[MOD] Insane-Abundant Balance Mod » Forum Post by naselus

Sneak peak at 1.1 changelog:

1.1 changelog

* Fixed colonizer bonus.
* upgrades now cost the same as the base building.
* Yor Quantum Matrix converted to a wonder; now gives global bonuses.
* Intimidation centre now gives +0.5 approval globally, so having lots is more intimidating than previously, while having less is less intimidating.
* Missionary Center now gives +2% influence globally, so more of them means more influence everywhere.
* Wonders now generally cost between 200 and 500 manufacturing.
* AI builds a lot more research planets.
* AI now doesn't bother using Breakeven spending strategy and instead runs deficit until it can't anymore.
* Fixed idiotic typo on durantium armour mass - good catch John Snider.
* AI now pretty much always has at least 50% military spending in the opening 100 turns, since the colonial social manufacturing means it'll build improvements regardless.
* Changed each turn to be described as a month rather than a week - though cannot change the number per year, annoyingly.
* Removed the 25% research bonus from game pacing.
* Removed exponent from tech inflation. Retained multiplier.
* Scaled Diplomacy to 100 in preparation for further changes.
* Balanced invasion styles a little better so info war is no longer unarguably the best.

Probably releasing this weekend.

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Wondering .. have you looked at the changes to v 1.2 in terms of your mod. looks like doing some AI tuning?? have not opt'd in on steam myself as in the middle of a interesting game right now and plan on finishing same.

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Quoting John Snider,

reply 227

Wondering .. have you looked at the changes to v 1.2 in terms of your mod. looks like doing some AI tuning?? have not opt'd in on steam myself as in the middle of a interesting game right now and plan on finishing same.

Not as yet. There's no point modding for the opt-in, since it can change from day-to-day and the majority of players aren't using it. When it's released, I do a quick windiff on a backed-up copy of the previous release so I can find all the relevant changes and add them in if I think they're a good move (usually about 50% are), or if I think they can do something cool (again, not a huge number).

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Well, that's kinda worrying... just played a soak. New game, brand new race. Used colonizer and prolific with expansionist AI... 280 turns later, my race is 2000 points clear of the others. In fact, my AI is doing about as well as I usually am at that point. What that says about my own playing vs the AI is questionable; it also suggests that, if the basic race traits weren't so horribly laid out, they might actually be a challenge already.

I think I'm gonna pair the AI's back a bit - give them 1 personality each. That way we know who's using what strat, and so over a few dozen games I can see which ones are underpowered. Over 4-5 versions, that way we can balance the strats properly and then start giving them multiple each again.

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marigoldran

Join Date 06/2013

+41

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BuckGodot

Join Date 11/2009

+73

Couple of quick comments/questions.

First off, as you might already be aware, this mod is not currently compatible with 1.2. The new mega events and the artifact are throwing things off in the GalCiv3GlobalDefs.xml file.

Specifically, this:

should to be changed to this:

And this:

Should be changed to this:

I think that's it for additions as I was able to run this mod after making those changes.

The question I have is concerning Ideological Planetary Projects. I'm looking at making a simple mod for the planetary projects, and so I thought I would look at your mod to see how it was done. I'm not sure they're actually currently enabled in your mod at the moment though.

The prereqs for each of the ideological planetary projects are:

Culling:

<Prerequ>
<Culture>
<Option>TerrorTrait</Option>
</Culture>
</Prerequ>

Sanctuary:

<Prerequ>
<Culture>
<Option>AffinityTrait</Option>
</Culture>
</Prerequ>

Summit:

<Prerequ>
<Culture>
<Option>MediatorTrait</Option>
</Culture>
</Prerequ>

These were the old names way back in Beta 3, but don't seem to currently mean anything. I went to the console and unlocked all of the culture traits, and none of these projects showed up. I also then built, again via the console, all of the ideological buildings (including wonders) and they didn't show up then as well.

So I guess the question is, how do I unlock these in this mod, or is this a case where the game isn't unlocking them, although it should?

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Quoting BuckGodot,

reply 231

First off, as you might already be aware, this mod is not currently compatible with 1.2.

Yeah, I've presently got 2 versions of the next release - 1 for 1.12 and 1 for 1.2. I don't know what they've done, but 1.2 runs way quicker on my machine; soaks get to turn 150 really quickly. So I'm devving on 1.2... might put the 1.12 version out now in fact.

Quoting BuckGodot,

reply 231

The question I have is concerning Ideological Planetary Projects. I'm looking at making a simple mod for the planetary projects, and so I thought I would look at your mod to see how it was done. I'm not sure they're actually currently enabled in your mod at the moment though.

Yeah, they presently aren't operating due to the incorrect ideology listings. Thing is, I'm not 100% sure that I want to include them after all; they're a bit too easy. Just about the only thing which is expensive enough to have to pay for ideology points is population... which can cause problems if the AI isn't bright enough to stop building it when the planet is running low.

If you want to fix them, just set the prerequistites to the correct ideology titles - AffinityTrait5, NegotiatorTrait5 and MotivationTrait5.

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Updated to 1.1:

1.1 changelog

* Fixed colonizer bonus.
* upgrades now cost the same as the base building.
* Yor Quantum Matrix converted to a wonder; now gives global bonuses.
* Intimidation centre now gives +0.5 approval globally, so having lots is more intimidating than previously, while having less is less intimidating.
* Missionary Center now gives +2% influence globally, so more of them means more influence everywhere.
* Wonders now generally cost between 200 and 500 manufacturing.
* AI builds a lot more research planets.
* AI now doesn't bother using Breakeven spending strategy and instead runs deficit until it can't anymore.
* Fixed idiotic typo on durantium armour mass - good catch John Snider.
* AI now pretty much always has at least 50% military spending in the opening 100 turns, since the colonial social manufacturing means it'll build improvements regardless.
* Changed each turn to be described as a month rather than a week - though cannot change the number per year, annoyingly.
* Removed the 25% research bonus from game pacing.
* Removed exponent from tech inflation. Retained multiplier.
* Scaled Diplomacy to 100 in preparation for further changes.
* Balanced invasion styles a little better so info war is no longer unarguably the best.
* Prolific now gives +0.5 population on colonizing, rather than +50%.
* Colonizer now gives +25% social production, down from 100%
* Engineers now get +25% military production, instead of reduced shipyard decay.
* Invasions reworked a bit more.
* Reduced the amount of planetary defense on offer from techs.
* Base resistance increased to 50%

Note that there are 2 versions of this one - one for 1.12 (which will be the final version released for 1.12) and one for 1.2. The 1.2-compatible version REQUIRES the beta, so do not download it unless you have opted-in.

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BuckGodot

Join Date 11/2009

+73

Quoting naselus,

reply 232

Yeah, they presently aren't operating due to the incorrect ideology listings. Thing is, I'm not 100% sure that I want to include them after all; they're a bit too easy. Just about the only thing which is expensive enough to have to pay for ideology points is population... which can cause problems if the AI isn't bright enough to stop building it when the planet is running low.

If you want to fix them, just set the prerequistites to the correct ideology titles - AffinityTrait5, NegotiatorTrait5 and MotivationTrait5.

Thanks, figured it was something like that, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't something triggering them in your game that I was missing. As for the point about cheapness, I see where you are coming from, but is it really that much different than spamming the ideological buildings everywhere? Not having to put up with the micro of building the blessed things might make a lot of difference. And if the growth of the ideological points is too steep, can the rate of growth per production points be changed anywhere (that doesn't affect the other planetary projects)? Just spitballing here, mind.

Either way, thanks for that.

I'm making a bunch of, well, modular mods on my home system so I can plug-n-play which facets of the game I want to tweak at any one time, and this is one of the ones I wanted to test fire and see what happens.

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Quoting BuckGodot,

reply 234

Thanks, figured it was something like that, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't something triggering them in your game that I was missing. As for the point about cheapness, I see where you are coming from, but is it really that much different than spamming the ideological buildings everywhere? Not having to put up with the micro of building the blessed things might make a lot of difference. And if the growth of the ideological points is too steep, can the rate of growth per production points be changed anywhere (that doesn't affect the other planetary projects)? Just spitballing here, mind.

Yes, the rate can be changed quite easily - At the top of the project, it lists how many manu poitns equal the base output. It will do 1 version of the project for each full or part number of times the planet's manu can divide by it - so if you have 50 manu and it costs 50 manu for 1 point, you get 1 point.. If it costs 49 manu, you will get 2 points. If it costs 51 manu, you will still get 1 point.

You just have to be careful with it - on vanilla's output settingsd, it's entirely possible for the playerr to have 100,000 manufacturing from one planet, which could allow them to unlock the whole tree in 1 turn. I think I will unlock them in the end, but only once I'm sure the manu levels are sensible.

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marigoldran

Join Date 06/2013

+41

Is the mod workable with 1.2?

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The 1.2 version is, yes.

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Removed 1.12 version from nexus.

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1.2.1 released:

1.2.1 changelog

* Adopted new numbering system for versions - the first 2 decimal will match the version of GC3 the mod is for, the next decimal will be the mod version for that release.
* Added in all the new stuff from 1.2, so DLC and things should work properly.
* Some general code maintenance - fixing a couple of broken localizations, sorted out a couple of bugs etc.

There's not a massive number of changes or fixes in this - it's mostly just consolidating the 1.2 changes and putting the new version numbering system into effect. If you have 1.1 for 1.2 already (which is like 10 people), I wouldn't be in too much of a rush about picking up this one, unless you actively run into crashes.

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marigoldran

Join Date 06/2013

+41

There isn't anything obvious I can blatantly abuse...

Will think of a plan at some point....

Shucks.

I'll test it this weekend. The passion (OH MY GOD THIS IS SUCH AN OBVIOUS DESIGN FLAW I CAN DRIVE A TRUCK THROUGH IT) isn't there in large part because I can't think of any obvious design flaws right now.

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Currently pondering the idea of sizeably increasing starting population to around 30-40, and then bumping the base growth rate up a few points - 0.3 or 0.4. And maybe hitting production from pop down to 0.33 or 0.25. I'd also increase colony ship maximum population to, say, 10.

This would act a a nerf on the growth boosts, and make % increases to growth more relevant, while the reduction in production would balance it some more.

The main downside is that it'd allow capital worlds to reach very large populations, since I'd have to give them a big boost to flat food production. Might test it on my next game.

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May i ask an uninformed question?

What would happen if the cost of colony modules was, say 1000% of normal?

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Quoting leiavoia,

reply 242

May i ask an uninformed question?

What would happen if the cost of colony modules was, say 1000% of normal?

That's something I've been thinking about a lot recently too, tbh. Probably not 1000%, but possibly doubled or tripled.

The thing is, that really slows down the start of the game, which in turn means lots of boring clicking 'next turn' with nothing much to do for longer; one of the big problems with Civ 4 was that the player was often unable to really do very much prior during the first third of the game. The mod already does slow the early game down a lot; I've been taking some steps to try and speed it back up (removing the flat maintenance on colonies, for example) while maintaining the slower overall pace. Adjusting colony ship prices is probably going to be a part of that... but it will be a fairly delicate operation.

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The reason why i ask is because i fondly remember the early game of MOO 1 and 2. Colony ships usually took 20-30 turns to develop until you can get your homeworld ramped up. Those first few colonies were absolutely critical, defenseless, and must be well-chosen. While your first colony ship is in production, you've got scouts running around doing their thing, so it wasn't just next turn next turn next turn.

In GC3 (and 2), colony ships are practically disposable. I use mine as scouts. If the cost to build colonizers was burdensome, it would really slow down the early game colony rush. Unfortunately i predict it would also cripple the AI until the AI gets a better handle on it's economy (see: "1.2 AI is useless" thread).

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Quoting leiavoia,

reply 244

The reason why i ask is because i fondly remember the early game of MOO 1 and 2. Colony ships usually took 20-30 turns to develop until you can get your homeworld ramped up. Those first few colonies were absolutely critical, defenseless, and must be well-chosen. While your first colony ship is in production, you've got scouts running around doing their thing, so it wasn't just next turn next turn next turn.

In GC3 (and 2), colony ships are practically disposable. I use mine as scouts. If the cost to build colonizers was burdensome, it would really slow down the early game colony rush. Unfortunately i predict it would also cripple the AI until the AI gets a better handle on it's economy (see: "1.2 AI is useless" thread).

Actually, a blind all-out manufacturing program is one of the things we can script quite well; the real problem is that it's presently quite hard to guarantee that the AI will turn it's homeworld into a factory planet. About half of them decide it would be a great world to cover in markets (even if they cannot actually make markets yet).

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Annekynn

Join Date 06/2004

+3

Some of the changes in this mod really break the game. Losing money like crazy due to initial colony drain. Xeno Commerce gives me a building that gives +2.5 income, but it can only be built if I have promethion? Well great, thats just very unlikely to happen if im playing on a rare resource map (which is always the case to reduce starbase spam). Im 80 turns in on this map and still havent found any promethion to allow me to build this structure so I can stop losing money.

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Annekynn

Join Date 06/2004

+3

Also since im new to modding, is there a way to update the mod while a map is in progress? I removed the map and the save games I have are entirely unaffected with its removal, so im assuming any mods are integrated into the map upon creation and youre out of luck if you wish to change something mid game?

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Quoting Annekynn,

reply 246

Some of the changes in this mod really break the game. Losing money like crazy due to initial colony drain. Xeno Commerce gives me a building that gives +2.5 income, but it can only be built if I have promethion? Well great, thats just very unlikely to happen if im playing on a rare resource map (which is always the case to reduce starbase spam). Im 80 turns in on this map and still havent found any promethion to allow me to build this structure so I can stop losing money.

Use market centres and try specializing a planet or two for econ with the production wheel. You may also need to give your economy time to rest in between bursts of colonizing, at least until you get the hang of it. The Promethium park gives a small flat cash boost, but the big bulk of your cash should be coming from worlds covered in market centres with the population running 100% econ rather than spamming pleasure parks.

The mod is set up to make new colonies a net drain on your resources early on, with population being much more important than vanilla. As such, constantly grabbing more planets is not always the best strategy, and a major early colony-spam strategy actually requires some creative thinking to avoid collapsing into bankruptcy.

Quoting Annekynn,

reply 247

Also since im new to modding, is there a way to update the mod while a map is in progress? I removed the map and the save games I have are entirely unaffected with its removal, so im assuming any mods are integrated into the map upon creation and youre out of luck if you wish to change something mid game?

All settings and scripting is baked into the save game, so if you make any changes they won't take effect til you start a new game. This does have the advantage of preventing changes from breaking your save... but has disadvantages too.

It's worth noting the same is true for factions - many more features about them are baked into the faction file that you'd expect, so their base resistance, and starting cash and population, and war endurance are all unchangeable once they're packaged for download. I'm not really sure why SD did this, since many of those are more game rules than faction traits; if anything, they should be set in globaldefs and then bonuses or penalties should be applied in the faction defs.

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Annekynn

Join Date 06/2004

+3

This mod absolutely cripples me. In every single category each and every AI is vastly outdoing me. Either theyre not bound by the same limitations as what the mod imposes on the player or there is something im strongly missing. By turn 125 I have 20 worlds and im dead last place in manufacturing, economy and research

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Quoting Annekynn,

reply 249

This mod absolutely cripples me. In every single category each and every AI is vastly outdoing me. Either theyre not bound by the same limitations as what the mod imposes on the player or there is something im strongly missing. By turn 125 I have 20 worlds and im dead last place in manufacturing, economy and research

If you're playing on normal, then the AI receives fewer bonuses than it does in Vanilla. It's vastly more detailed; there's at least 10 times as much strategic AI scripting as in vanilla, and it's blueprints are enormously improved. But it doesn't cheat on normal. You can check this for yourself - go into Galciv3AIdefs.xml in the mod/game directory, find 'normal', and you'll see:

<DifficultyRule>
<Difficulty>Normal</Difficulty>
</DifficultyRule>

No bonuses. I couldn't tell if they AI was actually doing well if it had them.

Most likely, you expanded too quickly and your economy overheated. Every colony you take increases the maintenance of every other colony you own by 0.2, so your total maintenance costs go from 0.2 when it's just your homeworld, to 0.8 from your homeworld+1 colony, to 1.8 for you homeworld +2 colonies, 3.2 for +3, 5 for +4, 7.2 for +5 etc. By the time you hit 20 worlds, you're paying 80 cash per turn on colony maintenance; at 25 it's 125. You need to pace your growth.

Most players will need to stop colonizing at around 10 planets and have to wait for their population and economy to build up for a while. As your econ worlds finish building and start producing money, you'll find that you can afford to colonize again - your empire can probably support maybe 10 new developing worlds at any given time. More than that, and you'll start to run into serious financial trouble. Generally speaking, if you have less than 20 turns worth of gold left, you should not be building colony ships.

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