MOD: The BALANCER

[Elucidus]

Actually those should all be okay. We identified the need for this with the Statue fiasco. That one just seems to have eluded us. Thanks for the info, without it, it probably would've slipped into 1.5.


Happy gaming.

[monkspider]

Wow, the legendary Wesw visits our mod! I think it's safe to say that we have hit the big time. I loved your old medpack, a masterpiece of modsmanship if I do say so myself.
I really liked a lot of your ideas, and you can expect to see a number of them implemented in 1.5. Unfortunatly, something I have always wanted to see too, the jungle-5 shield bonus is impossible to do in the current version of the editor. Also, I was curious on your logic on the Samurai stat change, it seems that a 5 attack might be a bit much in a time when the best defender at the time is 3.

[monkspider]

thanks to eluc and gentom for fixing up the reichstag, I'm kind of surprised no one has brought it up sooner actually

I guess that one just slipped past my radar, sorry about that

[Yaga]

Hi all,

Just finished a 14 hr session of Civ III, playing with balancer Mod 140, with a few of my own changes:

- Moved Longevity back to Genetics
- Tweaked some strat resources appearance ratios (I forget them all now...shoot...know that I moved some up, some down, each no more than 5 or 10 points)
- reduced Galley movement to 3 (as per original)
- increased modern era naval units significantly - Battleship, Sub and Carrier to 8, destroyer to 10, Aegis to 12, Nuc. Sub to 10)
- Made All artillery types (cannon, arty, etc) airliftable
- Also, made a significant change in that irrigate w/o fresh water is now a function of Engineering, not Electricity. Semi-balancing, semi-realworld issue. (EDITED)

I believe that's it. In short, it was a wonderful game, played at Regent level w/ 8 civs on a standard map. Ended w/ a Diplomatic victory with only 3 civs remaining, myself included.

Wanted to post my civ3mod.bic so y'all could take a look.

Thanks again to Monkspider, Elucidus, and everyone else for the kickass mod.

Sincerely,
Yaga

NOTE : This is based on Monkspider's BALANCER 140 civ3mod.bic http://www.yaga-ysgs.com/civiii/MSB_...00_civ3mod.bic

[Steve Clark]

monk, congratulations on the popularity of this mod. However, my earlier question still stands. If the AI does not take advantage of the changes as well as the human player, are you producing a game that will be easier/more winnable for the human player? Is that what yourself and others refer to when it is said that this mod makes it a more enjoyable game...that it is only enjoyable if you know you can win instead of being a challenge?

Folks here seems to be enamored with the concept of the changes, but what are the actual results? The unmodable games that some have written about in Civ3-Stories suggest a challenging game that requires clever use of strategies given the limitations of some of the units and improvements. While some tweaks are in order, why do you and your groupies assume that wholesale changes need to be made when quite a few folks are playing enjoyable yet challenging Civ3 game as is?

[Elucidus]

Steve,

I understand your concern. However, as far as I have been able to determine, the game is just as challanging as before. The AI has taken advantage of many, if not all, of the changes made.

That was, in fact, one of the problems we incurred when adding worker traits to infantry...which has since been removed. There are many races for the new wonders, and they definately take advantage of the colonists... they don't have a choice there.

You are more than welcome to try it out and let us know your feelings on it. In fact I welcome more comments and suggestions, in every facet of the mod.

[Elucidus]

Let me test this website...

[Elucidus]

Okay that works as a direct link. And if you really feel the need to visit the mainpage goto:

http://www.knology.net/~elucidus/

I guess I'll use geocities as a backup...

[WesW]

I guess you are right about the Samurai stats. I was just looking at it versus the Knight. Samurai were better at offense than defense, so the 4/4 did not make sense.
I wish I had a spreadsheet of all the unit stats, like the one I made for the Medpacks. They make it much easier to plan everything out. All I have done so far is spot-check the Civilopedia.

I did not know that you could not separate the wood production of different terrains. Since so much of the map is covered in jungle, you might want to have it give wood anyway.

One bug I have noticed in my game- the Statue pic shown in the Civilopedia is not the small version that needs to be shown. What I see is the top part of the full-size pic stretching across the 'pedia area. I don't guess it has hurt anything, but it needs to be fixed sometime.

As far as general advice on mod-making; Go slow as far as adding new things to the game until you have the basic game all smoothed out. I would even advise against adding things the editor does not fully support, at least until the first patch comes out and we see if it contains a more powerful editor.

I checked out Plutarck's mod, and he seems to be going a little too fast with all the new gov's, units, etc. We need to have enough experience playing the game so that we understand what the game makers were trying to accomplish with their settings before making wholesale changes. I know you are now thinking about the wholesale changes I made to the Ctp games, but those games were a special case (I hope). I guess I am trying to say to make sure the things you change are really imbalances and not just something that doesn't fit with your particular style of play. Once you get a mod that addresses all the game's general imbalances, then people can take it and adjust it to fit their particular tastes. Even with the Medpack II, I spent the first 3 months or so studying the basic game, reading everyone's comments on it, and addressing all of those concerns. After that I started on the new tech tree and units, etc.

You guys seem to be making the mod for the right reasons- to make the game better, and not for your own egos (though praise is always appreciated). I hope you make new friendships and learn new skills like I did, though I doubt your task with Civ III will be anything close to the huge task of making the Ctp series playable (I think I had over a dozen people who contributed files and graphics for each of the Medpacks.)
Anyway, I will be following your progress and adding help where I can.

[Mizaq]

i'm busy with classes right now, but i'll get back to you guys about the colonist change. if no-one else has noticed it, it's probably from the change i made.

it was ONLY expansionist civs. the other civs were doing just fine (but not as fast as my incredibly unbalancing -1 pop point colonists)

[Cian McGuire]

I wish I had a spreadsheet of all the unit stats, like the one I made for the Medpacks. They make it much easier to plan everything out

There's one in existence fortunately

It covers just about everything (including a tech tree) in an Excel file- you can grab it here

[Elucidus]

WesW,

I agree with you, we need to take it slow. Sometimes that is hard to do in and of itself. Currently I am updating the civilopedia with all of the changes we have made recently. Not a small task by any means. Thanks for your advice. We appreciate it.

[monkspider]

Thanks for the advice wesw,
wise words indeed, right now I am trying to patch up what I see as inherent shortcomings in the game, I have not added any units other than the Colonist (to help balanced out the civ attributes) and only one government (Fascism). The next update is going to be a bit bolder. But still I don't think anything completely out in left field. I'm going to give the governments each their own individual personalities, which I think is going to enhance the game greatly. There may be a few tweaks to be made here and there as time passes, but I don't think we are doing anything too far out there. Thanks for the kind words wes, support from such a legend of mod-making as yourself is very much appreciated.

[Cian McGuire]

Alright, just entered Industrial w/ the mod and the pics of the Colonist and the Worker disappeared while I'm playing as the Russians. This is only in the Build bars, and the main screen is fine.

[Elucidus]

Yeah, I noticed that myself. Haven't figured out what that is all about. Especially since we did nothing with the worker.