Babylon Tweak Design Discussion

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Sep 22, 2010
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I intend to make my first mod after making a few of my own modmods. This mod will tweak Babylon in varying ways, giving them something other than "MORE X" which is prevalent in all of their uniques. Basically, making them fun to play because they are dreadfully boring to me as they are. I'm presenting my ideas here because I don't have too concrete of a design yet.

Do keep in mind I'm a modding baby, so xml tricks only.

For the Bowman, probably just take a page from Civ IV and give them a combat bonus against melee units. Just to give them something.

For the Walls, I was thinking giving them +1 culture. Perhaps +2 tourism after Flight? Just a reason to build them on lower difficulties and without Events and Decisions.

Obviously the UA will have the largest changes, but I'm not so sure how to tweak the existing one. My ideas to tack on to it would be having Hammurabi cameo: -15% unhappiness in all cities. I also think having writer specialists give science and scientist specialists give culture would be cool. Maybe have all non-cultural specialists provide culture just to remove this a bit more from Korea?

Obviously these new additions to the UA means the old ones need to be pushed a bit more, but I'm not sure how to do so. Remove the free great scientist? Push it back to Philosophy? Should I lower the great scientist acquisition rate? If so, what's a good percentage that isn't too underwhelming?
 
I like the Babylon concept, where all the power is in their UA.
The UB is good, the UU is nearly useless, but their UA is golden, a free Scientist that early gives you a nice leg in the Tech-racing. I agree with you, though, that Babylon may be a bit bland at times because you can't see the benefits directly.

The Walls bonus you describe seems good enough, an early +1 Culture from Walls is nice.

The Bowman continues sucking in my opinion, even with your modification.


My 2 cents. :)
 
Well the combat bonus could be a promotion that carries over upon upgrade. Those always increase the longevity of unique units.

As for the UA, I was thinking of, at least, lowering the rate to 30% (because 25% seemed too small). Still large and can be stacked with gardens, rationalism, etc for big gains. But the aim is more scientists later on instead of all scientists all the time.
 
I think it would be helpful if you mention the civs you like. I don't want to throw blindly suggestions. :)

If you play on ez-peror, you can actually try early aggression with Bowman (quite an amazing unit, they have natural 30%+ bonus attack). With your buff, they are gonna be beasts (as they were in history after all). I mean, you should easily conquer one civ and find yourself a bit behind (thanks, brave no wars ;<) and then you use UA as keep-up bonus. You can let yourself to goof around much more than with other civs.
The Walls of Babylon is pretty hopeless, it is unfortunately the relic of the past (GK meta; the same with Netherlands' UA); doesn't matter the difficulty ~ simply meh. You can add some Culture/Tourism bonus, but it would still probably be of no use in ancient era (much likely, you would start making them for NewSwanCastle). I can suggest the option to change base building class (icon might fit the "Gate"), which opens even the amphitheatre (since the gates were inscripted). Up to you.

I can't help with UA. Not gonna restrict myself with database limitations. You would prefer it to be more interactive or just not science focused?

I would reconsider if the tweaks are necessary (especially huge tweaks). Once you start changing existing stuff, you might get addicted to it. Thankfully, the amount of civs is enormous and the chance that you random Babylon are tiny. I somehow live with Napoleon not having glorious abilities... but it is probably just my mentality.
 
I like quite a bit of civs. My favorite unmodded civ is Indonesia, but there are quite a bit I like in and out of mods. Aztecs, Inca, Maya, and Spain would be my other favorite unmodded civs.

Basically, I don't want Babylon to just be SCIENTISTS! There isn't a MERCHANTS! civ, there isn't a PROPHETS! civ, etc. Give them a bit of wiggle room in what they can do, other than the inherit wiggle room a tech lead can give you.

Like your bowman rush goes perfect with my Hammurabi aspect that I'm considering (-15% unhappiness from cities). The culture bonuses will give them more policies, allowing for branching out more. Basically a slight hit to SCIENTISTS! while giving them more material to work with instead.

I wouldn't worry about getting addicted. My modding skills are limited to cobbling together what I can interpret from other mods, and that's just xml stuff. Besides, most of the trouble areas when it comes to unmodded civ design have already been fixed up by existing or upcoming mods. My problem with Babylon's passiveness would still remain.
 
Okay, I've hit a bit of a roadblock. The city unhappiness modifier only works with founded cities, which is nice but barely useful. How would I reduce the unhappiness from occupied cities?
 
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