Patch suggestion MOD v1.31 readme (based on 1.29f patch) Author: player1 (from Apolyton Civ-forums) These are the changes that I think should be added in some new patch (based on v1.29f) to improve game balance and fun. I hope Firaxis can find interesting ideas and that players of this MOD will have game more fun and interesting. INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS: Just put BIC file in scenario folder. Load from game menu. CHANGES Upgrade paths: Fighters upgrade to F-15 for Amreicans (corrected in 1.21f patch). Longbowmen, Swordmen, Legion and Immortal upgrade to Riflemen. This way, AI won't have huge army of obsolete units. Still this upgrade is costly. This can prevent AI from building new such units in modern era (since noramlly they stay in building queue). For similar resons Frigate, Man-O-War, Privateer and Ironclad upgrade to Destoryer. Yes it looks odd to upgrde sailing ship to Destoryer, but look at the costs. To upgrade Frigate you need 120gp per unit. For game balance reasons I made War Chariots upgrade to Knights (corrected in 1.21f) and Jaguar Warriors upgarde to Riflemen. Both these units become obsolete in early ancient age, but their usefullnes last much longer. So delaying thier upgrades is good thing. Note: Why Jaguar Warriors to Riflemen? Jaguar Warriors skip Swordsmen, and Swordsmen upgrade to Riflemen. Unit flags: All artillery units, Expolrer, Scout and Leader get Airlift flag. I don't know why they are skipped in normal rules. You can airlift tank. On the other hand Presidents (and other Leaders) do fly by plane. All artillery units, Tanks, Modern Armor and Mech. Infantry gain Wheeled ability. This prevents moving them on Jungle and Mountain tiles if there is no road. Note: You can move those units on enemy roads, you just don't get road movment bonus. Rate of fire: I always wondered why Ironclads have better bombard values then Jet Fighters. Also, battleship bombard capabilities look a little weak compared to their use in World Wars. Because of that, folowing changes are made: Fighters get ROF of 2 (aprox. a little better then catapult). Jet Fighters, F-15, and Stl. Fighters get ROF of 3 (lowered to ROF of 2 in v1.27). This will make those units not great bombers, but better then Cannon. F-15 and Stl. Fighters will become cheap precision strike bombers. Battleship and AEGIS Cruiser get ROF of 3. This makes Battleship good bomber unit, while AEGIS Cruiser gets bombard capability similar to Destoryer (bom/rof: 4/3 vs 6/2) Basic unit stats: Gunpowder infantry units look too much weak on attack and to expensive for defense compared to cavalry or pre-gunpowder units. Musketmen gets 3/4/1 stats, cost 50 Musketeer gets 4/4/1 stats, cost 50 (usefull, finally) Rilfemen gets 5/6/1 stats, cost 70 Infantry gets 8/10/1 stats, cost 90 (as before) Reduced cost and higher attack make these units more valuable. Special Ops: Paratrooper gets 8/10/1 Marines get 10/8/1 This makes these units more valuable and gives every of them special tactic. Paratrooper will invade and hold position, while Marines will assault. These unit can be especialy good in Jungles and Mountains which wheeled units can't pass. And since in modern times Infantry gets obsolete these unit take role of jugle & mountain warriors. Someone could argue that Attack of 10 makes Marines capable of killing Tanks, but since smart players will stack tanks with Infantry support, that should not be problem. Modern Armor gets defense of 14 to make Mech. Inf. more important. Radar Artillery is mobile unit, so it gets movment of 2. Civilopedia says that Cruise Missiles can fly for thousand miles, so let it be reflected in the rules. They get bombard range of 6 (same as for Tactical nukes). Army gets price of 300, to make players build these in Industrial age, not after they get 80+ shileds cities. Army gets also a pillage order. Ship tweaks: Caravels get defense of 1 to make them more vunerable to armed ships like Frigates and Privateers. You get Caravels before Cannons anyway. Submarines (nuclear version also) get attack of 10, to make them dangerous enough and force players to make thier own submarines to detect enemy ones. Giving them retreat possibility would be fine too, but that's not possibile. Carriers and Battleships are same-class ships. they should have same movement rate of 5. AEGIS Cruisers get attack of 14, to make them more them more usefull then submarine detectors (they cost 160 shileds, you know). Destoryers still stay main grunt force (cheap). Non-unit related changes: Draft and Rush happiness penalities lowered to 20. 40 turn penalities were too much for AI (fixed in 1.21f patch). In standard game Wealth is heavily underrated. Wealth income doubled (4 prod. to 1 gold before Economy, 2 to 1 after). Taxmen and Scientist values increased to 2 points. I hardly ever used them, since getting two shields is better then one taxemen (difference between geting 2 shiled by mining, and geting extra pop by irrigrating). It's still not much, but higher values give grapic glitches. And I am not sure which value is optimal. Space components are 2.5 times more expensive (REMOVED IN V1.1). Why? To prevent finishing most of SC before all advances are discovered. Too many times I had all components built and was waiting to discover Laser to build last component. This will also make end game more interesting. Changes in ver 1.01 Radar Artillery should now have correct movemnt of 2 (not in v1.0). Longbowmen has cost of 30 to make this unit more attractive compared to Kights. 40 cost was too much anyway (Immortals cost 30 and have attack of 4). Changes in ver 1.02 Since Radar Artilley has movment of 2, it needs Oil and Rubber (plus Aluminium). Cruise Missiles get ROF of 4 to make them more devastating, and cost-effective (since they get destroyed after attack). Should have no probelm killing pre-gunpowder veteran units (4hp). Still not possibile to kill elite units (since ROF is 4), but lets say that even elite warriors know how to hide from missiles. Also, if they are lucky, they can kill 3hp (or even 4hp) Battleship. Changes in ver 1.03 Privateers have cost of 40. They are small, lightly armed ships, which means cheaper then Frigate (and slower too). This will also make them more usefull by players. Explorers get defense of 1. This gives them ability to sometimes stay alive after attack by Swordsmen or Riflemen (retreat), which means that they can be a little more usefull (pillage?). Note that this doesn't give them ability to capture workers or cities since they still have attack of 0. Changes in ver 1.1 Life Support System needs Recycling. Why? Just look civilopedia entry. It talks about recycling too much. Docking Bay needs Robotic. Part which needs to be transformed to Space Station (before landing to Alpha Centauri) needs ROBOTIC ARMS, also that could help when loading things from space station in earth orbit (all this is in civilopedia). Statis Champer should need Genetic. Why? To discover cyrogenic, human race needs advanced biology understanding, including genetic. With these changes only pure military techs are not needed for SS like Stealth, Integrated Defense or Smart Weapons. This will make end game more interesting. Players will have time to use some more advanced techs before finishing Space Ship. Also SS cost is lowered to original values (160, 320, 640), since that helps AI to start building SS more often (which wasn't the case in earlier versions when SS components were 2.5 times more expensive). Longevity and Cure for Cancer tweaks: Longevity is not enough usefull in modern age (and sometimes it gives more probelms then in helps). Also, Cure for Cancer 1 happy face is useless in modern times when civs have 6+ luxuries. So upping Cure for Cancer effect to 3 HAPPY FACES will make it PREMIUM wonder, which it is supposed to be. Longevity will be upgarded with 2 happy faces around the world. In combo with old effect this will make it a very good wonder. This way Genetic will be imortant tech in modern world, as it is (historicaly). And don't forget that these two wonders are two MOST EXPENSIVE WONDERS in Civ3. They should be a GOOD wonders. Changes in ver 1.11 Cost of Steal Tech and Propaganda spying missions is HALVED. This makes those missions more usefull, but not abusive (like in Civ2). That way Steal Tech could be usefull mission in early stage of game, but not always because of agressive tech trading in 1.17 patch. Still it would be worth if you are in war with everybody. Also, since mission cost DOESN'T depend from tech commercial price, sometimes it's still better to buy those techs. Propaganda becomes more viable option, but it still fails often against culturaly superior civilizations (as it should). Democracy immunity becomes more important. Changes in ver 1.2 All things converted to 1.21f patch format. Musketmen has both defense & offense AI flag selected (in v1.3 changed back to only defense AI flag). Changes in ver 1.22 After some playtesting I concluded that 50% cost for steal tech spy mission is just too low. So I upped it to 70%. It's still more usefull to "safely" steal tech then buy, if only one civ has that tech. Usefullness increases in industrial and modern age, when this option is usefull even when 2 or 3 civs have that tech. Changes in ver 1.25 Fighters get lethal sea bombardment. Jet Fighters, F-15 and Stealth Fighters get lethal sea and land bombard. All these units get Air bombard AI flag added. Why? These units are tactical bombers. They do thier job from close distance. That way they can take out 1hp units. This won't be unbalanced since these units are much worser bombers then standard Bomber unit, and land units have huge defensive bonuses. Fighters get only lethal sea, since historicly Fighters were used for attacks on capital ships like dive bombers, but Fighters were not used as tactical bombers on land, until Jet Fighters became available. Helicopters get range of 8. Real problem with these units was that it was difficult to land your units behind enemy lines, since helicopters need to start from your cities. Hopefully this change will make them more strategicaly usefull. Changes in ver 1.26 Mech. Inf. has no more offense AI flag selected (has only defense AI flag now). Since AI used too much Mech. Inf. instead of Tanks when planning attacks (and built Tanks rarely). This should fix that AI behavior. Changes in ver 1.27 ROF for F-15, Jet Fighter and Stealth Fighter is lowered back to 2. Since these units already have some lethal bombard capability, increase in ROF is no longer necessary (and it discouraged use of Cruise Missiles). Battleship gets cost of 220 shileds (was 200) to make Destroyers a more viable option. Changes in ver 1.3 All things converted to 1.29f patch format. Musketmen has now only defense AI flag selected (AI actualy doesn't need to use Musketmen at at offenese, since it has much better units for that job). Helicopter can now transport 2 foot units. This makes Helicopter more usefull transport unit. Paratroopers get operational range of 8. Since helicoptes got higher range too. Some bugs fixed. Changes in ver 1.31 Prequisite tech for Ironclad unit is now Industrialization (instead of Steam Power). This is done in order to prolong use of Frigates as "queen of seas". In original rules, Frigates were quickly made obsolete by Ironclads. Late game naval units have increased movment by 1. This is done in order to make greater difference between speed of modern naval vessels and sailing ships. It should not be unbalancing since change is for just one movment point. So Destroyers, Battleships, AEGIS Cruisers, Transports and Carriers get movment of 6. Subs get movment of 4, while Nuclear Subs get movment of 5. Attack bonus against barabarians is lowered too. Why? Since I don't think, that even novice players think it's fun to have his one lone warrior defeat 15 enemy horsemen. And that's something that can happen with anti-barabarian bonus of 800% at easiest difficulty. Now, at Chieftain diffculty, bonus against barabarians is 200% (still good), at Warlord is 100%, at Regent and Monarch is 50%, and at Emperor and Deity diffculty there is no bonus at all.