Israel, Philistines and Biblical Civilizations

Feedback on the new Israel:

I really like how it plays. The great prophet general helped me with an early war, and I was able to found a religion even on a higher difficulty.

My only negative is that the yields of the Kibbutz are probably too high: +2 food (+3-4 counting the farm yield), +3 Culture, +1 Faith, +1 Happy is a lot for a UI with no real terrain limitation. (Well it has the terrain limitation of the farm which is flat land or fresh water but that covers like 90% of the map). The French UI only ends up giving +6 yield (in addition to the base tile yield) with less important yields (no food), has a much stricter terrain requirement, and that's mostly because the French UA sucks. Yours is giving +8 (half of which is food), plus happy, plus the base tile yield, and you can build it almost anywhere. It feels a little overkill.

Really, even being able to give every other farm +2 food by itself is a huge bonus (food being the most important yield). I would tone it down to just the +2 Farm Food, and +1 Faith (which ends up being a +5 yield UI in the end), or a similar combination like that.

Ok... so balance updated!. Number of free social policies reduced to 1. Kibbutz yields greatly reduced. (+1 more food than farms, +1 Culture, +1 Faith.... +1 Culture after Radio), and their build time has been increased to that of a normal improvement.

Did you add the 3D leaderhead?

Ekmek said:

Did you add the 3D leaderhead?

Click to expand...

I'm still using the collage, but want to suggest using the Leaderhead from your file. Which reminds me, I changed the download link, so you'll probably want to update that too in your file and thread

Is anyone else having this problem? I'm having a problem where the icons either aren't displaying or are messed up (for example, instead of the Israel flag insignia I have a blurry, squished icon next to a blurry, squished icon of either King David or the Maccabee, depending on what I'm viewing) and it is like this for all icons relating to Israel. I think it's because I'm using Direct X 9, which I have to because my laptop can't handle more, allthough I didn't have this problem before the update. Is there a way to fix this?

I'm not sure but something similar happened to me when I reseted this computer, it has something to do with the graphic properties (so not the Direct X 9 or 11, but rather some option there)... I'd try chacking either ingame or in your video card graphic settings.

So you're having a similar problem? I hope you find a solution, I tried messing with my graphics properties and the only thing that had an effect was changing the quality in the 3D settings, but all that did was get rid of the blurriness, the images are still off center. The reason i mentioned Direct X is because I DON'T have this problem on Direct X 11, but I can't use that setting without the rest of the game's graphics being messed up. It's so strange..........

So it turns out that I needed to update my graphics driver. That seems to have fixed the problem!

That's good to know! Enjoy your playing!

Awesome mod! I didn't bother to read the whole thread so I may have missed an explanation of this but I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the cities you choose for the Israelites, particularly places like Tyre, Sidon, and Gomorrah... as far as I know, those cities didn't really belong to the Israelites. Also, I am aware that this civ mod is focused around David's united Kingdom of Israel and not the modern state. Thanks!

To be fairly honest, I know the City list is off... but I'm not sure what cities to use either. I think I'd need someone to link me a good source with the actual cities of Israel (ancient)

Well, if you don't mind I've got a few suggestions for cities you could add/replace...

Mahanaim was an important stronghold city during David's lifetime. This was where Saul's son was crowned by Abner, the commander of Saul's army, to gain political legitimacy over David's movement. Also, when David became king, this is where he retreated to when his son Absalom instigated a revolt against him in Hebron.

I think Jaffa would be a nice addition since it was an important port city to the Israelites. This was the port city that the cedars of Lebanon used to build the Temple of Solomon came through. It also had significance in later times, like during the Third Crusade and the Palestinian revolts under British occupation (not sure if these events are really relevant).

A few years after King Solomon's death, the United Monarchy divided into the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. Shechem, Tirzah and Samaria were important cities in the Kingdom of Israel, each becoming its capital at one point or another. I don't know how relevant this period is to you, but I'm quite certain that using important cities from this era is much better than using cities like Tel Aviv. They're not even that far removed from David's time; at the very most, roughly 200 years.

To be honest, I'm getting all this info from Wikipedia but at the very least, the articles on Wikipedia are backed up by biblical quotes, a primary source on the history of ancient Israel. Hopefully that's good enough in your books to qualify as a legitimate source. Hope this helps!

UPDATE: Here are a few more ideas for Israelite cities: Beersheba, Gilgal, Shiloh and Ashdod (originally a Philistine city; part of present-day Israel)

I find that the game doesn't fully like the Rabbi specialist slot in the synagogues. I don't earn the +1 culture but I do earn +2 faith, although it doesn't show up in the UI. My UI said +17 faith/per turn (both before and after assigning the rabbi) and I earned 19.

The AI doesn't seem to know of its perks though because I must set Manual Specialist Control in order to ever have the specialist activated in my cities - and if an AI player would choose Synagogue belief they would probably never get the Rabbi perks.

Sorry if somebody already posted this, I just skimmed through the thread.

Don't worry, nobody mentioned it . The Faith isn't updated on the UI, for compatibility reasons, but its added up, and in my tests the culture is earned too, odd.

About the AI, well, it just seems to put a specialist without GP points at the end of the line quite sadly. And making Prophet GP points is bugged for some annoying reason (the counter limit never grows, so you end up making far too many Prophets which is bad)

Now that Tiwanaku is done, I think I can easily adapt them to make a Jerusalem-Pro version. So, if I were to make one, it would of course be incompatible with this Israel; so its almost as an alternative if you wish.

This would be it:
Jerusalem Pro: The leader will still be David I think.
UA: Promised Land: The Capital starts with a Grand Temple. Only Great Prophets may found cities, and they also grant a combat bonus to adjacent units. Allied City-States that have been following your religion may eventually join the empire.
UU: Maccabee: Earns (more) faith from kills. May spread religion 3 times.
UI: Kibbutz: Exactly what it is now.

So, would it be worth it to also make a Jerusalem-Pro? Opinions?

Leugi said:

Now that Tiwanaku is done, I think I can easily adapt them to make a Jerusalem-Pro version. So, if I were to make one, it would of course be incompatible with this Israel; so its almost as an alternative if you wish.

This would be it:
Jerusalem Pro: The leader will still be David I think.
UA: Promised Land: The Capital starts with a Grand Temple. Only Great Prophets may found cities, and they also grant a combat bonus to adjacent units. Allied City-States that have been following your religion may eventually join the empire.
UU: Maccabee: Earns (more) faith from kills. May spread religion 3 times.
UI: Kibbutz: Exactly what it is now.

So, would it be worth it to also make a Jerusalem-Pro? Opinions?

Click to expand...

Maccabee sounds a bit too powerful.

Should I leave it with either the Faith from Kills or the Spreading? Note it gets no combat bonuses in the Pro version.

Seems pretty balanced. However, would Great Prophets be consumed by founding a city? Also, I'd assume that Israel would start with a Great Prophet. Sounds very interesting anyway.

Yep to both. So GP would be consumed when founding a city. And Israel would start with a Prophet for founding its city... And more interestingly, Liberty's policy will grand a Prophet most likely.

Oh of course, I'm mostly thinking of this as an "alternate" Israel... Many people actually want a Pro-Jerusalem it seems; so its more an alternate take rather than replacing the actual version; might not even release it in Steam