Leaders

What I'm considering with the Ottomans is the Sipahi is a rather weak UU, so I figure the leader deserves a strong trait.

I'll change the artist bonus to +1 once I finish making culture a yield. +1 is nice in the short term but somewhat out of place.

I just finished a second game as Arabia (v7.0b4) and won a diplo victory in 210 turns. This smashed my old record set in my other Arabia game. Both games were cakewalks where I was unusually far ahead in science, and paid very little attention to happiness. This raises some question about whether Arabia is now OP for this victory (although not otherwise, since they don't have a strong UU or traditionally hammer-heavy locations). In both games I had a multi-lux start for the Mecca, and was able to REX to 4 and 5 cities, so obviously this was a major factor. But if I were to nerf Arabia, it would be with regard to happiness. The double luxuries already give them a big leg up there.

I'm raising this as a question, rather than a suggestion.

It's a good question to ask. Does this make him more powerful than first-tier leaders like Ram and Darius? Something to keep in mind is Haruun got a nerf when Firaxis reduced the gold leaders are willing to trade for luxuries. It's now 240, when it used to be in the 400+ range. Haruun also lost his previous effect of +1 per 8 pop in each city, and he starts near Deserts, which have no base yield.

I'm starting to think I should move the effect to the Protectionism policy in the Commerce tree (as Seek requested) and replace it with something new for Arabia. I'm not sure yet, though, going to think about it for a while.

Thalassicus said:

It's a good question to ask. Does this make him more powerful than first-tier leaders like Ram and Darius? Something to keep in mind is Haruun got a nerf when Firaxis reduced the gold leaders are willing to trade for luxuries. It's now 240, when it used to be in the 400+ range. Haruun also lost his previous effect of +1 per 8 pop in each city, and he starts near Deserts, which have no base yield.

I'm starting to think I should move the effect to the Protectionism policy in the Commerce tree (as Seek requested) and replace it with something new for Arabia. I'm not sure yet, though, going to think about it for a while.

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Again, I think Arabia is OP for a diplo victory, but otherwise definitely not as good as the first-tier leaders. Therefore I wouldn't rush to switch them out. But I also liked Seek's idea. The target should probably be gold-related, as was their original SA and UB. Also keep in mind that they weren't bad before - just a bit boring (if not for me). Their desert movement and combat buffs have made them a lot more fun, as we've both learned.

We could even just modify the existing trait and have the effect in two places with slight differences. Any attribute a building can have, this trait can have, since it just gives copies of the building. Harun could get +2 per luxury for example, something I tried out when testing the trait.

Thalassicus said:

We could even just modify the existing trait and have the effect in two places with slight differences. Any attribute a building can have, this trait can have, since it just gives copies of the building. Harun could get +2 per luxury for example, something I tried out when testing the trait.

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I think that's the more organic direction.

Thalassicus said:

We could even just modify the existing trait and have the effect in two places with slight differences. Any attribute a building can have, this trait can have, since it just gives copies of the building. Harun could get +2 per luxury for example, something I tried out when testing the trait.

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But, switching the happiness bonus with the extra gold would only make them even more focused on gold. As txurce mentioned, they may be already abit too focused on gold. With the extra happiness they can atleast get bigger and compete with other nations in other ways than just being the wealthiest.
As they are now i was actually able to also get a strong production and science. Im not saying that you should keep the current happines bonus, but rather that you shouldnt make them too focused on gold. IMO


Ottomans
Ive tried the ottomans a couple of games and here are my thoughts.
They are very fun, adding/removing specialists throughout the whole game. Took alot of micromanaging to make it more efficient which i think is a good thing. The new landed elite works perfectly with specialist play.
One thing i noticed, however, is that it was abit too hard to grow while adding specialists untill i got the freedom branch. Untill then i always had several empty specialist slots. I farmed EVERYWHERE and it still was hard to grow.

Here is some food for thought, what if the ottoman bonus would instead make it easier to grow while running a specialist economy? I actually liked that artists gave extra food instead of culture
I have very little experience of specialist-play in civ5 so maybe i was using the wrong strategy? What is your strategy when playing the ottomans?

dzx

I think it's good if we're not able to fill out all specialist slots for much of the game. We have a decision about what to emphasize, instead of just filling everything and forgetting about it.

I honestly haven't played the Ottomans yet with their new trait. I've playtested Germany, Mongolia, England, and now Arabia. I saw the specialist-yield thing in the XML files though and thought hey, that'd be cool for the Ottomans! So I gave it to them.

I agree. I will try a game where i skip the liberty branch and try to go for freedom asap.

Just a thought, what do you think of removing Sipahi and giving them the UB "hammam" like they had in civ4. Replacing the aqueduct, maybe abit cheaper and boosts the growth in some additional way (dont got any suggestion right now). That would imo definitely make them alot more fun to play. Right now they seem pretty slow early and got no UU to defend with.

Ideally I'd like to make lancers actually desirable and a core part of gameplay of that era... then the Ottomans would have such a huge renaissance-era boost I think it'd make up for their weak start. Freedom, Janissaries, and a (useful) Sipahi... that's a lot of stuff! I've already buffed lancers a lot:

• +25% attack strength
• Reduced cost
• Access to promotions helpful for flanking (such as Survivalism to get +100% defense)

I think most people are so used to them being useless, people don't even notice or try them out.

I've been considering it a while, and I've decided to make a page about "important things to notice" when trying out the mod. Big changes I've made that might go overlooked, like the capture bonuses for citystates. It's easy to not know what's actually in the mod since it's so huge and has dozens of pages of changes on the website.

Thalassicus said:

I've been considering it a while, and I've decided to make a page about "important things to notice" when trying out the mod. Big changes I've made that might go overlooked, like the capture bonuses for citystates. It's easy to not know what's actually in the mod since it's so huge and has dozens of pages of changes on the website.

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That's a great idea! I've been playing with your mod pretty much since your first releases and I've completely lost track of what is in/out/experimental at this point.

Thalassicus said:

I've been considering it a while, and I've decided to make a page about "important things to notice" when trying out the mod. Big changes I've made that might go overlooked, like the capture bonuses for citystates. It's easy to not know what's actually in the mod since it's so huge and has dozens of pages of changes on the website.

Click to expand...

This is an excellent idea. One of the things I'm looking forward to with my next German game is getting culture out of a garrison instead of a monument (well, maybe both). This would never have occurred to me if you hadn't pointed it out, even though it's a no-brainer with captured barbs (assuming I can capture them!).

With regard to the Arabs, focusing them on gold is what makes them distinctive. I don't see what happiness has to do with classical Arabia, but I would rather have to buy it (or not) with extra gold than have it handed to me from the start, so that I just about ignore even colosseums.

With regard to the Ottomans, I had slow growth early, mostly due to my first two cities starting on a peninsula two tiles wide with no fish, and barbs overrunning the bigger territory to the north (it's been a blast). But with the use of Maritimes (one right off, eventually 2 or 3), I have kept all my slots filled in all my cities, which are now sizes 22, 17, 14 and 13 on turn 240.

I like the increased specialist yields. I'm not sure it's more fun than more GP, but as iWant noted, it provides more of an opportunity to micro-manage. The counter-argument... and you may want to give this some thought... is whether or not the AI ever fills its specialist slots. I'm sure they used their GP.

I did notice the city governor weighs the value of specialists based on their yields. I noticed this by testing specialists at very high yields. Cities basically treat each specialist as a "tile" on the map, with slight extra value weighted due to the GP points.

With specialists vs gp, I think this method will probably be more fun since it gives us immediate rewards to running specialists. Extra GP gives us basically the same rewards in the long run, but is more nebulous. The micro also gives small-empire builders more to do, but in a way that's (hopefully?) not tedious.

Thalassicus said:

I did notice the city governor weighs the value of specialists based on their yields. I noticed this by testing specialists at very high yields. Cities basically treat each specialist as a "tile" on the map, with slight extra value weighted due to the GP points.

With specialists vs gp, I think this method will probably be more fun since it gives us immediate rewards to running specialists. Extra GP gives us basically the same rewards in the long run, but is more nebulous. The micro also gives small-empire builders more to do, but in a way that's (hopefully?) not tedious.

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Yes, if I wasn't clear, the specialists are definitely more fun. As long as the AI makes use of them, this is the way to go.

Thalassicus said:

I think most people are so used to them being useless, people don't even notice or try them out.

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I completely agree with this. In a recent game I started focusing on my knight play.

Knights are incredibly powerful if used right. A group of them can move in for a massive flanking bonus, kill the enemy, then pull back. Properly used, very rarely were my knights being attacked.

Lancers have a lot more damage on the attack AND an extra move, making it even harder to attack them. I think there is a huge amount of potential in this unit for a smart player.

Ok, looks like I'll have to finally try the Ottomans now - the specialist UA seems like fun. I have *never* played a game as them, and I nearly always choose random leader. Never minded before now.

Seek said:

Ok, looks like I'll have to finally try the Ottomans now - the specialist UA seems like fun. I have *never* played a game as them, and I nearly always choose random leader. Never minded before now.

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I'm starting my second game with them next. I think you're going to enjoy the specialists - and I may even veer off from my etched-in-stone science beeline to try the Sipahi!

I've decided to do Sneak's suggestion of moving the +1 per luxury effect from Arabia to the Commerce tree. This means I need a replacement effect for Harun, so what would you think of this?

Desert Caravans
Each luxury resource increases your Gold income by 5%, and units ignore terrain cost in deserts.

It would no longer include surplus copies, but we could still get the original effect too if we go Commerce.

I love it! It really reminds of their position as merchants of the Occident!

QDI

Thalassicus said:

I've decided to do Sneak's suggestion of moving the +1 per luxury effect from Arabia to the Commerce tree. This means I need a replacement effect for Harun, so what would you think of this?

Desert Caravans
Each luxury resource also increases your Gold by 5%.

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Nice trait. It would suit more to a colonial power like Dutch though (if added through DLC).
Basically it means that the player would try to create a monopoly & get resources as quickly as possible.
I've a question, would I receive 5% bonus if I import a resource from another AI player/CS ?