Unique Balance

elistor · Oct 15, 2010

Unique Balance

I've never felt that a unique unit and and building had equal value, so with Civ5 I decided to do something about it. Every Civilization now has two unique units and one unique building. Unfortunately I am NOT an visual artist so all the animation's are borrowed from the basic units the unit flags are thanks to ELChucko. Let me know what you think, I'm sure I missed something, somewhere, but as we all know the fastest way to find bugs is to let other people play with it so here it is. It's Also up on the ModBrowser as "Unique Balance"

Civilizations that gained units:

Arabia - Bedouin Warrior
Doubles movement on desert, Slightly increased strength. Replaces Swordsman for The Arabian Empire.

Aztec - Eagle
The Eagle replaces the scout for the Aztec Nation. Eagle's cost 25% less to upgrade and gain XP 10% faster, this promotion stays with them upon upgrading.

Babylon - Royal Chariot's
Royal Chariot's have an improved defensive strength, and +1 ranged combat distance at the cost of one less movement. Replaces Chariot Archers for the Bayblonian Empire.

China - Huochong
Plus 1 Movement and Improved defensive combat strength. Replaces Trebuchet for The Chinese Empire.

Egypt - Central Security Forces
Sacrifices some combat strength for a 50% boost in City Defense. Replaces Mechanized Infantry for The Egyptian Empire.

India - Gorkha
The Gorkha gain an extra attack and continue to heal even while fighting. Replaces Infantry for the Indian Civilization.

Iroquois - Forest Scout
The Forest Scout replaces the scout for the Iroquois. Forest Scout's are able to embark from the very beginning, allowing them to explore a much wider range of territory.

Persia - Cataphract
Cataphract cost a third less to build and have a slightly higher strength at a cost of requiring both horses AND iron. Replaces Knight for The Persian Empire.

Russia - Red Army
The Red Army doubles it's movement on rough terrain. Replaces Rifleman for The Russian Empire.

Siam - Elephant Artillery
Elephant Artillery Receive a +100% combat bonus against horse units. Replaces Cannon for The Siamese Empire.

Songhai - Mandinka Bowmen
Mandinka Bowmen have a slightly increased strength,and are able to build roads and trading posts. Replaces Archers for The Songhai Empire.

Civilizations that gained buildings:

Celts - Dún
A Celtic Unique building, it provides the City with +8 Defense, +2 Culture, and +10% Production of Land Units. It replaces the Castle.

England - Abbey
Abbey's provide 2 culture and 2 food, and if the city has access too a wine resource they gain another for free. They replace the Monastery for the English Empire.

France - Château
Château's Eliminate Unhappiness from an Occupied City, provide a slight increase in city defense, generate 2 culture and increase the cities gold by 10%. They replace the Courthouse for the French Empire.

Germany - Brewery
Brewery's Provide one Wine and 3 Happiness. City must have a source of improved Wheat or Wine nearby. Brewery's replace circus's for the German Empire.

Greece - Bouleuterion
The Bouleuterion costs one quarter less to build than a standard courthouse and only costs 3 gold to maintain. They replace the courthouse for the Greek Empire.

Japan - Shrine
The shrine receives 2 culture and after Archaeology is researched +2 production per turn. Shrine's replace monument's for the Japanese Empire.

Mongol - Yurt
The Yurt supplies new land units with +15XP and 50% more culture from the city.
Yurt's replace the Barracks for the Mongolian Empire

Ottoman Empire - Medrese
Medrese generate +50% Science, +1 Science from worked River Tiles, and +2 culture. Medrese replace universities for the Ottoman Empire.

Rome - Forum
A Forum increases a cities gold by +15%, +2 culture and +1 happiness per turn. Forum's replace the market for the Roman Empire.

United States of America - Radio Drama
Radio Drama's double the culture output of a City and increase Happiness by +2. Radio Drama's replace the Broadcast Tower for the American Empire.

Notes:
The Mongol Building is based off the DLC Mongol Civilization.
The Babylon unit is based off the DLC Babylon Civilization.
The Celtic building is based off Kaels "Queen of the Iceni" Mod.

elistor · Oct 15, 2010

Beta9 update:

Added 'pedia art for all new uniques.
Fixed Forest Scout so that it has the same movement advantage as all other scouts.
Renamed everything (in the code only) so that it's much less likely that any naming issues will conflict with other mods(IE in the code the Forum is now UB_Forum)
Spelling and Misc. code fixes.

Beta8 update:

Deleted Unused files from the mod that where apparently loading anyway. No more large units.

Spoiler More patch notes inside. :

Mortimer · Oct 15, 2010

Have you played this with any other mods to determine compatibility?

ZanderC · Oct 15, 2010

First of all, I like this idea

I have a couple of comments as far as balance goes:

elistor said:
China - Huochong
Plus 1 Movement and Improved combat strength. Replaces Trebuchet for The Chinese Empire.

Is this accomplished by promotions? Because then it would carry forward and be very powerful.

Iroquois - Forest Scout
The Forest Scout replaces the scout for the Iroquois. Forest Scout's are able to embark from the very begining, allowing them to explore a much wider range of territory.

Good idea but I think Iroquois could use something a little more impactful.

Persia - Cataphract
Cataphract cost a third less to build and have a slightly higher strength. Replaces Knight for The Persian Empire.

Seems hugely unbalancing.

Civilizations that gained buildings:

France - Château
Château's Eliminate Unhappiness from an Occupied City, provide a slight increase in city defense, generate 2 culture and increase the cities gold by 10%. They replace the Courhouse for the French Empire.

Chateau is french for castle. Not a big deal just find it amusing to have 2 buildings named the same thing.

Germany - Brewery
Brewery's Provide one Wine and 3 Happiness. City must have a source of improved Wheat or Wine nearby. Brewery's replace circus's for the German Empire.

This is pretty much a downgrade, there are a lot more horses than wine/wheats. I guess you can trade the extra wines but...

Japan - Shrine
The shrine gains 2 culture and 1 happiness per turn. Shrine's replace monument's for the Japanese Empire.

I think this is too good so early. Maybe add some extra maintenance to it? And surely when you say "gains" you don't mean 4 culture + 1 hap ?

Ottoman Empire - Medrese
Medrese generate +50% Science, +1 Science from worked River Tiles, and +2 culture. Medrese replace universities for the Ottoman Empire.

Very powerful, river is a lot more common than jungles. But maybe not so bad since it comes mid-game and to a somewhat weaker civ.

Rome - Forum
A Forum increases a cities gold by +25%, +2 culture and +1 happiness per turn. Forum's replace the market for the Roman Empire.

I think this is crazy-good. Even better than the Shrine. It's almost better than France's UA, which is one of the best already. I would reduce to 1 culture or 1 happiness and not both.

elistor · Oct 15, 2010

Mortimer said:
Have you played this with any other mods to determine compatibility?

The way the mod is setup(XML changes only) the only time you would have a conflict is if anohter mod wanted to add a unique unit to the same empire on the same unit/building. Even then all it would do is silently die if it was the first mod to load or overwrite theres if they where the first.

ZanderC said:
Is this accomplished by promotions? Because then it would carry forward and be very powerful.

Nope, I know the brokenness that is promotions. Whenever possible I tried to avoid doing things with promotions.

ZanderC said:
Good idea but I think Iroquois could use something a little more impactful.

While it doesn't sound like much you have to relize this lets the Iroquois player scout more territory early on as well as gather up more ruins and quite often sail around an enemy that can't do anything but watch. If I decide to expand this project I'll look into something for them.

ZanderC said:
Seems hugely unbalancing. (Persia - Cataphract)

Thats because I forgot to code the drawback, Knew I'd miss something. They also require a sorce of BOTH horses and iron.

ZanderC said:
Chateau is french for castle. Not a big deal just find it amusing to have 2 buildings named the same thing.

Actually most Château are palaces it's one of those lost in translation things, A french castle would be a Château fort from what I understand.

ZanderC said:
This is pretty much a downgrade, there are a lot more horses than wine/wheats. I guess you can trade the extra wines but...

Hmm this one might be a matter of my personal play style influincing me, since I'm allways playing huge games I'm always wanting one more luxury to trade for ANOTHER luxury so I automaticly equate a free luxury resorce to +5 happiness. I'll think about that one.

ZanderC said:
I think this is too good so early. Maybe add some extra maintenance to it? And surely when you say "gains" you don't mean 4 culture + 1 hap ?

Sorry thats a bit confusingly worded but no it's a total 2 culture and one hap. Mor acuratly the standard monumant gains +1 happiness.

ZanderC said:
Very powerful, river is a lot more common than jungles. But maybe not so bad since it comes mid-game and to a somewhat weaker civ.

Aye it's also why I droped it from two per tile to one per tile I'll watch it to make sure it doesn't inflate things to much though.

ZanderC said:
I think this is crazy-good. Even better than the Shrine. It's almost better than France's UA, which is one of the best already. I would reduce to 1 culture or 1 happiness and not both.

Hmm yeah I think that one was supposed to drop the gold income to 15% but i don't think I did that and by the time i got to rome(last building i did that night) I was just typing in exactly what i had write in the design doc and not thinking about it. I'll revisit that one when i get home.

bryanw1995 · Oct 15, 2010

i think that the brewery is my new favorite building. wait, it already is...

Cincinnatus C. · Oct 16, 2010

No offense, but I don't exactly see how this is balanced. Several strong civilizations get a large boost and several weak ones... don't.

China, for example, is already exceptional at warfare, and a three-move artillery will only push it even further, although I suppose Trebs aren't especially useful in this game anyway.

The Eagle is a good concept, but being able to steal workers with absolutely no diplomatic repercussions is pretty significant; you can easily cripple a peaceful close civ like Gandhi who builds a bunch of workers without the cost of warmongering points building up, and take things from city-states without losing influence. It's also sort of strange to use "Eagle" as scouts when Eagle was a military distinction based on capturing enemies, I believe.

I do like the later-game replacements, though, particularly the Egyptian one. There really aren't uniques that late in the game, as is, and the latest one I've ever seriously seen used is the French Foreign Legion, so a unique mech infantry is neat. Tanks aren't good right now, and modern armor aren't worth it, so that's probably the way to go. It's also nice to see ancient Egypt tied to modern Egypt.

Again, Japan is already very strong. The shrine is basically worth more than several social policies (e.g. the rationalism happy university one) because you will build a monument in every city, generally, and it's the first thing puppets build.

elistor · Oct 16, 2010

Cincinnatus C. said:
No offense, but I don't exactly see how this is balanced. Several strong civilizations get a large boost and several weak ones... don't.

None taken, and like i said I want feedback because while i'd love to play all day i only have a certain number of hours I can spend on Civ and I haven't actually PLAYED a lot of the civ's yet so it's helpful if folks point things out.

Cincinnatus C. said:
China, for example, is already exceptional at warfare, and a three-move artillery will only push it even further, although I suppose Trebs aren't especially useful in this game anyway.

That ones another example of poor wording on my part. the combat strength noted as going up is there melee combat strength so it will only be used for def. There ranged strength is unchanged.

Cincinnatus C. said:
The Eagle is a good concept, but being able to steal workers with absolutely no diplomatic repercussions is pretty significant; you can easily cripple a peaceful close civ like Gandhi who builds a bunch of workers without the cost of warmongering points building up, and take things from city-states without losing influence. It's also sort of strange to use "Eagle" as scouts when Eagle was a military distinction based on capturing enemies, I believe.

Unfortunately this unit is the result of my not being able to figure out(with XML) how to make an individual unit be able to capture "slaves". I can do it as a trait obviously as in Germany but not just one unit. The Eagle was originally supposed to replace the longswordsman, with the same stats but no iron dependency and a small chance to capture defeated opponents as slaves.

Cincinnatus C. said:
I do like the later-game replacements, though, particularly the Egyptian one. There really aren't uniques that late in the game, as is, and the latest one I've ever seriously seen used is the French Foreign Legion, so a unique mech infantry is neat. Tanks aren't good right now, and modern armor aren't worth it, so that's probably the way to go. It's also nice to see ancient Egypt tied to modern Egypt.

yeah it's dificult to do with alot of the Civ's since they never existed in this time frame and if I just go by location then it feels wrong most of the time.

Cincinnatus C. said:
Again, Japan is already very strong. The shrine is basically worth more than several social policies (e.g. the rationalism happy university one) because you will build a monument in every city, generally, and it's the first thing puppets build.

Yep already taken care of this one, I used the mechanic in place for Mughal forts to delay the happiness until the later game and upped the maintenance cost.

es4 · Oct 16, 2010

elistor said:
Nope, I know the brokenness that is promotions. Whenever possible I tried to avoid doing things with promotions.

There is an option to set LostWithUpgrade for a promotion; it's how upgraded Triremes are able to travel on the ocean.

elistor · Oct 16, 2010

es4 said:
There is an option to set LostWithUpgrade for a promotion; it's how upgraded Triremes are able to travel on the ocean.

Yep, and as i'm updating all the units because I forgot to add the code for sound(doh) I'm adding precisly that line to all the promotions I created, if I use a promotion that was already existing I'm going to leave it alone until there is an official patch fixing the issue with vanillia units before I fix mine otherwise it would give those tht don't have the unique and advantage over those that had one of my uniques. When there is a patch I'll go throguh and fix it, it would take less that 5min to search all the XML files for promotions and then paste that line in.

elistor · Oct 17, 2010

Beta3 update:
Corrected sound on most units
Various 'Pedia fixes
Working on a different unique unit for Babylon (the Royal Chariot)to replace the Corve'e, then I'm going to work on creating a unique worker for every Civ because I decided it would be best to give every Civ a Unique worker or none(since they never go obsolete). So now I'm working on that and plan on giving you the option of using the base worker or the Unique since they are such an integral part of the game.

elistor · Oct 18, 2010

Beta4 update:

This one will probably break all your saves, sorry folks. This should be the last update until someone points out something broken though.
Babylon now gets a Unique Chariot Archer instead of the Corve'e. The Corve'e will be returning but will be in a separate mod called "Unique Workers" once I finish it.
Aztec Eagle massive change, the Aztec having the only HiddenNation unit in the game was way to much, there unique scout now gets a permanent promotion that lowers the cost to Upgrade by 25% and gain XP 10% faster. This promotion intentionally stays with them when they upgrade. They now upgrade to archers without a goody hut as well.
More Various 'Pedia fixes
Shrine now gets +2 production with ARCHAEOLOGY because I couldn't figure out a way to delay happiness.

Cincinnatus C. · Oct 18, 2010

elistor said:
Aztec Eagle massive change, the Aztec having the only HiddenNation unit in the game was way to much, there unique scout now gets a permanent promotion that lowers the cost to Upgrade by 25% and gain XP 10% faster. This promotion intentionally stays with them when they upgrade. They now upgrade to archers without a goody hut as well.

How does this work, when you can only get XP in numbers less than 10? Is it a 10% reduction to promotion costs, or does it round up?

elistor · Oct 18, 2010

Cincinnatus C. said:
How does this work, when you can only get XP in numbers less than 10? Is it a 10% reduction to promotion costs, or does it round up?

I've been watching it and the unit gets more XP periodicly. I'm assuming the game keeps track of fractions and just dosn't display them. Unfortunatly I can't see the actual code just the XML so i can't verify.
When i first found the code

Code:

<ExperiencePercent>##</ExperiencePercent>

it was my hope that it was a reduction in XP needed to level but that didn't play out in game but i noticed the unit was getting more XP so I'm assuming it's a % XP boost.

elistor · Oct 25, 2010

Beta5 update:

Mongolia gets the Yurt. Yes this requires the new DLC Civilization.

elistor · Oct 28, 2010

Just an FYI, if you have a civilization mod and would like me to include it instead of sticking the third unique in your mod(thus possibly ending up with your civ being the only one in a game with a third unique) just let me know(you can either give me the entire XML file for the Unique or just give me a concept or leave it entirely to me I'm good with any of them.), this also goes for anyone who finds a civilization mod they really like just give me the CIVILIZATION_NAME or at least point me to the exact name of the mod and I'll try to include it.

ELChucko · Oct 28, 2010

Hey Elistor,

Just FYI, I'm a big fan of your mod (both in concept and practice (so far)).

Would you be willing to put some unit flag icons to use if i could make them up and send them to you? I'm just not a strong enough modder to implement them myself.

Heck! I don't even mean to make it sound like i'm anything more than a hack of an artist, either, but i've got a small amount of free time, and just enough interest to be able to put together a .DDS with 10 32x32 icons for your unique units.

Also, my ego is small and quite over itself, so if you've got someone working on this stuff already, shoot me down with no worry.

Keep up the good work,
Chucko

elistor · Oct 28, 2010

ELChucko said:
Hey Elistor,

Just FYI, I'm a big fan of your mod (both in concept and practice (so far)).

Would you be willing to put some unit flag icons to use if i could make them up and send them to you? I'm just not a strong enough modder to implement them myself.

Heck! I don't even mean to make it sound like i'm anything more than a hack of an artist, either, but i've got a small amount of free time, and just enough interest to be able to put together a .DDS with 10 32x32 icons for your unique units.

Also, my ego is small and quite over itself, so if you've got someone working on this stuff already, shoot me down with no worry.

Keep up the good work,
Chucko

Actually I'd love to do that, I'm pretty much incompetent when it comes to art so I'd be grateful for anything you want to do in that realm. And of course give credit for anything you add.

ELChucko · Oct 29, 2010

Hey again,

So i finished the 10 unit flags! They're in a .DDS file named Unit_Icons_Atlas_32.dds attached to this message.

If you need a good-enough reference for adding custom unit flags to units, i was sort of able to make sense of this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=390101

If you can't open up the file (most image viewers require a special plug-in to view a .dds), the 10 icons are arranged in 2 rows and 5 columns making the layout something along the lines of...

[

And those icons, starting at the Top-Left are for...

Songhai [0]
India [1]
Aztec [2]
China [3]
Iroquois [4]
Russia [5]
Persia [6]
Siam [7]
Egypt [8]
Babylon [9]

I hope most of that makes sense. Let me know if you'd like me to make any changes to any of the icons, or also let me know if you're having trouble using the DDS in any way.

Chucko

ELChucko · Oct 29, 2010

BTW, they're supposed to be white like they are in the JPG, and the green+black BKG is just for the preview JPG--in the DDS the green & black is replaced with transparency, and the game automatically replaces the white in the file with your CIV's colors.

Unique Balance

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