The Touhou Mod Development Thread

Currently, my plans for decisions for Suika are as follows:

Create a Sake Bug -- requires a minimum number of Breweries (currently 3) and a certain amount of gold. Produces a unique Sake luxury resource (currently 3 copies).

Hold a drinking party -- Not entirely sure what this would involve, but it'd probably require a certain amount of gold and magistrates. The end result would either be a period of happiness/"we love the king day" for the empire, or a boost to influence/diplomacy. Ideally, the idea would be to host a drinking party and everyone that disliked your warmongering ways would get drunk and forget they were angry with you, but manipulating diplomacy scores is something I'm a bit uncertain about how to do, so I may try something easier for a start.

That's fair enough. I just figured that maybe giving her an army with which to actually conquer with might be of use.

Whenever Reimu is made, it might make sense to have her get some sort of festival/viewing party type thing that lets her get more tourism or something.

Also I can't help but think that at least one decision for Marisa should involve her mushrooms. Although beyond that I'm not sure what it would actually be.

It might still be an option... I'll have to see. I need to start testing out some of the changes I've been making with her, helping to boost her growth a bit, as well as hopefully making her army tougher by having the Brewery hand out a promotion rather than buffing military production.

Interestingly, I've been considering having Reimu do something like "enter a golden age after making peace" to represent the tea party thing that occurs at the end of every game...

As for Marisa, I'm considering having one of her decisions involve making a grimoire. Not entirely sure how it'd work, but it could be interesting -- maybe have it give some kind of buff depending on how many other civs she's met by that point?

With Keine, I'll probably make the village school a decision...

Oh here's a question: could you hypothetically have a decision implemented for both the Hakurei Shrine and Moriya Shrine civs that only appear when both are present?

Because the idea I mentioned before of an achievement for building a branch shrine at the moriya capital could be worked into a special decision along the lines of the national formation decisions in EU4.

Obviously it's not possible to change what civ you're playing as mid-game, so some sort of Unified Shinto Shrines formation isn't possible, but you could still have it exist as a big bonus for subjugating the other shrine.

Hypothetically it'd be something like a big faith reward and some other useful things, while requiring that you own the rival shrine's capital and they do not exist at all.

nvdr said:

Oh here's a question: could you hypothetically have a decision implemented for both the Hakurei Shrine and Moriya Shrine civs that only appear when both are present?

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Yes. That said, I'd make sure they both have at least two "generic" decisions which aren't tied to any other specific Civ, for balance reasons.

Obviously it's not possible to change what civ you're playing as mid-game.

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Ohhhh yes it is.

It may say "PreGame", but it actually works in the middle of one! Only issue is that you'll run into some graphical quirks like your units' flag icons still remaining with the old Civ's colors, but those issues vanish upon a save and reload.

Vicevirtuoso said:

Yes. That said, I'd make sure they both have at least two "generic" decisions which aren't tied to any other specific Civ, for balance reasons.

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Obviously, I'm just saying that a special decision that encourages going after an obvious rival would be an interesting use of the decisions mod. (Especially since no one seems to be working on a Civ version of EU4's rivalry system.)

Vicevirtuoso said:

Ohhhh yes it is.

It may say "PreGame", but it actually works in the middle of one! Only issue is that you'll run into some graphical quirks like your units' flag icons still remaining with the old Civ's colors, but those issues vanish upon a save and reload.

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Well that's certainly interesting, I had assumed it wouldn't let you do that. So completely changing your existing civ into another non-selectable civ would actually be possible? Where all your cities become those of the new civ? Actually being able to form a new nation in civ would be quite impressive.

That said, the reload thing seems a bit inconvenient.

nvdr said:

Obviously, I'm just saying that a special decision that encourages going after an obvious rival would be an interesting use of the decisions mod. (Especially since no one seems to be working on a Civ version of EU4's rivalry system.)

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At the moment, my hands are tied with making 2 common decisions for each of my 25 Civs, plus 2 each for the Religions in my Madoka modpacks. However, once that is done, I do plan on having some decisions like this, such as (Madoka Magica Rebellion spoilers, if somehow you don't know them):

Well that's certainly interesting, I had assumed it wouldn't let you do that. So completely changing your existing civ into another non-selectable civ would actually be possible? Where all your cities become those of the new civ? Actually being able to form a new nation in civ would be quite impressive.

That said, the reload thing seems a bit inconvenient.

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You can force a lot of the stuff to reload properly just by calling Events.SerialEventCityInfoDirty() and Events.SerialEventUnitInfoDirty(). The only really lasting issue (until reloads) are the unit flags -- you could potentially get around this by looping over all of your units, duplicating them, then killing the old ones.

Do note that all of your cities remain named as they were, so you would need to implement a loop over all of the player's cities if you want them to be converted to the new Civ's city names.

So, I'm making progress with Suika's Decisions -- I haven't had the chance to test them, but thanks to the core civ examples, as well as Vicevirtuoso's, I've got most of the framework in place. The Sake Bug decision seems pretty straightforwards, but I thought I'd get people's opinions on what the Drinking Party should do. Originally, my plan was for it to have a diplomatic effect (effectively, inviting everyone over and getting them drunk) so it's currently modelled on Siam's embassies, boosting influence with city-states. However, given that Suika is kind of a military civ, I've been mulling over nvdr's suggestion that she could use an army, I could model it after one of the decisions that gives you military units. So would that be preferable for the Drinking Party to provide?

Also, I think Marisa's getting near to completion... needs some balance tweaks, but the core is there. I'm still debating decisions, but I think her Grimoire would be at least. I'm tempted to make the mini-hakkero a decision as well, that would buff the damage from ranged weapons...

Having finished my recent test game with my Civ, I will be looking at another new test game today.
I was going to test Marisa, but I'm not sure if you'd like me to do the new Suika instead?

I was going to do this last night, but ran into some amusing conflicts with VV's Civs which took some time to figure out.

DarkScythe said:

Having finished my recent test game with my Civ, I will be looking at another new test game today.
I was going to test Marisa, but I'm not sure if you'd like me to do the new Suika instead?

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Hmm... I could probably use more feedback on the changes I made to Suika, as I've gotten a decent amount of information on how Marisa does so far. Or you could put both in the game, I suppose...

I'll probably put both in, but I can only physically play one at a time.
(I'm not that awesome yet..)

That said, in my brief test with Marisa, she did seem in-line with the other feedback I've seen about her. (Started once in the middle of a marsh area with 4 Sugar and a couple other resources around .. that was quite nuts.)

I'll see about doing Suika, though I'll need to figure out what exactly changed so I can be on the lookout.
On the bright side, no Lua errors yet.

DarkScythe said:

I'll probably put both in, but I can only physically play one at a time.
(I'm not that awesome yet..)

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You could play a hotseat game...?

DarkScythe said:

That said, in my brief test with Marisa, she did seem in-line with the other feedback I've seen about her. (Started once in the middle of a marsh area with 4 Sugar and a couple other resources around .. that was quite nuts.)

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Now I'm curious how that game turned out. Between the Atelier and the Marsh bonus, I suppose she had a definite science boost...

DarkScythe said:

I'll see about doing Suika, though I'll need to figure out what exactly changed so I can be on the lookout.
On the bright side, no Lua errors yet.

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The main changes to Suika so far are:

a) Added 50% maintenance cost for pre-gunpowder melee units to her UA.
b) Brewery doubles its food yields during Golden Ages
c) Brewery now provides the Drunken Mastery promotion to melee and recon units, which gives them +1 Movement, +10% combat strength, and 20% bonus against ranged attacks.

Kishin is unchanged, but has the cool new graphics NomadorWhat made :3

I'm hoping it'll be a bit of a better growth/military civ. I've done okay with it while playtesting it, but given that she seems to struggle as an AI, I'm particularly curious to see if I can make her more of a threat like Shaka in the early game...

bouncymischa said:

The Sake Bug decision seems pretty straightforwards, but I thought I'd get people's opinions on what the Drinking Party should do. Originally, my plan was for it to have a diplomatic effect (effectively, inviting everyone over and getting them drunk) so it's currently modelled on Siam's embassies, boosting influence with city-states. However, given that Suika is kind of a military civ, I've been mulling over nvdr's suggestion that she could use an army, I could model it after one of the decisions that gives you military units. So would that be preferable for the Drinking Party to provide?

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This is just my opinion, but I like seeing Decisions as ways to plug the holes of a Civ and round them out rather than just making them do more of what they're already good at. For example, neither of Homura's or Demon Homura's Decisions are based on military, even though they're both typically considered warmonger Civs. And I actually came up with stuff for Nagisa which doesn't involve Cattle and Sheep!

So I'd say go ahead and do the original idea of City-State Influence.

Vicevirtuoso said:

This is just my opinion, but I like seeing Decisions as ways to plug the holes of a Civ and round them out rather than just making them do more of what they're already good at.

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Perhaps this is just bias from experience with how the EU4 decisions are implemented, but I don't agree with this. The originals are either generic boosts or long term goals with various requirements.

In terms of nation specific ones, you tend to get stuff based on what they did historically, like how Manchu has stuff to get them to go after Ming, and form the Qing dynasty. Manchu isn't given trade based decisions, because they're not a nation that should be thinking about that. In much the same line, Venice doesn't get much that requires them to conquer large swaths of land. It's not a bad idea because of their strong economy, but decisions aren't part of the reason a Venice player would do that.

Now of course you do have to consider the fact that Civ and EU4 have a massive difference in term of how nations are balanced. Especially given that Civ actually has victory conditions.

That said, I'd personally say that decisions should encourage a civ to do what they would have done historically, or in the case of a fictional civ like Suika, just be better able or inclined to do what they do best. The Oni horde shouldn't get a decision to reward them for being peaceful traders, they should be rewarded for conquering.

I'm pretty sure something like that is extremely subjective, and as such, anything can work if it is well thought out.

To me, the word "Decisions" implies exactly that -- it's a choice to be made. Being a general boost isn't much of a decision to make, as it's either "Have bonus" or "Not have bonus."

Decisions that help gear your Civ for a specific approach (whether it be historically accurate or to cover up a weakness) both seem to fall under that category for me.
In effect, when would I not want to enact so-and-so decision?

Personally, I'm a fan of a "decision" requiring some thought; As such, if I ever decide to implement "Decisions" in my Civ, I would like for it to have a certain bonus, but also carry with it a certain penalty.

nvdr said:

That said, I'd personally say that decisions should encourage a civ to do what they would have done historically, or in the case of a fictional civ like Suika, just be better able or inclined to do what they do best. The Oni horde shouldn't get a decision to reward them for being peaceful traders, they should be rewarded for conquering.

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I would indeed say that historical events would be the way to go for historic Civs. But for fictional Civs, you've got a bit more leeway. Especially true if your Civ is "fictionally fictional" -- i.e. the character didn't lead a Civilization even in the setting of their story, like a lot of mine are.

It is, of course, my opinion and just a suggestion.

DarkScythe said:

Personally, I'm a fan of a "decision" requiring some thought; As such, if I ever decide to implement "Decisions" in my Civ, I would like for it to have a certain bonus, but also carry with it a certain penalty.

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There's no decision involved in this one. It's literally: you can remove the religion you don't tolerate from your provinces making the intolerance irrelevant. The only time it would be an issue is when you have a province like Rome, Ile-de-France or Lubeck, where their high value makes the 1% on its own meaningless for conversion. However, the intolerance has no meaningful effect unless you can't properly handle rebels/revolt risk.

I suppose you could implement something like this decision in Civ by giving greater missionary strength in your own lands at the cost of some happiness. But even that's not really a decision, unhappiness isn't that hard to deal with, and having an easier time keeping your own lands your religion would just make it easier to use your faith to spread outward.

(As a side note, something like this would be nice to have in Civ. >__>)

I'm not sure that "decision" is really the best term, and the same is true for them in EU4. At best you make the decision to take a decision once ever, and in any future instance you just do the same as last time. Future deciding about them is more about when to take them if you don't just do it right away.

I suppose the civ version actually is a decision since it requires a special resource, meaning you can't just take any and all you get that you want at any time, but the point remains that the original inspiration of the concept gives generic bonuses that are effectively the same as just giving a hidden building with a bonus (and penalty) after a certain trigger. The bigger green decisions which are mostly "Form Nation X" don't even have real downsides at all, just requiring a large set of things.

Honestly though, this is mostly just an ideological debate on the actual intent of "decisions" and what they should be. If it's decided that Suika doesn't need something to give her an army for free, then that's fine. Hell, it could be an event, since those seem to be planned based on the mod's name being "Events and Decisions". Scotland in EU4 gets an event that gives them an army for free (well they cost upkeep as usual) and something like that could trigger upon, say, taking a capital or city with a certain population threshold off a foe.

Although... Manchu does have a couple decisions that do exactly what I suggested.


If Suika's is given something to assist in removing her weak point, it should be science related since that's the reason I'd guess as why she's never been the military powerhouse that Utsuho and Nitori are. She just doesn't seem to keep up with her neighbors or potential enemies. (In my experience at least.)

Vicevirtuoso said:

It is, of course, my opinion and just a suggestion.

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To paraphrase a saying I've heard: Ask 10 gamers about game balance, and you'll get 13 answers.

I don't really mind -- as far as I'm concerned, everything said here is an opinion/suggestion. I'm mostly curious to see what different people's viewpoints are, so I can mull them over.

With regards to decisions, looking at the ones done for the core civs by other modders, they do mostly fall into the "choose a benefit" sort of category, as nvdr points out, although they do all carry certain inherent costs. Most require a sum of gold and expenditure of magistrates, and I don't really know how readily available magistrates are. (I'd have to dig through the code for buildings and such to see how one gets magistrates...) If there's only, say, 3 magistrates available through the entire game, then a decision that costs 2 is going to be a significant choice. On the other hand, if you can get 10, then it's much less of an issue. I've seen other decisions cost even things like research time (the Roman Concrete decision costs you research), or units (one decision costs you a Worker), so there's various ways to add a "cost" to a decision. Since Suika's Sake Bug decision gives you free luxuries, I'm currently debating just how much gold to make it cost, to decide how much effort and time it'll take to recover your investment. Still, the decisions themselves are largely pluses when enacted, with very few minuses.

Admittedly, this is, I think, part of Civ's game design. It's one of the thing that bugs my brother, because whenever I'm talking about a modded civ I'm working on, I'll talk about how a UU or UB or UI provides some net benefit, and all he hears is "I took a standard unit/building/improvement and made something better!" But if you look at pretty much any of the uniques, they're straight-up better than what they replace. (Look at the Bazaar or Satrap's Court for some pretty basic examples.) Which is why it's interesting to get various perspectives on just how the game should be balanced.

I've got to get ready for work at this point, but I'll babble on a bit later about Suika in particular (and the issue of science). Still, I appreciate everyone's insight. :3

nvdr said:

If Suika's is given something to assist in removing her weak point, it should be science related since that's the reason I'd guess as why she's never been the military powerhouse that Utsuho and Nitori are. She just doesn't seem to keep up with her neighbors or potential enemies. (In my experience at least.)

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Science is a tricky issue when it comes to civs, because it plays such a central role to the entire game. I have to admit, normally when I imagine a game, the player with the more technologically advanced forces tends to fall along the lines "better but smaller", in order to keep relative parity with other players whose factions may be less advanced. Someone with less technological advancement tends to have the advantage in production or numbers (i.e. "quantity has a quality all of its own"). Even with regards to Civ, I would imagine that a civ whose advantage was focused on science would lag behind in growth or production compared to other civs whose bonuses were in those areas.

However, science is problematic in that new techs provide bonuses in all areas. A scientifically advanced civ doesn't just have superior weapons, but also better production and better growth. I suppose this is because it's supposed to simulate historical development, where this was largely true... but it does make for a somewhat problematic game design.

With regards to Suika, I don't think I'd venture down the path of giving her a science boost. Ideally, she'd play somewhat like the Zulus -- early military strength that eventually should get eclipsed by other factions whose bonuses make them stronger later. On the other hand, I don't want to just mimic the Zulus and stack up purely military traits; plus, due to her bias towards hills I've had some people argue that she has growth issues, so I've been favoring growth as a secondary aspect for Suika.

So on one hand, I want to encourage Suika to be a menacing military power; on the other hand, I don't want her to be solely about the military approach. Which is why it's interesting to get feedback on a variety of possible decisions. A Drinking Party that curries favor with city-states is an interesting option to allow Suika to play a less agressive and more diplomatic game. On the other hand, a Drinking Party that provides military units buffs her military game, where she admittedly seems to be lacking.

I'll probably have to get more feedback on just how effective she is under the AI before I make any final decisions.

nvdr said:

Spoiler :

There's no decision involved in this one. [...]

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That's my major complaint.
Sure, it can make sense, and from a design standpoint, it's nice giving people bonuses.
But being a no-brainer to enact makes it .. well, a no-brainer. There's no reason not to do it. Things like that make for fairly boring gameplay in my opinion, because there's no choice being made, and no tradeoff you have to work around. You're just playing well, then at some point, you're playing better.

As always though, this stuff is very subjective, so any method can 'work', we just have different viewpoints.

I have been avoiding thinking about "Decisions" support for my Civ, as the last thing I need right now is to make it any more complicated and delaying it further, but post-release, I might add support into it. However, as I've not given it any thought this is a very random idea, but if I were to add decisions into my Civ right now, it might look something like this:

As a trade-based Civ, she is meant to acquire plenty of Gold, but she has an inherent penalty to production effectiveness.

I would therefore, potentially, give these decisions: (Numbers mostly placeholder, and pulled from thin air, but you get the idea)

1. Make up for her shortcoming
   • Increases production by 25%
   • Increases Gold purchasing costs by 25%
   • Reduces Trade Route Gold income by 3 Gold
   • Increases unit maintenance costs by 100%
   • Increases Specialist food consumption
   • Reduces Great Merchant generation rate
2. Increase her strengths further
   • Increases Trade Route Gold income by 5 Gold
   • Reduces Gold purchasing costs by 15%
   • Reduces production by 15%
   • Increases Great Merchant Generation rate
   • Increases Specialist food consumption
   • Increases Road and Railroad maintenance costs 50%

In this way, both have a downside to being enacted, and will be greatly influenced by how you were playing, and how you intend to play going forward. And in fact, there's also a downside to choosing any of them at all.

The "Decision" you must make now:
Maintain the status quo? Do you need the extra production badly enough that you can tolerate the penalties and can work around them? Do you instead realize you are capable of the extra food costs, and choose to take a gamble on buying everything instead of building?

Again, I've not really thought through the exact specifics of this decision, so don't take it as exactly what I would implement, but it does highlight my point where a decision is actually a decision.

As for the "cost" involved in enacting decisions, as I understand it, you get a limited number of Magistrates from the Palace, and then a couple more when you build another certain building. However, thus far from what I've heard, it seems each Civ only has a handful of decisions to begin with. Even if it was limited, paying a one-time cost for a rest-of-game benefit is an exceedingly good trade, and players will simply figure out which decisions / bonuses give them the best bang for said buck and only ever choose those. That is my opinion, anyway.