Insane Abundant Balance Mod
A mod designed around balancing the game for large maps with many planets.
Features:
* Massive AI work, to make the AI more competitive even on normal difficulty.
* Replaces Large Empire Penalty with stacking maintenance costs.
* Reworks the balance between 'wide' and 'tall' empires to make planet-grabbing less important, smaller empires more capable of competing with large ones.
* Fixes sensor stacking and engine stacking.
* Includes dozens of bug fixes
* Trade and Tourism more valuable
* Diplomacy less exploitable
* Ship blueprints improved
Install Instructions:
Just extract the .zip file to your My documents\my games\galcvi3\mods folder, then start the game. Activate mods by going into the Options meun, selecting the Gameplay tab, and turning on the 'Enable Mods' checkbox, then restart your game. To check it's working, just start a new game. If the minor races are listed as playable factions, then the mod is working.
Current Version:
1.7.1 for GC3 1.7
Latest version download link available at:
http://www.nexusmods.com/galacticcivilizations3/mods/13/?
I've encountered it in mine too now - it's not just you. Very odd.
Is it only occuring on planets which have the colony capital upgraded?
I've seen the same bug. I couldn't cancel projects once started, and I couldn't build shipyards while Capital building upgrades we're available.
Ive seen this "bug" since at least 1.2. I thought it was some feature that was added. Found it a bit annoying that I had no way of having planets tell me when construction of all project was done as the N/A project was always there and unremovable....
Naselus, I have a small question. (I apologize for not continuing the flow of the special projects bug discussion!) I have spent the last few hours reading through this thread about your mod. Thanks for guys like you who put in the hours, days, years on this kind of thing!
Do you think this mod is "optimized" - or maybe another word is a better choice - for the largest map sizes, yet with scarce recourses? It seems to me it would still be great strategic play...no?
Yeah, that shouldn't be a big problem. The AI is scripted for big maps. Resource frequency shouldn't have a huge impact.
I suspect it's from the colony capital upgrades being listed as 'special' placements. Will try fiddling with them.
Updated to 1.2.4, final version for 1.2:
1.2.4 notes:
* Added a few extra star names for funsies.* Negative effects removed from ideology projects; price rebalanced to 100:1* Halved chance of colonization events.* Knights now actually have weapons. Oh well, if you re-write the whole damn blueprint file, some typos are gonna slip in * Removed ideology per turn bonuses from consulates etc.* Doubled Starbase range* Increased Starbase exclusion range to 12 spaces.* Fixed Free Market to replace market centre for Iridium
Not a lot of changes. Still not tracked down the projects bug, though it doesn't cause much harm so I'm not freaking out about it; will continue to investigate as we move into 1.3.
Also, not really able to make any massive alterations when SD are preparing to completely change the UI under me, so while I'll be upgrading the mod to 1.3 and making some tweaks (amongst other things, I think I can make the AI specialize properly), don't expect many earth-shaking alterations in the next month or so.
So I just updated it it 1.3 beta, reconciled the code base changes, got the thing working etc... And then I edited the AI-only governors.
I added in 3 new GovernorBonus entries, and re-added offsets (no bonuses - just offsets). And then I added references into the governordefs.xml file to trigger these spending patterns when the AI settles a world. And do you know what happened?
I made a freaking specializing AI, that's what happened. In the soak I have right now, an AI has got 1 specialized wealth world and 4 specialized research planets. Combined with Froggy's hardcode optimizations, I have a very good feeling about where I can go with 1.3. Now we just need to convince Stardock to make it possible to mod the wheel back in after 1.4, and we have a serious possibility for a challenging AI for big maps.
That sounds really exciting. I'm curious to know how much AI improvement you've observed from your soak games now that it can specialize--the thought of a relatively level playing field in GC3 makes me really happy.
It's immediately massively more challenging. The AI's research is remaining competitive even 200+ turns into the game, and it's putting out large ships and fleeting them up. It's not bankrupting, either; it has solid cash-generating worlds that mean it doesn't need to waste maintenance generation from the industry/research worlds.
I need to address the empire-wide balance a bit I think (it seems awfully keen on research planets), and I can do some cooler stuff with the general strategies now.
All in all, this is immensely promising, though. The AI in 1.2 was usually producing very little of everything; it'd have maybe 50% of each planet dedicated to econ and the remaining 25% split between research and production, resulting in barely any output. Now I'm seeing dozens of planets with 40-50 research output, mixed in with industry worlds that produce that much manu, and econ worlds with anything upto 80 cash.
It's a shame that, now the AI can finally be coded to play, we're gonna lose the ability next month
Hi Naselus,
I've already mentioned this but would it be possible to re-add maintenance costs for buildings into a future version of the mod? Post production wheel, I think that the best way to balance the in-game economy with the modding tools we're given would be to set a moderate fixed maintenance cost for manufacturing buildings; in addition, for every 1% increase in manufacturing that the manufacturing plant gives, there should be a 1% increase in Maintenance costs (reflecting the cost of production) and a 0.5% rise to Wealth creation. All manufacturing buildings ought to be much less powerful than they are now, however, producing 10%, 8%, 6%, 4%, and 2% improvement at each level (for a total of 10%, 18%, 24%, 28%, 30% rise to manufacturing for each building).
Wealth-building improvements, representing improved ability to market manufactured goods, will be needed in order to bridge the gap between manufacturing's revenues and its maintenance costs. By default, the population should produce zero Gross Income (which is merely an accounting system for how many goods have been bought or sold); Wealth buildings should provide this. As with manufacturing, Wealth buildings should produce a 10%, 8%, 6%, 4% and 2% increase in wealth produced at each level. Wealth-producing buildings should have a low fixed maintenance cost and a variable maintenance cost of 0.25% for every 1% of Wealth increase.
Research buildings ought to have a high fixed maintenance cost and no variable maintenance cost. As with other buildings, Research buildings should follow the 10%, 8%, 6%, 4%, 2% pattern in order to minimize excess production.
The Interstellar Governance techs ought to provide modest bonuses to Total Production of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% passively. The buildings they unlock should have high fixed maintenance costs on the planets on which they are located, but should negate the Large Empire Penalty financial cost by 1%, 1.5%, 1.75%, and 2% (yes, this is sqrt(1), sqrt(2), sqrt(3) and sqrt(4) approximately) for each building constructed. Upgraded colony capitals should be viable only on a few worlds.
In the end, this will bring back many of the advantages of the GCII economy for game balance (linear expansion rate, less ability to field gigantic fleets). The vast majority of a player's spending should be on colonies, not on fleets.
Really am enjoying this mod. Some feedback from a longish game (turn 440 now and counting) version 1.23.
I was able to easily fill out all the ideology trees at this point. I'm not sure this is a good thing, but I think you addressed it in 1.24? Further, some of the ideology trees overwrite one another. For instance if you get the pragmatic tree that gives you luxury trade routes, those are overwritten by the slave trade routes in the Malevolent tree.
Starbase upgrades are extremely tedious. It may be nice to lump upgrades together rather than a one module at a time endless constructor stream.
AI has built many fleets and sits just inside my borders, but doesn't really declare war. At least it wasn't like my first game where none of the AI's fought whatsoever, they are fighting, against each other. I'm not sure if its just my particular circumstance or not. In any case the fleets look impressive, and could probably do me considerable damage when / if they decide to attack.
Yor tech tree synthetic population cap doesn't seem to mean anything, as I can easily construct past the cap as long as I have morale to spare (which is exploding late in the tech tree) with 400+ pop worlds being the norm. No other AI can compete right now.
As a consequence my research is starting to hopelessly outclass the AI late in the game (turn 350+). Previously the AI was crushing me in this regard. Very few late game techs take more than a turn or two, and this is with research set to very slow. Not sure if I'd be able to replicate without the Yor tech population shenanigans.
I was able to fund much of my empire by selling the AI duterium (sp).
With the Yor tech tree I was finding it better to have manufacturing worlds produce science that worlds with science buildings. I shuffled population around to help the poor science focused worlds, but they still lag. With no real population cap the manufacturing worlds can 'produce' a lot of science. This is only my second game so I may be missing something on how this all works.
I was able to stay at peace for almost the entire game, once of the Minor races (made major) did declare ware on me early in game but didn't do anything. I'm going to start going to war now that I've teched up, and will report on how the AI handles it.
I'm new to the game, so may have made mistakes. Minor AI's were set 2 levels below the highest level, and the Major AI's were set 1 level below the highest.
This is actually genuinely tough. The normal AI is keeping pace with me in tech, number of planets, and general output with the 1.3 version. I'm tempted to release it for you guys to take a look at, even if 1.3 isn't live yet.
I might hold off and just tighten up the research paths a bit - make it actually focus on killer techs in the right lines more. But I'm very impressed; some combination of the improvements Brad has put in, combined with the governors specializing planets, has caused the AI to be much, much, much more effective.
That is encouraging! For what it's worth (i'm pretty new) I've been impressed thus far with 1.23. I played gal civ 2 for a time but gave it up because the AI was so bad.
Question: If i download and install a number of faction mods including AI shipstyles, will your AI use those shipstyles when building ships? Will these type of mods interfere with your mod and designs? Sorry if the answer is obvious, as I just started playing
I'm really pumped to give this a spin now that 1.3 is officially out. Got an ETA on the next IAB release? I've got a feeling I'll have to clear my schedule so I can play uninterrupted.
If it's ship styles, then it will use them. Blueprints will not work, however, as the sizes will be all messed up.
If 1.3 was released today (just got in from work) then about an hour?
IIRC, you're using a modified version of StarSystemDefs.xml in this game. Just a heads up that you'll have to add the Snathi homeworld system to it that is part of the 1.3 update. If you haven't already that is. Just copying over the Snathi homeworld system and leaving everything else untouched seems to work.
Caused me a bit of consternation trying to figure out what exactly was causing my CTDs on my home mods for a bit there.
Added, ty Though it seems that only causes problems if you have the DLC.
1.3.1 released:
1.3.1 notes:
* reconciled code changes in 1.3* Fixed and updated UIText.xml.* Imported Techspecializationdefs.xml from 1.2 (so as not to lose adjacency bonus techs).* Taught AI to specialize planets.* Just gonna put that one again - TAUGHT THE AI TO SPECIALIZE PLANETS.* AI a little more into factory worlds, a little less into research worlds.* Fixed pirates so that they're at war with everyone again (no idea how that got removed).* AI more eager for Planetary Improvement and the +0.1 growth tech.* Added Snathi system.
Presently the AI is underexpanding - it has an annoying tendency to make it's homeworld into a wealth planet. I'll be addressing that, and looking at it's research path, for 1.3.2. Regardless, it's still vastly more challenging than ever before, and for much longer than ever before, too. You can also get a pretty good look at Frogboy's combat AI improvement for 1.3 with it, as the AI can produce an awful lot of ships, most of which will be fairly well-matched for yours.
I'm presently struggling to keep up with the AI's fleet strength, probably because I over-concentrated on expansion (I have the second-highest number of planets) and have fallen way behind in terms of total numbers. I'm starting to get a clear tech lead now, though (turn 200ish), so my ships are generally better... but they're horribly outnumbered and the enemy is building faster than I can. I may actually have over-reached on research and now I'm being punished, big time.
Cheers, and thanks for the updated release so soon on the heels of the update! Will start a new game tonight hopefully, though I may mess around with trying to get user created faction ships used by the AI faction. Wish it were easier.
Out of curiosity, does the AI in the new version actually invade one another? In my last 500+ turn game the AI went to war with other AI's pretty regularly, but I rarely saw planets change hands.
On an entirely unrelated manner, I downloaded a number of factions from the workshop last night, fired up a game on a smaller map, to get a feel for things. I noticed right away that I could see the AI homeworld locations through the Fog of War (no details, just the location). I never noticed that before. Is that something normally in the game?
It does, yes. I've already had one AI invade one of my planets twice in the present game; to my South, the Gossamer (who are the most powerful faction I know about in the game atm) have just taken 3 planets from the Snathi and are likely to wipe them out in a matter of turns.
There's a trait which does this. It's also in vanilla.
Thanks for the update! Eta on 1.3.2 by chance?
Possibly this weekend. If not, then early next week.
Remind me again, every time I update the mod the only way I can have it take effect is by starting a new game yes? Or is there some way of updating a game in progress?
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