[Vote] (5-41) Shoshone UA Change Proposals

[Stalker0]

The only visible difference between the two is whether we're keeping the "can pick rewards from ruins" or not. Nobody's teaching the AI to pick.

The first proposal creates a new ruin that you have to explore with a unit. The second you just get the choice list as soon as you settle a city.

 

[Rekk]

The first proposal creates a new ruin that you have to explore with a unit. The second you just get the choice list as soon as you settle a city.

Not even that, because the first proposal instantly claims it after it spawns.

The only difference between the two proposals is that the second one keeps the "choose ruins" effect.

The first one adds a bunch of coding busywork in order to achieve the same result.

 

[pineappledan]

Ultimately there are many many civs in the game, so many that most people won't even play them all regularly. So having civs that generate specific mechanics is not innately "imperious".

"If you don't like a civ don't play it"

The problem is I DO like the Shoshone. I like the big border blob and the aggressive-defensive playstyle of forward settling civs, trying to coax them into a war on your (massive) land where you get omnipresent chip damage and large CS bonuses to bleed them out. What I don't like is that playstyle being held hostage by these thoroughly irritating, mediocre ruins bonuses, which these proposals propose to blow up into a larger part of the civ's power budget, and into something that is even more unavoidable and intrusive. Furthermore it now turns ruins into chronic gameplay herpes that I need to mod out in the game files every new version to be rid of.

 

[Stalker0]

"If you don't like a civ don't play it"

The problem is I DO like the Shoshone. I like the big border blob and the aggressive-defensive playstyle of forward settling civs, trying to coax them into a war on your (massive) land where you get omnipresent chip damage and large CS bonuses to bleed them out. What I don't like is that playstyle being held hostage by these thoroughly irritating, mediocre ruins bonuses, which these proposals propose to blow up into a larger part of the civ's power budget, and into something that is even more unavoidable and intrusive. Furthermore it now upgrades this wretched mechanic into chronic gameplay herpes that I need to mod out in the game files every new version to be rid of it.

You could make that argument about any civ change made (including many of the ones you have made and proposed).

And I'm not saying this change is good, I'm fine if people don't like it. I only object that this is some special case where people are overly burdened in some unique way they don't have to deal with anywhere else. It like every other civ change ever proposed is a matter of taste, if you think this shoshone will provide a better experience, vote yes. If you don't vote no.

 

[pineappledan]

You could make that argument about any civ change made (including many of the ones you have made and proposed).

Yes, well that ignores that these are the kinds of proposals that I simply wouldn't make.

• They make the historicity of the civ worse.
• They add a highly era-locked ability which is something I specifically try to avoid
  • On-Settle bonuses all-but disappear after the early settling phase.
  • This is being proposed after we just got done extending the life of Shoshone's UA by adding free tiles onto city conquests. We just made this better only to make it worse again.
• They fail to respond to longstanding criticism
  • both double-down on and reiterate a part of the game that many users self-report as preferring to just turn off.
  • Rather than being receptive to the idea that this mechanic is divisive and unpopular, and leaving it as a game option, both of these proposals run the opposite way and now make that mechanic unavoidable
• 1 of them adds random elements to the game (which its own proposer seems to want to remove everywhere else???)
• Meanwhile, the other adds more user time spent in stilted pop-up menus that break up the game flow
• They both feel like kludge.
  • Neither of these look like the kind of bonus that gets us anywhere nearer to a 'gold' version of Shoshone, they look like stopgaps that we will just have to remove later
  • If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right the first time. And this ain't it.

There has been talk about how we could try to improve the Shoshone's design, make them more unique and interactive. None of those conversation up to now have involved adding ruins on settle. These are left field proposals with no precedent and very little deliberation that look like they might pass because a more thoughtful UA design will take some time. The ruins bonus is much-maligned, and I am confident in saying that we will be back here in 1 or 2 congresses taking a bonus like this out after some real thought has been put into this problem. In the meantime, adding an ability like this is makework.

 

[samjooma]

• They fail to respond to longstanding criticism
  • both double-down on and reiterate a part of the game that many users self-report as preferring to just turn off.
  • Rather than being receptive to the idea that this mechanic is divisive and unpopular, and leaving it as a game option, both of these proposals run the opposite way and now make that mechanic unavoidable

I think the reason why people turn off ancient ruins is because ancient ruin rewards are imbalanced, and finding ancient ruins is too luck dependent. Those problems are not relevant to this proposal.
There is no randomness in getting ancient ruins when you found a city, and the reward imbalance will (hopefully) be fixed by proposal 5-18. The reward imbalance is also not as big of a problem for Shoshone who can choose rewards.

 

[N.Core]

The reward imbalance is also not as big of a problem for Shoshone who can choose rewards.

Sadly the AI cannot choose the rewards.