Greetings! I just released the first version of a very ambitious mod project. If you don't want to read everything and jump straight to the mod page, you can find it at https://humankind.mod.io/vanilla-improvement-project

So, what is this project? it is intended to overhaul most of the vanilla game by combining several other mods. It is intended to have a "vanilla" feel, so no extra content such as new cultures, new districts or new technologies will be added. I'll be updating this thread as the project releases new versions, so your suggestions and comments are very much welcome, either down here or as a commenter directly on the patchnotes file. 

For full patch notes, check https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ls0o3E2Z5ePMvEH52GtPjPfHh8GTxD4P1Kg-jv1U8Ws/edit?usp=sharing . 

Our future plans include:

V0.1 - Initial Release
V0.3 - Culture Rebalance (we are here)
V0.5 - Civics Rework
V0.7 - Techtree deepdive
V0.9 - Unit Retooling
V1.0 - Finishing touches and Full release

Ladies and Gentleman, here's the full scope of the Culture changes intended for v0.3 of the Vanilla Improvement Project. I've listed them all here to collect feedback before I implement them, so if you have a little time to spare could you take a look and tear it apart comment?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1et5n7c88C9bJEtKAJQY8_w-9ENOY3hVy5Ny6FnD1pzE/edit?usp=sharing

Hello, I found that in both your mod and SmileyDA one. Aksumite +5 money/tile (in his mod), and +4 money/tile in your.

After playtest, I think it's too much. But of course I playtest with BuyThis, so, it's a bit different.

About balance, this game is like a TCG (magic the gathering), some effects can snowball or react out of control.

Here, any bonus on large scale. 

Flat bonus on a district < synergy bonus on a district < large scale bonus.

The flat simple bonus is easy to set. Any other become difficult to balance.

In my next BuyThis release, I will have to nerf also the Tenet giving +5 money/tile. I don't know how many, +3 ,+2 or even just +1. Science one too.

There is probably lot of insane bonus like that in the game. The Tenet giving +2 food on water. Already a lot so strong.

We can see how just a +1 is so powerfull. Take Egyptian, just +1 industry on tile. Harrapean +1 on food (+river one!).

More manageable bonus: Tenet +5 money on resource luxury. This one is better balanced, because there is less targets.

I can see more now how this make problems in the game, because I have to balance my DeepSea mod.

And each time, I have to think twice: this feature, is the unbalance come from my mod or from something else ?

At start of the game, I check for example my "Fishing village", and it's quite well balanced. 

It's only when some large scale bonus come in action that it become unfair. So in this example, the problem don't come from my mod.

I just need to nerf part of the game that really unbalance. 

EDIT: 

I'm in late game and anyway, there is so many global bonus everywhere than the game can only snowball. So my comment is maybe useless. 

There is too much content for being agree with everything.

I note some very good ideas, here with this:

Factory Farming: +2 Farmer slots -> +8 Food per Farmer, -50% Farmer Slots 

It change a lot the gameplay, not very "vanilla feel", and could disapoint some players. I find that great.

But here:

Apothecary and Hospital: + Stability per Researcher -> + Stability per Trader 

I don't see what Traders come in this. Par researcher is the thematic of this. At least for Hospital. And if it's a problem to get X2 the same thing, Farmers would be more thematics for Apothecary.

Here, I'm neutral:

Public Fountain/Aqueduct/Sewage System: +15/+20/+25 Stability -> +10%/+15%/+20% growth gain, -5%/-10%/-15% growth loss 

It's a good idea, and I would definitely see that in game for a new content. But it's also a too big change for Vanilla feeling.
The choice to report stability bonus on military stuff (walls) look logical.

To help a bit: I posted some AI tests. Might interest you because I found the way AI don't spam the Commons quarter.

As your idea to give a base stability bonus is still good, I used that.

I added what I was dreaming (but had a lot of difficulties to do), another synergy that only apply on NON farmer/maker/market/research districts.

It make sure:

- AI need a economic district for building Commons. AI never build 7 commons with a common in the center. And AI build far less Commons.

- When AI build Commons next to the wrong district, it still get the alternative Synergy.

- As player, I also like to get the alternative synergy. This district was so boring that I never used it after weeks of gameplay, always using Garrison instead.

This alternative synergy is a bit tricky because the UI don't wan't to show this. The reason is it use more than one Validation parameter. So, it need to make it twice the thing. One only for UI (using a new tag that no district have). Then set a mapper for this new tag, so the UI show it.

It seems this mod breaks civics for me, though it didn't before, so my guess is something in your latest update(from 12/13) broke civics, or one of the two past small updates to the game itself(12/13, and 12/15) made your mod incompatible now. By "broke it", I mean the first civic never can get discovered anymore. I went into 1000 influence and a few dozen turns with a few cities without any civic ever being unlocked, though I'm uncertain for sure what unlocks them, I suspect it's reaching a certain amount of influence while being past neolithic. Besides, under those conditions I mentioned, in regular vanilla the first civic would have happened long before I got to this point. 

And this is from me testing VIP with no other mods enabled. Though, when I did have other mods, the first civic did trigger but the images of civics on the screen were gone and after the first choice, no others could be chosen(as there was nothing to click on). This led me to investigate which mod was doing it, and it appears to be this one since the above happened with VIP only enabled. 

Great mod btw! I do hope you can get it to work with vanilla again soon though :) it would be a shame if it can't. 

Yeah, I am aware of the game being finicky like that for mods lol. I did try that, possibly again, in case I forgot the first time. The issue seems to still persist unless I am mistaken on what triggers the first civic to appear.

For sharing the file, I would just copy and paste my local directory, as it appears in a web browser, to it then right?

Eudaimania wrote:

Hey! I've enjoyed the majority of the changes when I was testing the mod with a discord group. However, when I picked the Mongols I lost 2 movement points instead of gaining them. Could you look into that?

Strange... the file clearly says "add 2 land movement". I'll change the descriptor target and publish a hotfix.

EDIT: Pushed a hotfix to try to ensure the Mongol LT is working properly. Also changed the naval CS bugfix to a better version so both Norse LT and Lighthouse of Alexandria should properly buff transports without touching disembarked land units.