Community Balance Patch Download

The complete mod set includes the Community Patch, Community Balance Patch, Events and Decisions, Piety and Prestige, Exploration Continued Expanded, City-State Diplomacy, Civ IV Diplomacy features, CBP Enhanced User Interface, and a couple of compatibility patches to make it all work. Help me reach 250 subscribers! Like this video and SUBSCRIBE! Hello viewer! Here's a quick and easy fix for that 'Mod is missing required. StarCraft II is a real-time strategy game from Blizzard Entertainment for the PC and Mac. Overwatch League. Overwatch World Cup. Hearthstone Championship Tour. Grandmaster Leaderboards Forums Reddit Team Liquid. Esports Login. Play Free Now.

Posted by
Hip Hip, Hussar!
4 years ago

hello /r/civ! how are you today? I typed this reply to the question by /u/saxyphone241 about the Community Balance Patch. This review is based on the recommended Community mods, centered around the CBP. Hopefully someone finds this review useful.

DISCLAIMER

I will note that some of this may not be 100% CBP as I am using all of the 'Recommended' mods from the CBP page, as well as Piety and Prestige (Prestige coming Soontm ) and Exploration Continued Expanded, which was posted to /r/Civ a week or so ago and is the reason I found out about the CBP. I am pretty much certain that the Happiness and Tech Tree overhauls are 100% CBP, as are the social policy adaptations, but there may be tiny tweaks or such within. Consider this a formal recommendation to try the complete mod set. I also use R.E.D. but that is a purely aesthetic mod with minimal impact on gameplay. The complete mod set includes the Community Patch, Community Balance Patch, Events and Decisions, Piety and Prestige, Exploration Continued Expanded, City-State Diplomacy, Civ IV Diplomacy features, CBP Enhanced User Interface, and a couple of compatibility patches to make it all work.

Happiness is more like Civ IV, being mostly local rather than global: rather than buildings that grant happiness, the city forms complaints and you build other buildings (most of which you would build anyway) that combat these problems. If the citizens are unhappy because they're illiterate, you build a library, university, public school, etc. If they're bored, you build culture buildings, like the monument or Colosseum. If they feel unsafe, you build walls. I've found it to be a lot kinder on wide play than normal Civ V, since founding a city doesn't grant unhappiness that you have to combat just to be allowed to settle again. Luxuries grant +1 happiness for having a source, and if you control 50% or more of all copies of that resource on the map, you get a monopoly bonus, which grants extra benefits, such as +3 happiness (most common, on things like furs and such) or others, like +2 culture from every resource tile (I think this was Jade, from the More Luxuries mod, which is 100% compatible with CBP).

Research is slower and less snowball-ey with writing being pushed back a tech and many techs requiring three or even four prereqs. This leads to a longer, closer game tech-wise, with civs being less likely to gain era-wide leads unless they are truly dominating the game. I personally like it, but I can understand why others might not. Also, the greater variety of units is very nice, and allows a greater customisibility of armies. Every nation now has access to mounted archer units. Also the upgrade paths have been unified, so the path is now warrior > spearman > Pikemen > musketmen > Fusiliers (new gunpowder unit) > Riflemen > so on and so forth, meaning your core melee units never become obsolete, as was the case with the pikemen > Lancer > helicopter path that punished players for not having abundant iron.

Religion is more interesting, with the shrine having been moved to agriculture it is much easier to get a religion in higher difficulty games (since the AI doesn't have a 7-turn faith lead on you). With Piety and Prestige(Many of the belief changes are actually from the CBP, Piety adds additional building beliefs, but the rest of the changes are CBP, sorry for misattributing. If you're using the entire set of mod, this information has been correct all along, I just mislabeled it) The religion system is completely overhauled, but I'll do my best to cover it. Pantheon beliefs are pretty much the same, but the other four belief types are not. Founder beliefs now unlock a national wonder, which unlocks when a certain percentage of the world's population are following your religion. Most of these grant +4 faith and another bonus, all of which are pretty solid choices. Follower Beliefs are now mostly faith buildings, though some flat bonuses exist (+1 culture per follower, up to 5, and +1% production, up to 10 are both in that I know for certain) and these buildings offer a massive amount of affordable customization for your cities, and have no requirements other than that they follow the correct religion. These buildings also boost the religious pressure your cities emit, making spreading religion through passive means easier. Enhancer beliefs I will need to check and edit this later... :P. The Reformation beliefs (acquirable through the Piety policy tree or by building a world wonder) are still similar, and can be quite powerful if utilized correctly. Additionally Piety ~~and Prestige adds a new mechanic called STATE RELIGION, where you pick a religion (if you found one it is automatically chosen) and get additional bonuses for following that religion. Your cities will spread your state religion to each other much more effectively, meaning multiple nations with religions can exist side-by-side and still maintain their own faiths. You also have a resource called Piety, which determines how strong your benefits (or penalties!) are. I should probably note, before moving on, that Piety and Prestige depends on Events and Decisions for a number of features.

Combat is much improved in Single Player games, mostly due to the fact that the AI is no longer the imbecilic potato battery from vanilla Civ V. AI ranged units can move and then shoot, and their naval prowess is significantly better (but still not as good as I was, in most cases. However I did lose a lot more ships than I would have in normal Civ). The abundance of new units makes for a lot of options and variety when fielding an army, with ranged mounted units now being available throughout the tech tree, additional units of nearly every category, and ranged units no longer being the end-all stopping force on the battle field. Pre-volley gun (precursor to the Gatling gun) ranged units are weak in melee, with comp bows no longer being contemporary melee defenders to spearmen, and cavalry units were buffed significantly. As I mentioned above, the upgrade paths were also greatly improved, meaning that most units no longer upgrade to useless lancers (also lancers are no longer useless... :P). Promotions have been streamlined, being more akin to Civ BE promotions in the early levels, rather than having to choose between rough or open terrain, you now have a line that simply improves their combat strength, but at later levels (around 3 and 4) the options become much more varied. Also, insta-heal was removed, units heal 10 hp when promoted. I will also note that the medic promotion was fixed and now affects the unit that has it. A final change that I greatly appreciate is that melee and gunpowder units that are stationed in a fort, citadel, or city, will no longer leave their fortification upon killing an enemy unit, making it much easier to defend against a superior force with decent defenses, and also making forts somewhat useful.

Balance

Exploration Expanded Continued (Ongoing, Growing, and Expanding further etc etc etc) This part of the mod adds something where there was nothing before. I could just link to the forum page but at this point I've already written a book on these mods, so I'll keep going. At its core, Exploration Expanded added an upgrade line to Scouts, turning them into explorers, adventurers (or something like that) and even airships. Exploration Expanded Continued added much, much more. Exploration units now gain experience from mapping unseen tiles for the first time, and for discovering Natural Wonders. After five level-ups (easily done with a lucky ruin or two) they become a Great Scout (or explorer or ninja or whatever the unit happens to be.) Great Scouts and their upgrades gain the Native Tongue promotion, allowing them to choose their benefit upon entering a ruin, like the Shoshone Pathfinder, and they can settle cities on foreign continents (any land mass not connected to your capital) like the Spanish Conquistador. However, there is more added than just exploring buffs. There are now tile features known as Tribes. Tribes proved unique tile yields when worked, and if they are in your borders you can build a Consulate for that tribe (in any city you own, not just the city that has the tribe). Each consulate grants unique buffs to the city that builds it, and many grant unique units. The Huron Consulate will grant +1 production on every forest tile your city can work, while the Tlaxcala Consulate grants access to the Jaguar unit, and any units trained in that city will gain faith from unit kills. As a final kicker, EEC also reworks the Exploration Policy Tree and renames it Imperialism. It now grants several unique bonuses to make your nation strong, including the incredibly broken ability to have Cities buy and work an additional ring of tiles. yes, cities now have a working radius of 4, if you make it to the bottom of this tree. EDIT: ExEC also includes an attrition system, which is what causes barbarians to take damage when in your lands. Apparently this can also affect the player's units, but I haven't done a pre-artillery invasion, so I didn't notice the mechanic.

Balance

Social Policies and Ideologies CBP modifies almost every social policy in the game. Piety is now a Classical era tree, meaning you start the game with Tradition; which makes for some very beefy cities and an incredible capital, with free buildings, many of which have specialist slots, in the capital, Liberty; which is still geared towards building a wide empire quickly, or Honor; which is now an actual option if you have something to kill. Ideologies are no longer unlocked by rolling a start with coal, rather, they are unlocked by either completing four social policy trees by the Industrial Era, or by reaching the Modern Era. As I have yet to actually get into an ideology (I lost my first game, tried playing on Emperor without knowing the mod, just getting through Industrial in my second) I don't have much to offer here, but I am sure there are some great changes and surprises awaiting me.

Diplomacy and the World CongressCity-State Diplomacy makes the diplo game much less of a financial struggle, and more about actually interacting with city-states. Rather than spending your hard-stolen cash on allying city states, you build and send diplomatic units to them, such as Emissaries or Dignitaries, which will be expended for an amount of influence. this also makes city-state quests more important. As you build the buildings and wonders associated with diplomacy, your diplomats become more and more effective. Also, the AI is completely capable of using the new units, and does so competitively. The World Congress is redone in a few ways, with proposals being more interactive, such as proposing trade sanctions, enacting open-door policy with a single city-state (which sets all player's relations with them to 40), demanding a sphere of influence over a city-state (granting the proposer 150 influence over said city-state), issuing a Casus Belli to grant a buff to warmongering (reducing unit maintenance and lowering warmonger penalties) or Peace Accords to punish warmongers, or beginning one of several new World Projects, such as the Treasure Fleet, which can grant a huge boost to naval powers, and grants every second-placer a free frigate, whether they can build one or not. Additionally, things that grant you additional votes in the Congress scale with number of city-states (one unit for every 8 city-states, meaning the Forbidden Palace (+2 votes) grants 4 votes with only 16 city-states on a map.).

Spies and Quality of Life changes Spies have had a few additional features added. As they work in a city, they will perform extra actions, such as looting the treasury, stealing a few points of science, assassinations which slow great person rates, or sabotage of construction projects. Units that are stationed in a defensive position (Fort, Citadel, or City) will no longer advance into the targeted tile if they kill a unit with a melee attack, making holding defensive positions much easier. units that are not in such positions will still advance as normal. All Great Persons have their own Points counters so you no longer have to avoid getting Great Engineers so that you can get Scientists. Great Prophets now spawn as soon as the criteria are met rather than having a chance of spawning as soon as someone else found a religion and takes the beliefs you wanted. There are no useless unit upgrades Pikemen become Musketmen instead of lancers, Gatling guns and their predecessor the Volley gun now have a range of 2 and a bonus when defending, and you no longer have to have iron to upgrade your starting warrior, as the main line of units now progress through spearmen and pikemen to become gunpowder units.

Things that might be Considered bad Barbarians now steal stuff from cities when they end their turn adjacent to them, but take damage from doing so; this will cause you to lose science, gold, culture, or production in ways that don't always make sense, such as a newly-founded city being raided and losing 150 culture in priceless treasures... Cities are now much weaker at defending themselves, but when protected by an army are very strong. The game starts with your city having a weak bombard with a range of one, expanding with an early tech I haven't paid attention to, and after reaching dynamite and getting artillery their range expands to three, making them quite useful at defending against enemy artillery and battleships, though the bombard is still weaker than contemporary units. Many resources, including bonus and luxury resources, require technologies to reveal. Your starting city may have 5 cattle in range, but you won't know until you research animal husbandry, and some luxuries aren't revealed until late, such as rubber appearing at industrialization. It can make choosing early city-spots and deciding about moving your capital much harder.

If you've made it this far, thank you! It took quite a while to write so I'm sure it was a bit of a trek to read. I tried to use the various formatting tools to make it easier on the eyes, but if you have any advice on how to better format it I'm open to suggestions. If you like what you've seen here give the mods in question a try at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=528034.

Other mods linked: Exploration Expanded Continued

More Luxuries (Not covered in detail but a great mod, and works well with this combination).

EDITS: fixing a few pieces of misinformation, thanks to JFD for pointing them out to me.

Huge shoutout to JFD for ExEC and Piety, Sukritact for Events and Decisions, Barathor for More Luxuries, and the entireCommunity Patch Project Teamfor making these amazing mods! Keep up the amazing work everyone! I can't speak for the rest of the community, but I really, really appreciate the time, effort, and love, you've poured into these mods and expansions, thanks for making a really good game into an amazing one!

Civilization V Community Balance Patch Download

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