MOD: The BALANCER

[korn469]

Harlan

you are correct you can change appearance and disappearance rates for luxeries

[Elucidus]

C'mon Korn, still waiting for that Ironclad to Destroyer proof. I know you can find it. If anyone can find it it is YOU!

Have fun all.

[Fake Boris]

--I can surely tell you, we cannot build roads, clear junges or forests.--

Well, the Romans did it, so the idea is not that bad...

--In reality, this is untrue. Facist Italy and Nazi Germany suffered rampant corruption, horrible inefficiency and massive economic problems. The massive military build-up and wars were the only things the leaders could do to galvanize industry and keep the countries afloat. --

I would have to disagree on that one. Every government suffers rampant corruption. Mind you, there are more company HQ in Bahamas than there are inhabitants... and this is not gold stolen by the nazis. The inclusion of Fascism in Civ is an excellent idea - along with balancing democracy and communism. Yeah, Stalin killed thousands of citizens, and half-fed his population... but he DID produce an helluva tanks and planes, and actually beat the Germans.

[Jahi]

Originally posted by Harlan
A couple of suggestions:



---There are two new Modern-Age Wonders, due to complaints of there being too few in that
period
-Dinosaur Park-Available with Genetics, this wonder increases tax, science, and luxory output
by 50%
-Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band- Available with Ecology, This wonder simply produces 25 culture a turn.

I'm the world's biggest fan of the Beatles, and that album in particular. It was the first album I owed as a kid. But it seems very strange as a wonder, and stranger still to be connected to Ecology. For one of the above, at least, how about Hollywood? Talk about having a huge effect on culture in the modern age - that wins over anything else hands down.

hi monkspider,

so I’ve been thinking about your arguments on your choice of the two modern age wonders. I saw your argument for keeping -Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band- but I didn't see an argument against the -Dinosaur Park- (I might have just missed it)

now I have a new argument against -Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band- (possibly replace it with Hollywood) -and I want to see what you think about it. you stated (I forgot the exact #) that a large % of most music in this century had its roots in this. I wont disagree to that statement but I’d like to add that this may be true in the western world.. and that west is not the majority of the world. I don’t think the Beatles are that well known in India but I know Hollywood is known everywhere. or they may be known but just aren't that important. (which I personally believe they aren't).
plus, it just strikes me as wrong.. everyone knows the pyramids of Egypt, but not everyone knows the Beatles (hard to believe to some native English speakers, I know)

now, on to the -Dinosaur Park-. my argument hasn't changed any, but I just missed your response. Civ 3 has made a clear distinction between future techs and ones we have today. even fusion power was removed (it was in civ 2) because we don’t have it today. the -Dinosaur Park- seems to be very far fetched, why not just offer a trip to mars instead? it seems more likely than cloned dinosaurs. the bonuses it offers are also way to powerful, now if it was just one city it would still be very powerful but a little more reasonable.

[solaeric]

For what it's worth

I took interest in the discussion ealier on this topic regarding the intelligence of the Civ3 AI. It was questioned whether the AI civilization would recognize changes in a unit or wonder's abilities and adjust its strategy. For instance, if Shakespeare's Theater was modified to, in addition to its cultural benefits, increase the movement rates of ships by one point, would the AI recognize this improvement before opting to build it. Say, for instance, that the AI civilization required faster ship travel, would it even consider the new Shakespeare's Theater as a solution?
This issue was touched lightly earler in this thread, but I didn't see an answer; my apologies if this subject has been concluded. If not, I have an idea that might answer this question. Someone out there who has the time to sit and collect data needs to take a non-combat (a.k.a. crappy) unit, like the scout, and jack up his combat abilities to a super-level, like 10/10/10. Then, all he needs to do is see if the AI (preferably a non-expansionist AI, but it really doesn't matter) produces a higher than otherwise normal number of these units. If the AI civilization does produce many of these units, and uses them for warfare, then we can assume that the AI evaluates the skills and abilities of the units and wonders at the time of actual game-play and adjusts its strategy.

-Solaeric

[stc]

Whoops, seems like the link for the balancer doesn't work. Could anybody put here another one, pls??

[ElitePersian]

Re: For what it's worth

Originally posted by solaeric
I took interest in the discussion ealier on this topic regarding the intelligence of the Civ3 AI. It was questioned whether the AI civilization would recognize changes in a unit or wonder's abilities and adjust its strategy. For instance, if Shakespeare's Theater was modified to, in addition to its cultural benefits, increase the movement rates of ships by one point, would the AI recognize this improvement before opting to build it. Say, for instance, that the AI civilization required faster ship travel, would it even consider the new Shakespeare's Theater as a solution?
This issue was touched lightly earler in this thread, but I didn't see an answer; my apologies if this subject has been concluded. If not, I have an idea that might answer this question. Someone out there who has the time to sit and collect data needs to take a non-combat (a.k.a. crappy) unit, like the scout, and jack up his combat abilities to a super-level, like 10/10/10. Then, all he needs to do is see if the AI (preferably a non-expansionist AI, but it really doesn't matter) produces a higher than otherwise normal number of these units. If the AI civilization does produce many of these units, and uses them for warfare, then we can assume that the AI evaluates the skills and abilities of the units and wonders at the time of actual game-play and adjusts its strategy.

-Solaeric

I asked monkspider this exact question - and obviously, if the AI doesnt recognize these changes well enough, then there's no point making mods. I was told that Soren Johnson said in his interview that the AI will be able to take advantage of mods, that it has been programmed to. Now to what extend we dont know, only playtesting will tell. Well im not gonna download any mods until it is totally confirmed that the AI benefits from mods, and until i play a little more without mods to get a teste of how balanced the game is.
but monkspider has done a really good job with this mod and it seems like ppl's opinion that this mod really does balance the game more.

[Harlan]

Bad news:
I've been using your mod, and just ran into a very nasty bug. Everything is going fine, until a certain turn, and then I get a "please wait" message while the AI are doing their turns. The game waits forever at this point until I'm forced to quit.

This has now happened to me in two separate games, both at approximately the same time in the mid-Ancient age. I have a save game from 1830 BC as the Bablyonians you might want to try out - the bug should appear as the turn changes.

It hadn't happened to me before I used your mod. Also, the first time I played your mod, I got fairly far. I wasn't doing well though, so I started far back in history in the same world. But when I got to about 1500 BC, the game hung.

Since this has happened to me twice and I can't figure out how to get past it, I may have to uninstall your mod.

Oh, by the way, I'm also getting an error in the scientific screen occasionally. Sometimes 3 citizen heads appear there, scattered about the screen.

My computer:
AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz
261 RAM
Windows 2000 Pro

[larchy]

[bug]
I dled and started playing v1.32, but instantly noticed a bit of a prob - Played as the Greeks and in the build menu right from the beginning are Sgt Peppers whatsit-doo-dah and Universal Equality available to build, and requiring 0 resources so they complete in 1 turn. I'm running 1Ghz Athlon, 256mb Ram, Prophet2 MX 32mb, Windows XP Pro.
[/bug]

Btw I ain't as serious about all this as some of you lot obviously are, but this debate about unit upgrading and not being able to upgrade wooden ships to metal ones... (at the risk of being flamed) itsagameitsagameitsagame etc. Now ok, I see your point and I ain't suggesting that warriors should be allowed to upgrade to laser-space-destroyers or whatever, but it does seem to make sense that your obsolete naval units should be allowed to upgrade to newer ones. The game should be fun first, realistic second imho.
The point about not allowing certain units to upgrade is a good one tho... if you aren't allowed to upgrade a particularly powerful unit it adds a bit of a dilemma over whether to build a whole host of them or not, makes the player think a bit more long term.

justmytwocents.

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Jahi


hi monkspider,

so I’ve been thinking about your arguments on your choice of the two modern age wonders. I saw your argument for keeping -Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band- but I didn't see an argument against the -Dinosaur Park- (I might have just missed it)

now I have a new argument against -Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band- (possibly replace it with Hollywood) -and I want to see what you think about it. you stated (I forgot the exact #) that a large % of most music in this century had its roots in this. I wont disagree to that statement but I’d like to add that this may be true in the western world.. and that west is not the majority of the world. I don’t think the Beatles are that well known in India but I know Hollywood is known everywhere. or they may be known but just aren't that important. (which I personally believe they aren't).
plus, it just strikes me as wrong.. everyone knows the pyramids of Egypt, but not everyone knows the Beatles (hard to believe to some native English speakers, I know)

now, on to the -Dinosaur Park-. my argument hasn't changed any, but I just missed your response. Civ 3 has made a clear distinction between future techs and ones we have today. even fusion power was removed (it was in civ 2) because we don’t have it today. the -Dinosaur Park- seems to be very far fetched, why not just offer a trip to mars instead? it seems more likely than cloned dinosaurs. the bonuses it offers are also way to powerful, now if it was just one city it would still be very powerful but a little more reasonable.

Hey Jahi, I really can't argue with your statement too much on the beatles. All I can say is that people have never heard of J.S Bach or Leonardo Da Vinci either. Although I probably will end up changing it to Hollywood because of public opinion.

Dinosaur Park isn't as far-fetched as you may believe, there are active campaigns these days to ressurect a number of extinct animals, including the Mammoth, Quagga, Blue Buck Antelope, and even the Dodo! And actually Dino Park only does affect one city, I appologize if I made a typo and said it affects all, that *WOULD* be too powerful I agree. We don't have a Cure for Cancer yet, but I bet that at least the potential for Cure for Cancer and Dino Park to become a reality will exist in the very near future.

[monkspider]

That's not good Harlan! Are you playing with any other mods? Do you remember if there is any exact circumstance when the game hangs? I have played a few games with no problems.
I don't know if this is related to my mod or not, because I remember that exact thing happening to me twice as the Iroquois before I even dreamed of creating this mod.
Has anyone else reported this happening while playing with my mod?

[Evil Ankh VIII]

I have read through this post for the past couple of days hoping to get an answer to the problem with the mod not running right with my game. I keep getting an error message any time I try to build a squatter or around 3500b.c. I get an error message. I also can't get pictures for the new upgraded wonders and I get no description for universal equality in the civlopedia. I have unzipped the newest mod upgrade and as far as I can tell everything is in the right spot. I saw posts for this earlier in this thread, but no real response on how to fix it. BTW I like the ideas that were added, but yes universal equality sounds too much like universal suffrage. Plus I also think Hollywood would be better for culture and should be a nice addition. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Harlan
A couple of suggestions:

-Universal Equality- Gain any two advances owned by any other governemnt, limited only to Communism. Useful to gain ground on the scientifically advanced Democratic nations. Lasts until discovery of space flight.

Change it to Classless Society, and use it to knock out Communist corruption instead.

If you wanted to keep it the same, I suppose you could call it Lysenko's Lab, but that would be a horrible untruth, since Lysenko set back Soviet science by decades.

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Evil Ankh VIII
I have read through this post for the past couple of days hoping to get an answer to the problem with the mod not running right with my game. I keep getting an error message any time I try to build a squatter or around 3500b.c. I get an error message. I also can't get pictures for the new upgraded wonders and I get no description for universal equality in the civlopedia. I have unzipped the newest mod upgrade and as far as I can tell everything is in the right spot. I saw posts for this earlier in this thread, but no real response on how to fix it. BTW I like the ideas that were added, but yes universal equality sounds too much like universal suffrage. Plus I also think Hollywood would be better for culture and should be a nice addition. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Hey Ankh, sorry I missed you first time around. There was a problem with the squatter in version 1.3 and 1.31, however that has been rectified in 1.32. Try downloading that, you can find the link earlier in the thread. And make sure to extract the files to the places specified.
As for the pictures, I have found a way for pictures to appear in the civlopedia, but I still haven't found a way to get them to appear in the build queue. So don't worry, no one can see pictures right now either.
If that still doesn't help you any, please let me know.

[monkspider]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Change it to Classless Society, and use it to knock out Communist corruption instead.

That's such a good idea I'm going to implement it in my next update.