ENDLESS™ Legend

ENDLESS™ Legend

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Harmonious Difficulties
   
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TYPE: Extension
Tags: UGC
File Size
Posted
Updated
216.198 KB
26 Jun, 2019 @ 10:25am
19 Dec, 2023 @ 5:47pm
7 Change Notes ( view )

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Harmonious Difficulties

Description
This is a difficulty mod designed for Improved AI and/or ELCP (community patch).

TL DR: Removes free approval with Hard diff. and upwards, no more doubling down with buyout discounts on already cheaper units due to industry cuts, better scaling with bonuses, more benefits (with less impact) to AI to compensate.

V1.2.4:

- Fixed spell costs not using the ELCP original values if ELCP is detected.

V1.2.3:

- Fixed population buyout formula not using the 10% discount if ELCP is detected.

On higher difficulties AI has an absurd Industry and buyout potential, as buyout costs are based on industry cost, with either Improved AI or ELCP where the AI is able to use the tools at their disposal much better, the difference against the player is abysmal, so AIs and humans play totally different games.

On a quick view:

- Proper scaling in every type of bonus the AI gets with each increasing difficulty.
- Less industry output: Endless in Harmonic Difficulties has about Impossible in Vanilla difficulties.
- No buyout bonuses: AI has an inherent buyout discount with the industry discount.
- Scaling bonuses on districts and city center: On vanilla every difficulty past normal provided +10 Approval on each district and city center, completely negating "tall" dispproval.
- Less gains from strategics, but some discount on strategics in unit designs.
- New Bonuses: Pearl collection bonus, Extra Luxury gains.
- Instead of the absurd buyout discount, gold discounts on many other gold sinks: Unit retrofit, Marketplace resources, units and heroes, Technology (Forgotten), Pillars (Ardent Mages), Population Buyout (Broken Lords) and Buildings Pearl cost (only Allayi).

Key effects to alleviate from the vanilla experience:

- With the original +10 approval on districts, any AI with a good region positioning can quickly expand and snowball into a runaway powerhouse AI. Much like with human players, I consider approval should be a "brake" for a too early too fast expansion plan. A good positioning still will become powerful, but with less snowball potential due to approval penalties compared those AIs that couldn't expand reliably so fast: AI will be able to eventually fix approval, but they will invest into empire plans/techs to do so.

- With the vanilla extraordinary building and buyout potential in the higher difficulties, AI Economy shift quickly into mostly buying out units and buildings constantly (as they are the best cost/effective decisions most of the time), instead of playing their faction strengths, defeating the original purpose of their economy evaluations, therefore turning down to low priority all their special economy tools, heroes, resources. Also, they build so fast their science/ growth/ expansion output just doesn't keep up with their building/unit spam, the result is that they quickly drain their resources thanks to that power, especially once they get a healthy economy going.
48 Comments
ninakoru  [author] 16 Sep, 2024 @ 6:14am 
shouldn't be any compatibility issues, but I'd recommend loading it last.
GE0 14 Sep, 2024 @ 7:45pm 
Question, should this be loaded after Improved AI.
Corrupted Slime 20 Dec, 2023 @ 1:13am 
Very well. Thank you for your hard work.
ninakoru  [author] 19 Dec, 2023 @ 5:51pm 
Oh, boy, your response seem like a robot ^^. But you're totally right. Thanks. Fixed and updated. I believe it should be all, but don't hesitate to reply if there's any other thing that is not properly adapted for ELCP.
Corrupted Slime 19 Dec, 2023 @ 9:11am 
Then explain why your mod reverts balance changes introduced in ELCP. For example, spell cost should be 25, but your mod reverts to 60 and 30.
ninakoru  [author] 19 Dec, 2023 @ 6:20am 
Well, just an oversight, in pillars I modified the formula to adjust the changes if ELCP is detected, just missed to do it on Population buyout.

Thanks for noticing, just fixed the mod and uploaded it. Let me know if there's any issue.
Corrupted Slime 19 Dec, 2023 @ 1:40am 
Then explain why your mod reverts balance changes introduced in ELCP. For example, population buyout cost should be at 90%, but your mod reverts to 100%.
ninakoru  [author] 19 Dec, 2023 @ 12:20am 
Yeah, totally compatible, I used it with ELCP.
Corrupted Slime 18 Dec, 2023 @ 11:08pm 
Is this mod really compatible with ELCP? Because it overwrites values changed by ELCP.
ninakoru  [author] 23 Nov, 2023 @ 6:23am 
Thanks for the compliment :)

It means: additive of 40% and 40% would be a 80% reduction, In ELCP 40% and 40% is applied one after another (multiplicative) so you get a 40% reduction on a 40% reduced item. Hope it makes sense. What I did in military revolution is to cap it at 75%. If you also use ELCP would be multiplicative too.