Design Thread - For Discussion and Review

A thread where we discuss designs, discuss what is good in a design and review others' designs.

I'd like to start off this by asking what makes a design good and which, in your opinion, is the best modded Civ and the best vanilla (Vanilla+G&K+BNW).

Personally, a good design is minimalistic. An overstacked UA doesn't attract me nearly as much as something simplisitic and powerful. It's almost beautiful to see the small UAs in play - they, most of the time, make all the difference. Also, a good design sets you on a path before you even start the game by providing you with a basic path, while simulteanously keeping your options open. I like this a lot in JFD's Scotland - you can go Domination, Cultural or Diplomatic Victory, but you'll pay at least a little bit of attention to Great Works of Writing. Essentially, a good design is simple and changes the way you play before you start the game.

Best modded Civ... JFD's UK under Churchill. It's so simple and powerful with bonuses useful from the early game to the end game, I love it. I don't talk too much because it's just so simple, but for me it just works.

Best vanilla Civ is going straight to France, because it's powerful as hell, has a boring UU but that works decently well with the UI and the UI synergizes well with the UA. But that's just me.

I personally agree with you that simple designs are the best. The designs in vanilla Civ are all simple and yet they're all fun and effective (some more than others of course). However, if a design is going to be complex I would hope that it's complex in a good way. Uniques that are too specific really bother me because they become too situational and you might play a whole game where their effects are only helpful one or two times. A design should have flexibility, I personally believe that every civ should be able to achieve at least two different victories.

My favorite Vanilla civ is the Huns. Their UA is very useful, especially early. They can immediately build pastures since they begin with Animal Husbandry and get +1 production per pasture. That extra production is very useful early on and helps to get your army out quick. The UU's have great synergy. The Battering Ram is my favorite unit in the whole game simply because it terrorized my friends every time I played the Huns. It's extremely effective at attacking cities and only suffers from not being able to attack other units. The Horse Archer fills in that gap with it's ranged attack, allowing the Huns to have the most potent early game offense. And then when you get cities you don't want/can't afford you can raze them at double speed. The only drawback is that their bonuses are so suited towards the early game that they start to become more average as the game goes on. However, because you're so powerful early on you won't have to worry about the mid to late game as much since you've probably taken out 2-4 civs already. They're also only suited towards domination victories which is a drawback. The Huns are still incredibly fun to play and they're my favorite in Vanilla Civ.

There are so many good mods that it's really hard to pick one but I'll go with JFD's Tojo. First of all, this civ can go for two victories: domination or science. Acquiring coast or ocean tiles gives science and you get twice as much in conquered cities. Capturing coastal cities is obviously the best way to go and then once they've been captured they basically become military bases since they produce naval units 50% faster. The Yamato and Zero have great synergy together. The Yamato has a combat bonus against cities, which is perfect for the UA, and it can also carry fighters, which the Zero is. The Zero doesn't require oil which means you can use that oil for Yamatos or tanks for non coastal cities and it has a combat bonus against other fighters which basically makes it perfect for protecting your fleet. The synergy it has is really great and I think it's an awesome concept.

I'm just gonna say right now that I design civs the way I want to design them, not according to any preconceived qualification of what designs are the best. Foremost, I don't like simple designs. My least favourite of my own civs are ones like the UK, Meiji, etc. I don't have a lot of time or patience for gaming, so when I'm looking for a civ, I look for one that is quite explicit in how I should play. Additionally, my primary interest is in reflecting the historical character of the civ; I want a quick, narrative fix when I play a game of civ.

So it is my hope that this thread doesn't become a source of pressure for modders or designers to conform to designs that are equal parts simple, potent, and historical (not always easy to pull off either), nor a place in which the fun of designing civs is sucked out of it by rigid and devoted criticism.

Praise lord Jay Eff Dee, his word is gospel!

(Seriously, though, I agree 100%)

My favourite vanilla civ is, ironically, Poland, but that is because the UA is fantastic. The UU and UB are ok, but could easily be changed, to be honest. Second to that is Venice, which reflect my ideals for civ designs more, since it is much more complicated. The only thing that bothers me about Venice is the Great Galleass, since it doesn't fit the rest of the "get filthy rich and buy city-states lol"-design it goes for.

As for my favourite modded civ, there are way too many, but JFD's Scotland trumps them all. Seriously, it may be a tad simple (not too simple, IMO), but it works so fantastically.

Great work setting up this thread, we can hope it can get used soon. I know i will if an idea comes to my head and i want to get feedback.

But i want to quickly make sure, since my post saying simple ideas are better might effect your view on me, i didn't actually mean i hate complex ideas. Sometimes a complex idea is nice, i just thought it didn't belong on a Request thread, where you should be asking people to make that idea.

we need this to be stickied(and moved?) to actually use this...

Thanks for setting up this thread GP!

In terms of what makes for good civ design I like a design which fundamentally changes the way you approach a game. I want to have to adapt my playstyle to get the most out of the civ, because after all, I've played civ for quite some time and playing the exact same strategy over and over really bores me - for example I really don't like America or the Songhai because the boosts don't change anything. They don't really have a meaningful impact on the way you play whatsoever, they're barely even noticeable half the time. My favourite vanilla civ would have to be either the Inca or Sweden. The big issue I have with Sweden is how confused the uniques are, they don't line up at all.

I think there's a place for simple designs, I like Ethiopia for example, but Ethiopia manages to be simple while also changing how I play it. Its also important to me that the game nudges me to play that civ exactly as it acted IRL - that to me is a sign of great civ design. Korea is a good example - hunker down, go tall, stay defensive and isolated - just like the real life 'Hermit Kingdom'.

I think Songhai is a weird example of a non-gameplay changing civ. Certainly it seems to encourageyou to go after Barbarians much more agressively.

I do that anyway though. Might just be me but I usually have a couple of horsemen which I just send out to wreck any and all barbarians I find.

Ah yeah, I just go after any which are near my borders.

Well... let's got for the first civ design to actually be discused here:

Lombardy

Leader: Filippo Maria Visconti
UA: Condottieri Wars: When available, trained military units are turned into unique replacements from other civilizations.
UU: Capitani di Ventura: Replaces Great General. Costs 2 Maintenance. In addition to the regular Great General Bonus, units within range of a Capitani di Ventura also earn extra experience and gold from defeating enemy units.
UB: Equestrian Statue: Replaces Forge. +15% Production towards Land units in this city. Land units trained in this city also start with a random Promotion. You gain a Random Equestrian Statue in one of your cities each time a Capitani di Ventura is born.

Some thoughts:

Yeah, I got this idea from back when someone asked for a civ that could train unique units from other civilizations. I thought what kind of historical civ could fit thematically into that, and of course the answer was medieval Italy.

I kinda looked through Last Sword's civsets for inspiration, which should be pretty notorious if you check the uniques, but nonetheless I do believe the civ is pretty synergistic, not to mention thematic, and at least would be pretty fun to play, the more mods the merrier.

I fear the UA may be too powerful and that it could be worded better, but that's kinda why I'm looking for feedback here.

This is great.
(Ah, the beauty of simpleness....something I'll never understand...)

This seems like a very interesting Civ. I'm slightly confused about the UA, but if I'm not mistaken what you're saying is that you might get Impi when building Pikeman, right?

The UU is pretty decent, I like it. The UB... I suppose it doesn't need Iron in that city for it to be built unlike the Forge, right? Also, random promotion - are we talking exclusive things like Heavy a Charge or Golden Age Points from Kills, or are we talking about Drill I and March?

Right, Impis from Pikemen for example. As I said, I could use help to make the wording of the UA easier to understand.

Personally, could go either way, even if you don't have Iron sooner or later you'll get an Equestrian Statue anyways if you keep pumping out Capitani.

By random Promotion, I mean stuff like training an archer and it already coming with Barrage, or Accuracy, or Altitude Training, whichever the game feels like giving it.

I really like it - the UA in particular is a great concept. In terms of a slight nerf, it might be more flavourful to restrict it to purchased units? If thats a bit weaker, a second, minor bonus is always nice in my opinion - so something like this?

"Upon purchasing a military unit, may receive the unique unit of another civilisation. All purchased units grand double Great General points from kills.

I love the Capitani di Ventura, particularly the gold from kills stuff - a really excellent design for him. Personally I'd also add the ability to lower purchase costs when stationed in cities to make things align nicely with the UA but if you prefer your original UA that is, of course, superfluous. I also love the free Statue effect, but not sure how well the building you chose syncs up with the effects - I'd surely say some kind of barracks replacement (Caserma maybe?) would be better for the goal of elite, unique, qualified troops over huge hordes. Also, the random promotion combined with the random UU combined with the random Forge granting may be too much reliance on RNG gods - people were all kinds of salty about the Indonesian UU and so I think 1 randomising element is enough for this civ. Thats the only bit I have an issue with, the rest is really, really good - and I rarely say that. If I may, to sum up the minor changes I'd make it'd go:

The Kingdom of Lombardy​

Leader: Filippo Maria Visconti
UA: Guerre di Condottieri
Upon purchasing a land unit, may receive the unique unit of another civilisation instead. All purchased units generate double Great General points from kills."

UU: Capitani di Ventura (Replaces Great General)
The Capitani di Ventura, unlike the Great General it replaces, provides not only a combat bonus to adjacent troops, but also the ability to generate gold and extra experience from kills. When stationed in a city, the Capitani di Ventura decreases the gold cost of purchasing units by 15%.

UU: Caserma (Replaces Forge)
The Caserma, unlike the forge it replaces, grants additional experience to units trained or purchased in this city equal to 10% of the gold output. (Maximum +20) Whenever a Capitani di Ventura is born in the empire, receive a free Caserma in a random city.

Click to expand...

I love that design! Especially the UB.

Agreed. Though I loved the randomness in the design I created, I've gotta concede that won't necessarily give in to good gameplay and may annoy people trying to get a more consistent game out of this civ. Besides, making the UUs come from Purchased units fits better in this "Mercenary Army" sense.

A little issue I have is mostly the with the Caserma, the free Equestrian Statue mostly came from the fact that most of them were built in dedication to famous Condottieros, that's how I came with the idea of "Get a free one when a Great Condottiero is earned", the Caserma kinda misses that little flavor link, and the fact that you Caserma's function is completly different from the Forge is kinda... odd.

My favorite designs (not limited to new civilizations but also game play) are the ones that manage to balance fun and realism, I really need both in my games.

I like Urdnot's UA and UU revisions but I prefer the Equestrian Statue to the Caserma.

I like it when a design is not a copy with extra flaws.
Design, which is not a copy sounds even better.