MOD: The BALANCER

[Elucidus]

wow, many problems with the late game. A hard timeframe to test, but wow. I am sorry about this.

I can't send you all of the files in my directory because it contains all of the new units and things we are working on for the new version of the mod. Oops, have I said too much?

Sorry about that, but if you send me your save game, I can see if I can figure it out. The strike fighter thing was the first time, my files were different from the version in the released mod, so it shouldn't happen again. I am sorry to hear about all of these late-game problems...any problems for that matter.

[ChaingKaiShek]

After updating the strike fighter.ini now I get a crash whenever I try to change the build que in ANY of my cities in a savegame I've yet to try starting over to see if anything changes. If it makes any difference the cities where I cannot change building que's in are all building infantry (Trying to change it from the quick popup window.)

The only cities I have that are not building infantry are the indian ones I captured a few turns ago. And some chinese cities from an' earlier war.

Anyway, if you want me to send off a savegame file again, let me know.

Seems most of the problems with the MOD are after the industrial era. But hey, at the rate I'm finding these problems you'll have them fixed in no time!

And what was that about new units?

Chaing

[Elucidus]

Well bud,

Send me the file and I'll see what I can do. New Units? I don't know what your talking about.

[Elucidus]

Originally posted by Allondro
If you're still looking for a picture of stonehenge, try this one out.
Cheers

Didn't think about it, but do you have that pic in 24-bit color?

[Elucidus]

Well 2.12A is out and about. Get the upgrade here.


The full version can be found here.

I hope I didn't miss any of the fixes. It has been hard to keep track with all of the new changes made for the unreleased version. If anyone wants to help test that, just send me an email.

Well let, me know if you are having any problems with anything, and I hope you enjoy.


~The Balancer Team

[ChaingKaiShek]

Originally posted by Elucidus
Well 2.12A is out and about. Get the upgrade here.


The full version can be found here.

If anyone wants to help test that, just send me an email.

~The Balancer Team

Well you know I'll always offer to help test out the latest version! I see there WERE a few new units with the latest update. he he he. Anyway I'm about to give the new version a whirl, And Elucidus, I seemed to have fixed the problem I was having, or so I think. Although I've yet to research Advanced flight (Motorized transport worked fine.) Anyway I loaded up a game which was crashing at the next turn and It played fine. So lets hope that did it.

So what did I do to fix it? Reinstalled the previous version of the MOD over to replace any damaged files. I think the Infantry file had been corrupted. And it could be possible as it's been hot lately and my computer will drop into Thermal protection mode an' shut down. heh. Guess it's time to pull the side casing off and put that fan in front of it!

Chaing

[ChaingKaiShek]

Stupid Idea for a Government!

Yeah, I know first off that there is only so much you can do to make unique and useable governments. And while the idea I had is slightly implemented with the Fascist government I did have a mere thought if we can call it that.

Why not have Rule by the Military - Martial Law as a form of Government? I'm not sure EXACTLY on the stats of the Fascist government but we could give it low unit support costs, higher free units per city/overall free units and no war wariness. In return production, worker speed and corruption could be higher. I'm sure I could ramble on much more about it, but I'll wait and see what everyone else thinks.

I happen to be a big fan of having lots of Governments, and I suppose if my idea is Not MOD-worthy I could always just add it in myself.

Chaing

[Elucidus]

Well I like the idea of a lot of Gov'ts. I am glad you fixed your problem BTW. I had thought the problem might have been the icon for the engineer. But I fixed that in the new patch anyway. So we shall see.

Like I said I like the idea of new Gov'ts, that is why I reduced the anarchy penalty a little. So now, even though you produce nothing, your people won't outright die.

If you take a look at the Theocracy Gov't you will see one I tried some new things with. I am guessing no one has really tried it though as I have yet to get much feedback on it. Essentially that government gives you buildings for free, but units cost 3 gold per. So it is a little odd. I was thinking about having an opposite version of that, but I can't increase the maint cost of buildings, so it would be too powerful.

Fascism gives 25 free units, but it's free units per city was reduced. It is to represent that it would be more effective for a smaller nation.

We have been seeing a lot of weirdness in the newer version of the mod and are trying to clear it up. Essentially the overzealous expansion by the computer is gone at first for a while. But if someone (AI or human) loses their first worker early, then they are screwed for the remainder of their game, especially if they are on plains, jungles, hills...

The goal of this was to make terrain a little more defined. After a while, the other way, everything was the same except for mountains and FPs. Now they are more defined and irrigation and mining is much more important.

As far as the new units, that has been in testing only a few days so I don't want to say too much on it, but I will email you a link to the test version in a little while, and some information about it. Anyone else interested?

[Allondro]

Got another annoying little crash. Whenever I try to go to production I get desktop. It doesn't matter how I try to go there, either. Right click on a city, change production when old production is finished, or clicking on a city from the domestic advisor. I went back a few turns and it seems fine until I discover medicine.

Cheers

[Allondro]

Here is a strange little effect. Could this be a mustang fighter?

Cheers

[Elucidus]

Allondro,

Sounds like an icon problem fpr the crash. As far as the "being built" icon. There isn't anything I can do about that. It is related to how the program gets that icon. It does something with the FLCs and gets confused easily. So far in the test version of 2.15 we haven't run accross that.

I do have a patch, because, as Chaing, pointed out the Missile Frigate is set to be a land unit, for some stupid reason. Here is the fix for it.

[Egoist]

Initial observations

Elucidus,

First of all let me start off by telling you how i really like the way your new mod is comming along. allthough not everything is to my exact own taste it certainly plays quite nicely. This is the first mod i tried with Civ3 (installed the 2.12A version btw).

however i have some issues regarding the mod.

- A rather annoying bug occurred when playing the Japanese in my first game. Every time I right click a coastal city and select change production the game crashes. Don’t know if this is a known bug just thought I’d report it. I can’t remember if this occurred from the start of the game or only after I discovered mapmaking meaning it could be due to the fire galley or something like that which would make sense since right-click -> change production works fine on non coastal city’s.

- Prisoner: When set to automate actions they also automatically found new cities. I don’t want to handle dozens of captured workers manually every turn (yes I know I’m a lazy bastard ) but I hate it when they settle in those weird places only the AI seems to like for reasons i will never be able to comprehend.

the next is a very minor issue but still,
- Pyramids & Stonehenge great wonders: IIRC pyramids now add a mill to every city on the same continent and Stonehenge now acts as the pyramids used to. This seems unnecessarily confusing to me. Why change the way pyramids work and then create a new GW that acts like the pyramids previously did?!


Some balancing issues (after all this is the balancer mod isn’t it? =) ) I only played one game up untill the end of the medieval age as of yet but these are major issues i have so i couldn't restrain myself and had to let you know.



- Pikeman: This is thing baffled me when I first saw it. Actually I’m still looking for my jaw ever since that first look at the pikemans’ stats. A 6/4/1 for 60 shields upgradable from knights & swordsman and upgrades to rifleman available with banking (which for some reason is a prerequisite to gunpowder I might add) and requires iron. Come on, let’s compare this to the musketman which is available with gunpowder (after the pikeman is availabe) a 3/4/1 for 50 shields upgrades to rifleman and requires saltpeter. I’d take the pikeman any day over that. It’s way and I mean waaaaaaaaaaaay too powerful.

Considering the way banking now is a prerequisite to gunpowder. To me this totally destroys any strategic choices you’d have to make in the early middle ages. Should I go for chivalry and an early middle ages war? or shoot straight to military tradition and kick the AI’s teeth in with a classic cavalry assault? (giving me a stronger though some would say overpriced defender along the way in the form of the musketman) Or maybe I should take the more peaceful builder approach and go for democracy (the republic in your mod) or perhaps economics or astronomy and navigation?

Not the case with this new tech tree, shoot straight for banking giving you the single most powerful unit in the era AND both a prerequisite for a more advanced form of government and gunpowder/military tradition. In fact the only civ advance that doesn’t require banking at that time are astronomy leading to navigation. Want gunpowder, metallurgy or military tradition? Better get banking first. Want to research theory of gravity or perhaps magnetism? Well you need banking for that too. Or perhaps you’d finally like a decent form of government? No can do without banking. In fact, why should one even care about what you’d want to research after you get banking. With banking you get the most powerful attacking unit (and defending I might add) of it's day. More destructive even than the all might modern armor.

I guess you get my point. I don’t want to bash your mod coz I really like it. But please please please consider changing back the middle ages tech tree and rethink the power and placement on the tech tree of the pikeman. It's beyond any logic and to me completely ****s up the middle ages.

Keep up the good work!
(btw, i apologize for my writing techniques. english obviously isn't my first language)

Respectfully submitted,
Egoist

[Elucidus]

Well Egoist, for someone whose primary language isn't English you sure write it pretty well.

As far as your feedback on the units. Fear not, the version of the Mod we have been testing for the last week or so has taken all of that into consideration. Gone are the days of the almighty pikeman. Units have had a lot of changes and balancing done to them.

The tech tree is another matter. I hadn't realized the problem the banking prerequisite caused, in fact the only reason we changed that was to fix the chain of units, throughout.

As far as the sea unit icon not working, have you tried 2.12B?


Prisoner's...I haven't had too many and I usually don't automate. I usually join them to cities or settle them since they aren't as effective as my current workers, I am usually industrial BTW. So I was unfamiliar with the problem and I don't have a current solution, as of now.

Pyramids and Stonehenge was the work of a previous member that we didn't disagree with. The philosophy was that Stonehenge gave a 25% food bonus in CTP and then the pyramids needed something new. We plan on revamping the wonders aspect in the future, but as of now we aren't working on it.


As far as bashing the mod, negative feedback (constructive-type) is far more productive then praise. Praise is appreciated but it doesn't help us improve the mod very much. Thank you for the feedback and let us know if you have anything else to add.

~The Balancer Team

[Tori]

There is a building (I forgot its name ) that gives +50% science in a monarchy. I'm wondering why a monarchy has more science output than a republik.

On the other hand I always dislike playing a scientific nation because I think the advantages being religious, industrious or militaristic are much cooler.

Is it possible and wouldn't it be fair to allow scientific nations to build an extra "+50% science building"?

Just a thought.

[Elucidus]

Yes, but currently we cannot implement that. I wanted to have a specific type of building for all of the traits, but I can't do it with the current editor. Well, unless I missed something, that is.

As far as the building you are talking about it was, I believe, implemented to offset a disadvantage of Monarchy.