -50%.
* Panicked health will now provide a 100% intrigue malus against your own cities, which should stack with the existing 100% intrigue malus from Troubled health.

I like the changes, but is the AI aware of this? Or will its expansion get crippled because it has no clue that being in "troubled health" is now really trouble and not just a nuisance?


And some suggestions of things I would like too see changed and that seem to be relatively easy (from balance and coding):

Set CS of Explorer to 5. 3 is really low and nearly always instant death even against the weakest aliens.

Make Ships and Alien Sea Dragons less squishy. As they defend with CS and not ranged CS, their CS and ranged CS should be equal, so they cannot one shot each other. Its bad design that always the first attacker immidietly wins.

The CS (not ranged CS) of all ranged units (including aliens) should be sligthly buffed. I like that ranged units are weaker in comparison to melee units (they are too dominant in Civ5), but they are total pushovers once they get attacked in melee. That really hurts the AI as it is really bad in protecting its ranged units.

(Like in Civ5) the capital gets no MagRail prod modifier (+20%) because it does not get connected. Perhaps this could be added when the tech is discovered (via a free building or quest perhaps).

At least the tier 2+ air units could need a buff. They are weak now.

As far as I see there is no bonus for movement of embarked units in the the tech web. Perhaps this could be added in a mid game tech.

 

[Lanth]

Profiterring is way too powerful. Seems to be the best health value in the game. You get 1.5 per city and 3 from the capital. Even 1 would be very strong. I would try 0.75.

Really? You can't have played the game much. It's a mid-level health bonus that isn't that great.

Here's an approximate ranking of the (vanilla) health virtues:
1. Prosperity Lvl 3: Eudaimonia: 25% less negative health
2. Industry Lvl 3: Magnasanti: Each City generates +0.2 Health for every Building
3. Knowledge Lvl 2: Community Medicine: +1 Health for every 6 Population in a City
4. Industry Lvl 2: Profiteering: +0.5 health for every trade unit under your command.
5. Prosperity Lvl 3: Joy From Variety: +1 Health from every type of Basic Resource that is improved
6. Prosperity Lvl 2: Mind over Matter: +7 health
7. Might Lvl 1: Public Security: +0.25 Health for every Military Unit under your command
8. Prosperity Tier 2: Synergy bonus: +1 Health in every city

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Really? You can't have played the game much. It's a mid-level health bonus that isn't that great.

Here's an approximate ranking of the (vanilla) health virtues:
1. Prosperity Lvl 3: Eudaimonia: 25% less negative health
2. Industry Lvl 3: Magnasanti: Each City generates +0.2 Health for every Building
3. Knowledge Lvl 2: Community Medicine: +1 Health for every 6 Population in a City
4. Industry Lvl 2: Profiteering: +0.75 health for every trade unit under your command.
5. Prosperity Lvl 3: Joy From Variety: +1 Health from every type of Basic Resource that is improved
6. Prosperity Lvl 2: Mind over Matter: +7 health
7. Might Lvl 1: Public Security: +0.25 Health for every Military Unit under your command
8. Prosperity Tier 2: Synergy bonus: +1 Health in every city

Nobody has played the game really much. It is only a week out.

Comparing to vanilla values is a bit strange, when we talk about the mod.

Ok Eudaimoia, even with 15% is clearly better. But it's the last tier 3 prosperity tech. So it comes comparable late. And that's a factor for the power of a value, too.

Same goes for Magnasanti. (It's only 0.1 in the mod I play. So I rated it weaker.)

Community medicine will be average +1 per city for early and most of midgame. With just one TR not many cities will be pop 12+ or even 18+ before late midgame, if your are not only focus food.

So my personal verdict stays the same: More than 0.75 or at max. 1 per TR is not balanced.

 

[Lanth]

So we go from a situation where cities could easily get 3 trade-routes each, thus 2.25 health from that virtue, to a situation where they can only get 1 trade-route each, thus 1.5 health from that virtue, and now it's unbalanced?

Ok, so now the capital can give 3 health (or 6 if you're polystrailia) where as before it was only 2.25 (or 3.75 as polystralia). Seems like a very minor increase that is offset by having a single other city losing out the 0.75 from only having 1 TR instead of 3, and then for cities 3+ you are missing out on 0.75 health per city.

IMO the only imbalance here is Polystralia getting 6 health from it's capital fairly early in the game, which is much stronger than Mind Over Matter giving a fixed 7 health, but it comes earlier in the industry tree than MoM does. But polystralia naturally leverages off multiple of the industry virtues because they're based on TR, so I don't see that as a big problem.

 

[kirbdog]

IMO the only imbalance here is Polystralia getting 6 health from it's capital fairly early in the game, which is much stronger than Mind Over Matter giving a fixed 7 health, but it comes earlier in the industry tree than MoM does. But polystralia naturally leverages off multiple of the industry virtues because they're based on TR, so I don't see that as a big problem.

Yes I think it's an interesting flavor aspect of playing Polystralia...

I got the 1.5 value by multiplying the original game value (0.5 btw) by three. I did that because every city but the capital has 1 trade route instead of 3 now.

 

[kirbdog]

Nice work so far!

Some comments on your changes.

You've got some great points.

Thanks for this feedback.

I will be incorporating some suggestions. Especially with the air units.

Discussing the balance of virtues is a very complicated thing because we first have to figure out what kind of balance are we aiming for. Every policy equally good? Every full tree equally good? Enough variety of choice to make the player entertained? Etc. It's a difficult question. And we'd also have to know, e.g., whether the design is to make a certain tree absolutely better in some way (e.g., regarding health) or whether other trees should give enough power (even if not as much) to be an alternative in that regard. It's complicated... so I'll try not to do too much. Every change to virtues will be a little controversial.

 

[Promethian]

The only thing I really disagree with is the health changes. Not the idea but the implementation. I don't like completely shutting down growth and the production penalty is so severe it is effectively saying "no you may not build health buildings to get rid of this penalty."

The Eudaimonia nerf is perfect. Vanilla it is stupidly OP.
I'd increase the culture and science penalties to 20% at panicked and have an at most 30% growth modifier. Production penalties are self defeating, they effectively are double punishing because the only way to get out of low health is to build more health.

 

[kirbdog]

The only thing I really disagree with is the health changes. Not the idea but the implementation. I don't like completely shutting down growth and the production penalty is so severe it is effectively saying "no you may not build health buildings to get rid of this penalty."

The Eudaimonia nerf is perfect. Vanilla it is stupidly OP.
I'd increase the culture and science penalties to 20% at panicked and have an at most 30% growth modifier. Production penalties are self defeating, they effectively are double punishing because the only way to get out of low health is to build more health.

You've got some good points here.

There is a strategic aspect to production penalties, as they make it useful to have some energy stored up to deal with low health problems. But I agree that the health changes should be reworked.

Been thinking about it all morning, come up with this:

Shaky
-10% Culture
-10% Science
-25% Growth

Troubled
-10% Culture
-10% Science
-10% Production
-50% Growth
-50% Outpost Growth
+100% Intrigue Penalty

Panicked

-25% Culture
-25% Science
-25% Production
-75% Growth
-75% Outpost Growth
+200% Intrigue Penalty

(These are the actual displayed effects; they are not cumulative with each other.)

The most important change is that some big growth penalties kick in before the production penalties do, which helps the player (or AI) slow down their unhealthiness before they have a hard time producing the buildings to address it... while still being very punishing for anyone going to Panicked level.

I am incorporating your suggestions not to shut down growth -100% and to increase the science and culture penalties at Panicked. I am also using your feedback about the Production penalty. Thanks!

 

[Promethian]

I love the new Panicked. Hurting Culture and Science are the real ways to discourage going deep into unhealth and the boosted Intrigue penalty really makes you vulnerable to offensive actions. It makes me wish we had a better covert ops system.

Also could you look at the city growth exponent. Currently the food necessary to grow increases dramatically faster than in Civ5 and I think the devs did it because of the huge trade yields. Here is a graph demonstrating the difference made by Polycrates on the forums here. https://imgur.com/a/SATXD

A thread discussing the extreme growth scaling as well. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=537496

With the loss of the trade route extreme food I suggest shifting the growth exponent back toward Civ5 levels.

 

[kirbdog]

I like the changes, but is the AI aware of this? Or will its expansion get crippled because it has no clue that being in "troubled health" is now really trouble and not just a nuisance?

While trying to fix another bug, I've had some time to observe AI behavior here. It seems to be really good at staying above troubled (-10) health. It spends the large majority of its time either at Shaky (-9 to -1) or better. I'm assuming this is because it gets large flavor bonuses to health at Shaky.

Most of the hurt is in Troubled and Panicked, so this should not be too extremely painful for the AI to deal with. (In a way it helps because the AI was definitely not programmed to use very low health strategically like a player would.)

 

[kirbdog]

With the loss of the trade route extreme food I suggest shifting the growth exponent back toward Civ5 levels.

I agree with this too.

 

[kirbdog]

My own playtesting seems to show that even a -75% growth modifier is just a slap on the wrist (for Panicked). This is partly due to the steep scaling the game has, such that the first few food levels are much easier, and partly due to the way modifiers work: i.e., they are additive, and even a -100% modifier is merely added with positive modifiers to get a positive yield. To compromise, though, I'd set this to -90% growth.

This is because I don't believe Panicked health is actually meant for a functional peacetime economy. I believe it is meant as a temporary condition after conquest... or permanent, on the road to a domination victory. Conquered cities already have population, so a growth penalty is very effective at discriminating against a peacetime economy and (relatively) favoring an aggressive playstyle. But it simply should not be an optimal strat to REX your way through Panicked health, IMO.

(I believe the health/happiness system is primarily meant as a check on expansion without proper infrastructure, so it needs to do its job at least halfway functionally.)

I'll have the mod up today, with the new health changes and the bug-fixed spy ops. I ended up going with flat values for the spy ops siphon energy and steal research, modified only by the agent level and game speed.

My playtesting also leads me to believe that Steal Tech is now pretty OP, although it was already very strong and spammable. The most reasonable solution could be to double the time required for this operation. I also believe that stealing cities is a bit OP right now (despite the fact that other sponsors can lower intrigue) and could have its required time doubled (or proportional to city size, maybe impossible for capitals, maybe at a hefty energy cost). Maybe after some changes the HQ Projects could be viable alternatives.

 

[kirbdog]

The updated mod can now be found in this thread (above) and on Steam. Release notes:

Fixed a bug. Changes to covert ops Siphon Energy and Steal Research now working. The rewards are proportional only to agent experience and game speed.

The covert ops Steal Technology and Coup now take twice as long.

Changes to Health:

Stable is now unchanged from Vanilla.

Shaky now has a -25% growth modifier in addition to Vanilla effects.

Troubled now has a -50% growth modifier and -50% outpost growth modifier in addition to Vanilla effects.

Panicked now has a -90% growth modifier, -90% outpost growth modifier, 100% intrigue malus (stacking with Troubled), -25% production penalty, -25% culture penalty, and -25% science penalty.

 

[Promethian]

You mention it in a post but not in the original post covering all the changes so I need to ask. Do you have the Delnar_Ersike AI tweaks included in your mod?

 

[kirbdog]

You mention it in a post but not in the original post covering all the changes so I need to ask. Do you have the Delnar_Ersike AI tweaks included in your mod?

Yes, they are there.

 

[masternetra]

COuld you maintain a manual version here as well? I don't have internet at home and have to transfer it.