I've been doing some DLL modding lately and it’s opened up A LOT more possibilities for me to do with some ideas or obstacles I previously faced. I’ll eventually release that, along with a few initial mods for it from my long list of proposed ideas. The Barathor DLL mod itself will do nothing alone; it’ll introduce more XML tags for new items or hardcoded values, but things will function the same. When you combine it with any one of my mods with my little DLL symbol on the portrait (or other modders’ mods who utilize/modify the tags in it), which will be comprised mostly of simple XML, then the modifications will take place. This way, players can choose what they want to use and play with; similar to whoward’s project (hopefully, some of my ideas would be worthy of inclusion!).
There may be some ideas which can be done in Lua alone, instead of modding the DLL, but I’m currently not very knowledgeable on how to do that -- modifying the DLL at least seems very efficient.
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I’ll start by saying that I've never been a big fan of the implementation of Mercantile city-states. It’s a just a slight bit awkward. Early on, 2 happiness for being friends; fine. But, ally with that CS and “bam!”, you could be rewarded with a total of 10 happiness. Then, as eras pass, that 10 happiness scales to… 11.
Now, there are other things to factor and consider. There are only 2 types of Mercantile luxuries, so that tries to somewhat balance the massive happiness potential, or at least cap it. Also, not counting the special porcelain or jewelry luxuries, the normal luxury assigned to the city-state is likely to be shared between a lot of other CS too.
I believe these two special Mercantile luxuries were introduced to add a bit of flavor to things and represent the trade of goods more, since if Mercantile CS just rewarded happiness (which would be easier to balance) it would be a bit boring and the connection to commerce would be a little blurrier.
Also, another awkward aspect of their implementation: if the Mercantile luxury is already obtained, along with the normal luxury (which can at least be traded), then becoming an ally of a Mercantile CS over just being friends becomes much less appealing since they offer no other bonuses besides the normal things, like fighting wars with you and supplying strategic resources.
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So, here’s the general idea.
Some of the normal luxuries are no longer assigned to city-state distribution. Actually, a city-state never gets any type of normal luxury that civs and the terrain receive.
Instead, similar to Mercantile city-states, ALL city-states receive a special luxury type instead.
Also, each type of city-state will “draw from” a limited pool of flavorful luxuries (I’m initially thinking 3, though, it may need to be 2. I think 4 would be too high). So, there will be Religious luxuries, Cultural luxuries, etc. Not only is this for flavor, but it will better control diversity so it doesn't get too out of control. So, civs/players focusing on only one type of city-state will probably receive less happiness from others who diversify the types of CS they ally with.
Also, Mercantile city-states get there bonuses tweaked for better scaling.
EDIT: another alternative could be to frontload the bonus less and make it +1/+2/+3 and then another +1/+2/+3 for allies instead.
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Benefits:
Greater city-state luxury diversity. You no longer have to see the same 3 luxuries distributed to a majority of city-states (roughly, 75% of them -- diversity can be worse between that 75% if one of those three luxuries are a very inflexible, picky luxury during placements).
More flavor introduced to the game. Civs can enjoy more man-made things like beer, textiles, etc. or additional natural goods like honey, clams, etc.
Awkwardness of Mercantile bonuses improved a bit between Friends/Allies.
Balance improved with better Mercantile scaling. Instead of +2/+10, +3/+11, +3/+11 you can potentially get +2/+6, +3/+8, +4/+10 instead.
More available luxuries for regional/random placement, outside of city-states, for civs.
More luxury types to bring into the game, via special city-state types, which would be difficult to represent on terrain.
Difficulties trying to place normal luxuries on potentially harsh, coastal city-state terrain (causing the city-state to further share another city-state/random luxury that’s more flexible, or resort to getting the regional luxury -- bad for the civ in that region) are eliminated.
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Themes:
Militaristic: this one is a little tougher. I’m just keeping it simple and going with food and drink, so this and Maritime will pretty much supply food goods. (Or, perhaps they could have raw non-food items, and will have more wood/rock materials. Then, Religious gets the food/drink items that aren't seafood?)
Maritime: this one is simple… seafood! I’m pretty set on these.
Cultural: this one I’d like to focus on man-made creative things.
Religious: this one is a little tougher as well, but I’m think man-made and non-food or drink goods. Preferably things with a monastery flavor to them (even though all these CS aren't cities filled with monks and such!), so literature and somewhat scientific types of things that would be developed in cloistered work or study. Also, crafted goods can work here as well. Also, as said above, perhaps Beer, Honey, Cheese etc. work better here.
Mercantile: this one is simple as well… already have two of them! Basically, fine man-made valuable, delicate goods. Glass symbolizes Venetian glass, and Venice was pretty Mercantile.
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Luxuries:
Militaristic:
Beer
Honey
Cheese
Maritime:
Clams
Squid
Shrimp
Cultural:
Garments / Clothing
Paintings
Furniture
Religious:
Paper / Papyrus / Books / Manuscripts
Medicine / Opium
Textiles / Wool
Mercantile:
Porcelain
Jewelry
Glass
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Other random ideas:
Spirits / Liquor (too modern?)
Yogurt
Vinegar
Syrup
Cider
Coral
Eel
Octopus
Lobster
Lutes (as in Violins, Guitars, etc.)
Musical Instruments (very long)
Mirrors
Shoes
Hats
Perfume
Flax
Sculptures
Figurines
Tapestries
Ironworks
Tools
Tin
Lead
Obsidian
Timber
Latex / Rubber
I wrote this in some haste, I hope I explained things well and didn't forget anything!