What are your "almost always on" mods?

[iammaxhailme]

Similar to the quality of life mods thread but this allows anything. I was working on making a document for myself to organize and I figured I may as well post it...

I play with a lot of mods sometimes, but usually cycle them around. I play as modded civs often, but I usually shut them off when finished as I find the AI often doesn't utilize modded in uniques well (which is sad, as there are some extremely high quality modded civs with animations and voice acting!). But there's a core of mods that I only turn off when forced to, i.e. I'm playing a scenario that doesn't support them or I am playing on Switch (which I don't plan to do anymore until Firaxis makes the hall of fame work).

Mine are as follows, in sections:

UI and Quality of Life
More Lenses - Becuase I'm tired of having to spend time looking for unimproved tiles. I don't really want the enire CQUI suite but I use some parts of it.
Environment Skin Civ 5 - Do I even need to explain?
Right Click Close Leader - Just speeds up my flow
Sukritact's Better Great Person Screen
Unique District Icons
Zee's Fewer Trade Offers
Repeat Future - Becuase I'm tired of clicking future civic while waiting for my tourism win...

Slight balance tweaks/gameplay changes
Harvest All Resources - Because screw Iron, I want a better campus/holy site! This one is arguably not a SLIGHT change...
Expanded Initial Vision - Makes me endless start rerolling more efficient...
Starting Builder - This one may be a bit too cheaty for some. The AI get it too, at least

Resources
Civitas Resources, Sukritact's Resources, Reindeer and Latin American Resources - Just for more diversity. Makes it interesting, especially Reindeer since they make snow cities a little more useful, so there's like 15% more of the map that is suddenly in play. I used to use Resourceful 2, but NFP broke it (it's probably fixed now, but I have more than enough to be getting along with)
Wetlands - The main reason I use this is so marshes become farmable, but I like all its features. I do think peat and swamp may be a bit too common, though, since I find I end up taking the camp or quarry pantheon was more than I would usually because of them

Natural Wonders
Terra Mirabilis - Easily the thing I miss most when I play on Switch. A rebalancing of the natural wonders is really necessary, and as a bonus it makes them all have an "ability" so they aren't just boring yields.
Sukritact's natural wonder collection

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

1:Terra Mirabilis
2:JNR's DIstrict Overhaul Mods
3:Starting Scout and Starting Builder
3: Environment Skin Civ 5
4: Unique District Icons
5: Civitas City-States
6: Sukritact's SImple UI Adjustments

And last, but certainly not least, my favorite mod of them all...

Civilizations Expanded by @sukritact and @pokiehl

I cannot state enough praise for this mod.

 

[pokiehl]

Thanks for the kind words, @Duke William of Normandy!

To answer the question - I use dozens and dozens of mods, but I recently made one that I think people here might like a lot:

Prettier Lakes - it's a visual-only mod that just enhances the look of lakes, oases, and some lake natural wonders (Lake Retba, Crater Lake, etc). I'm biased, but I think it looks quite good Doesn't affect gameplay, performance, etc.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

You're welcome, @pokiehl. I just can't play a game without this mod, it's just so boring without it. However... I do have to state some criticism. You take out some nerfs to Civilizations that I feel make them unique without seriously hurting them. And I do not mean Babylon, because I am fine with that.

For example, you take out the Maori's penalty that keeps them from recruiting Great Writers. I feel as if taking that out just takes out some uniqueness of it, and sort of makes it just another gamey, Cultural CIvilization. It's still good, but it just feels less... I don't know, fun?

 

[iammaxhailme]

Thanks for the kind words, @Duke William of Normandy!

To answer the question - I use dozens and dozens of mods, but I recently made one that I think people here might like a lot:

Prettier Lakes - it's a visual-only mod that just enhances the look of lakes, oases, and some lake natural wonders (Lake Retba, Crater Lake, etc). I'm biased, but I think it looks quite good Doesn't affect gameplay, performance, etc.

And thanks for all the potatoes and llamas!

Civilizations Expanded is quite cool as well, although I generally don't use such wide overhauls in most games (only exception being Terra Mirabilis, but that isn't quite as extensive). I did have a pretty fun game as Norway using it, I definitely think the stave church (as it is in the base game) is really underpowered so I liked being able to actually utilize it on a side scale. I also have a unique tile improvement fetish...

 

[Finvola]

I hadn't heard about Zee's mods before. I just added Fewer Trade Offers. This should greatly reduce some of my frustration with the constant requests from the AI. I play on huge maps with a lot of civs and the AI spam can really get on my nerves sometimes.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Civilizations Expanded by @sukritact and @pokiehl

except their version of Kongo is bugged as hell.

 

[Abaxial]

• The Warfare Expanded series. Having a better development path of units improves the game a lot; especially the additional naval units.
  
• Extended Policy Cards. So useful to see the impact of your policy choices instead of having to guess what you will gain.
• Disable Rock Bands. Sorry about this, but the repeated sound effect is just too annoying.

 

[HiRezAudio]

Just the one - Great Barrier Reef adjacency bonus.
Although I may well go & look for the 'disable Rock Bands' one - currently I always have the sound down as that is one hell of an irritating, godawful noise every time - it is way, way too heavily limited for volume.
A good mod would be one that allows us to change the bloody 'music' - or even better, to play one at random from a list of installed sounds.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

I use one called Research Reminder that pops up the Tech/Civic menu whenever the node I'm currently researching is close to being halfway completed, so I can switch to a different one and give myself more time to complete the Eureka/Inspiration requirements. Results in a lot less Science/Culture being accidentally wasted.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

I use one called Research Reminder that pops up the Tech/Civic menu whenever the node I'm currently researching is close to being halfway completed, so I can switch to a different one and give myself more time to complete the Eureka/Inspiration requirements. Results in a lot less Science/Culture being accidentally wasted.

That sounds useful to me. Is it on Steam?

 

[Kupe Navigator]

First of all, "bugged as hell" is a complete exaggeration. You reported one single component not working (the free relic), and on top of that, you're wrong because it's not bugged! I tested it just now 5 times and it worked every time. Try unsubscribing and resubscribing because it sounds like the last update didn't get pushed to you automatically.

I apologize if I came as bit rude. However the point remains is that when I played as Kongo, I did not get any relics when I first built a temple... I might try again... maybe it is other mode that I have been on.
Again sorry that I came as rude.

 

[pokiehl]

I apologize if I came as bit rude. However the point remains is that when I played as Kongo, I did not get any relics when I first built a temple... I might try again... maybe it is other mode that I have been on.
Again sorry that I came as rude.

Steam's mod updating is really bad - sometimes updates just aren't automatically downloading. Unsubscribe, wait a sec, then resubscribe and you should have the most updated version. To test it very quickly, start a game with Kongo in the Medieval era or something with Online speed and just build a holy site, shrine, and temple. You'll see the Relic comes to you.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

That sounds useful to me. Is it on Steam?

Looks like it is.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Looks like it is.

Thanks, mate. I'm gonna save tons of Culture and Science.

 

[Flactine]

Quick Start
Mute Start

 

[Revanchist]

The one and only city lights which has been one of my favorites to do a let’s play on

I also recommend any of JNR’s mods

 

[Luxerne]

Real Great People

 

[sonicmyst]

Higher hills mod.

 

[pfaffa]

Real Eurekas - Makes Eurekas more interesting and less exploitable since you never know what is going to an to trigger an Eureka