Design Thread - For Discussion and Review

Thank you. I bumped into the whole ancient Sicily thing while I was reading about Alex, so I figured I could throw some more of my thoughts here.

More deisenssssssss

Kingdom of Armenia(Artaxias I)
UA: Rebellion of the Loyalists
Highlands grant Nakharar points during unit construction and may spawn a resource required for unit creation when claimed. Cities expand into hills at double speed and may expand into tiles owned by their previous owner or by your current allies.

UU: Nakharar
Replaces great general. Possess and grants the Altitude training I and II promotion to adjacent units, in addition to eliminating the penalties of friendly mounted units within his range. May enter foreign territory without open borders and claims the tile its stationed on.

UU: Ayrudzi
Replaces horseman. Has a chance of spawning additional, free copy when produced. Though they gain extra strength the closer they are to the capital, the Ayrudzi excel at attacking, gaining additional promotions* the further they are from your border.

*(1 tile away)Horsemanship: may enter foreign territory without open borders, and claims the tile their stationed on.
(8 tiles away)Involvement: gain culture from kills equal to 100% of defeated unit's strength. Ignore enemy ZOC.
(15 tiles away)Horde: gain culture equal to 50% of defeated unit's strength, +5% strength per each adjacent unit.
(26 tiles away)Earthshaker: gain culture equal to 150% of defeated unit's strength. may heal every turn.
(40 tiles away)Apocalhorse: ignores terrain costs. Deals damage to adjacent enemies, and may force enemies to retreat.
(80 tiles away)Knightmare: Deals damage to adjacent enemies. Rather than being killed, gains the HP of the least damaged unit in sight.

Spammmmm

Sassanid Empire(Khosrau I)
UA: Immortal Soul
Luxuries grant golden age points upon improving and contribute production towards gold buildings in the nearest city each turn after being improved. 10% of a city's gold output is added to your culture and you gain Deghan specialist slot in cities per each social policy tree finished.

UU: Asvārān
Replaces great general, but is not produced through combat and does not retain its abilities. Instead, the Asvārān is cheaper per each specialist slot in your empire, and you gain progress towards it by growing your cities and acquiring new tiles. Counts as a mounted unit with no penalties, has a strength equal to the strongest mounted unit available and may perform a range attack before engaging in melee combat. Provides a 5% bonus to adjacent mounted units(stacks).

UB: Rug maker
Unlike the artists guild, the rug maker does not contribute points towards great artists and may be built in every city. Contains a rug maker specialist, which yields +2 culture and +1 Rug point. +2 gold and +1 Rug point per each source of silk or cotton worked by the city.



Is that too complicated?

That's a really busy UA. It took me like 3 times to understand what the hell was going on. I think I'm still staying with DJSHenniger's Sassanid's anyways, oh, those free buildings...

okay, what if...

Sassanid Empire
UA: Immortality
Luxuries grant food upon improving and increase the yields of specialists in the city working them by 1. Finishing a social policy tree grants unique specialist slot in cities and increases happiness from luxuries by 1.

UB: Rug maker
Replaces the artist's guild, but may be built in all cities. Has only 1 specialist slot. However, grants +1 gold, culture and great artist point from each source of silk and cotton. No maintenance costs.

A concept I was toying around with:

The United States of America​

Leader: JFK

UA: Land of the Free: Whenever a new Citizien is born, gain Golden Age points. During Golden Ages, gain +200 Tourism whenever a Great Person is born.

UB: Immigration Office: Constabulary Replacement. +5% Food in this City for every Trade Route arriving in this City. Gain Golden Age points from Specialists working in this City.

UU: Green Beret: replaces Marine. When garrisoned in a City, the city gains +5% Great Person Generation for each promotion the Green Beret has.

Click to expand...

Stopppp generic components

(Its nice design gameplay wise, though)

Natan35 said:

Stopppp generic components

(Its nice design gameplay wise, though)

Click to expand...

What do you mean, generic components? There aren't many names I can draw from to make a good USA design, you know.

Generic effects... Special forces unit has nothing to do with great people.

(But then again, no one else cares, so...)

Natan35 said:

Generic effects... Special forces unit has nothing to do with great people.

(But then again, no one else cares, so...)

Click to expand...

I actually agree with natan here.

I was really trying to find something that ties in with the design, and I was thinking of something that involved America's love for their war veterans and wouldn't possibly be OP.

In a state of perpetual thinking:

Most Serene Republic of Venice

Leonardo Loredan

From Our Solemn Lagoon
Upon entering the Renaissance Era the yields of all worked Coastal and Ocean Tiles are converted into Culture and Tourism. Receive Golden Age Points upon discovering Naval Technologies*

Galliot
Much more expensive the Galliot may ignore Enemy ZOC and receives and starts off with Bombardment I and II unlike the Galleass it replaces.

Merchant of Venice
May not build Custom Houses but instead may build a 'Podesta' which may claim all surrounding area within a 1-Tile radius and is capable of housing basic Buildings and may pay a small amount of Gold to upgrade to a City. Upon being expended it may grant a free Trade Route

Click to expand...

This is my Venice, the only thing I'm really hesitant on is the Merchant of Venice, its supposed to represent Venetian Colonies but it didn't come out the way I imagined.

Something I've been wanting to put together for a while now, but only now consider myself able to do...

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Dahomey (Agaja)
Start Bias: Plains
Capital: Abomey
UA: Xwetanu
Capturing an enemy Capital and advancing to a new Era trigger a We Love The King Day in the Capital. Certain Military Technologies¹ grant a +25% Combat Bonus for 25 turns after they are researched and make Upgrading Military Units 5% cheaper.
UU: Mino (replaces Longswordsman)
The Mino is rather different to the Longswordsman it replaces, having a +33% Combat Bonus against Gun Units and the ability to generate Science per kill. Additionally, it is a Gun Unit itself, and starts with both Mobility and the unique promotion "Dahomey Amazons", which allows it to generate a flat amount of Science when Pillaging a tile with a Resource. However, it is also worth noting it suffers a -33% Combat Penalty against Mounted Units. Upgrades to Musketman.
UB: Akuehue (replaces Barracks)
Not only does the Akuehue not cost any Maintenance, unlike the Barracks it replaces, it actually generates +2 Gold per turn for each Science building in the City in which it is built if there is a Military Unit garrisoned there. Generates an amount of Science upon the construction of a Military Unit equal to twice said unit's Combat Strength.

[1]The list of technologies is as follows:-
Iron Working
Steel
Gunpowder
Chemistry
Metallurgy
Rifling
Military Science
Replaceable Parts
Plastics
Combined Arms
Mobile Tactics

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Okay, so here's my reasoning. Agaja was probably the most dedicated army reformer there's ever been, and Dahomey's entire development path, whether military, economic, social, or cultural, was predicated on the trade of Western arms in exchange for goods and slaves. The Dahomeyan military machine was Western-armed and well drilled, and it had to be; before long, its economic structure was entirely dependent on raiding its neighbours for slaves. And frankly? It had to be. Its neighbour and eternal rival was Oyo, and the vast cavalry army Oyo fielded was a terrifying prospect in open country like that of Dahomey's home territory. With flintlocks and cutlasses, they stood a chance. I wanted to follow that line of thinking, that emphasis on making technology work for the army. I wanted the player to want a large army to get pressure on your neighbours, hence why your Barracks replacement generates money if you've got a garrison (and you should have one, it pays for your army in no time). I wanted to emphasise timing your wars and attacks of opportunity in the way that the entire Dahomeyan social order was centred around. And we knew it couldn't last in the end, the Westerners wouldn't allow it... but in this timeline? With your own Dahomey?

It'll be too late for them to do anything about it.

Please leave your thoughts. =]

gee wiz, is it just me or is that civ really overpowered? 25% bonus for 25 turns is nuts, if you never overlap thats 275 potential turns of 25% extra strength, plus cheaper upgrades plus loads of science which is always a tad overpowered however its handled. Also the 5% cheaper upgrades seems like a negligible difference compared to the rest, is it a typo?

I mostly find it strange that they get an early gun unit, why doesn't it simply replace the Musketman. The Garrison requirement also feels like overkill, I think the building would had been good enough without that strange rider.

Aside from that, nice. Science Civilizations are always a tad tricky to do, but the actual science producing is only linked to a single unit, so it should be manageable.

I actually think the We Love the King Day on the UA is overkill as well, I'd focus more on the mini-Clausewitz & the cheaper promotions. Give them a flat cheaper promotions bonus or maybe earn science when promoting units.

These are valid concerns, but the upgrades are cumulative. I thought that balanced it, but maybe not. Also, the mini-Clausewitz was designed to be powerful, but I should probably lower it considerably. How's 10 turns sound?

The Akuehue(huehuehue), well, it's not really a barracks replacement; it was a room in the palace known as the cowrie house, in which the kings of Dahomey kept all the cowrie shells used to pay their standing army. It seemed like a gold-generating Barracks replacement would be the perfect thing to have. I guess that it is a bit of a weird restriction to have, though, so I'll excise it. =]

I had a concept for a UA that I wanted to get some feedback on before I attempt to ask for help coding it and then realize that there's something wrong with it and then further inconvenience other people. It's a little convoluted so I'll have to explain it.

So basically, when one of your units pillages a tile (or starts on a pillaged tile since I don't believe there's a Lua event for pillaging) and there's a resource on that tile, the unit stores the resource. A unit can only have one resource stored at a time and the resource from a tile can only tile stolen once. When that unit is then within working range of one of your non-resistance cities, it can plant the resource it stole.

So a few questions:

1. How does it sound?

2. I was considering making it that once you steal or plant, the original tile you stole from loses its copy of the resource. I was considering this because it would be abuse-able if you could steal all the tiles from a city you're going to take and then have 2 sets of its resources basically. But then I also considered the fact that in this new case you could just steal all the resources from somebody's cities and leave them with nothing. What do you think of this potential mechanic? Should it just not exist or should there be some kind of restrictions on it?

3. Is it too complicated and you would prefer a simpler stealing resources by pillaging mechanic? Like just temporary having the happiness and/or yields?

Well, I think LastSword's Mapuche take on this idea was the easies, most simple solution to this dilemma.

I do think this is abusable, so I'd tread very carefully with it, making it work just with a very specific subset of resources or something. Sorta reminds me of a Puelche civilization design I had done a good while ago.

1. Cool.
3. No. Its perfect and much more interesting.

So I wanted to create more mechanics, watched a documentary a got this:

State of Israel(Yitzhak Rabin)
UA: Israel Mehac'a Le'Rabin
Ending a war initiates a waiting period* and grants you golden age points equal to your war score per each turn the war lasted. Declaring war grants your units a combat bonus equal to the happiness you had at the turn's start.

UU: Saieret
Replaces paratrooper. Besides being stronger(70 ) and more expansive, this unit also has the "Antebe" promotion, granting it a chance of killing enemy civilian units within its vision range upon paradropping. When stationed in a city, grants happiness per each level it has.

UB: Pais
Replaces Stock exchange, while retaining only the merchant specialist slots. Converts 5% of the city's gold output into culture, science and golden age points per each worked specialist slot in the city.

*waiting period: unhappiness and unit production are reduced by 33% for a period of time equal to the war's length. The unhappiness reduction is increased with each time you enter such a period, and the unit production penalty is reduced per each golden age you had. The reduction becomes less significant during the period. A waiting period is over if a war is declared on you