(6-08) Acquire City Quest - Replace XP with Free Units

[Barna1]

Current reward: free XP to all owned units+city state influence.

Proposed changes:
1. Remove XP reward entirely and replace it by 2+(era/2) free units at the capital (standard training XP, affected by quest bonus modifiers, rounded down).
2. After a successful conquest quest against another civilization, you cannot get another conquest quest against the same civilization for the rest of the game.

Rationale: This quest gives way too much free XP (often 30+ free XP to every single unit, especially if you have bonus modifiers like pledge or statecraft). In my games it usually starts a snowballing after which I'm unstoppable, because it quickly gives tier 4 promotions (like +1 range siege units and infantry with overrun/march/etc), which are very strong in human hands. The situation is even worse for ranged/siege units, because it completely overshadows traditional combat XP gain. Even a single conquest quest gives a ton of free XP, but the problem is made even worse by the fact that quite often you immediately get another quest to capture another nearby city of the civ you're fighting, giving even more free XP.

Complex Proposal: DLL + UI + Database Changes

 

[Barna1]

By the way, I'm very open to alternative suggestions for what the new reward should be (as long as it's not free XP), I chose this because it seemed to be popular in the Congress Workshop. Also, I will need someone else to sponsor this, so if something in this is not easy to implement I'm happy to change the proposal.

 

[ma_kuh]

I like that this doesn't scale by your entire army size, so it's a much more consistent reward value. Your point about how it's basically 2.5 times as strong on ranged is interesting, I never considered that.

I think 2. is maybe an unnecessary restriction, but I would probably vote for this even if it were in the proposal.

Some rhetorical questions for you to consider: How would this work with Heavy Tribute 50% quest completion, just half as many recruits, rounded down? Is XP also halved? Should military CS give you their UU (if tech allows)? Which unit types are granted, a squad of all the same unit, a mix, do they account for your available strategics?

 

[pineappledan]

The global XP is a massive clickfest, and it's one of the few things preventing us from making heavy tribute yields give 100% quest rewards, so I'm all in favor.

 

[adan_eslavo]

I got this one in my current game. It's was a huge boost for my army. Multiple units got new promotions right away.
Instead we could have a base XP count divided by the number of units.

 

[Stalker0]

so you are removing the xp entirely and you just get free units is that right? there is something about the wording that is confusing me

 

[Barna1]

Yes, that is the intention. I've reworded it slightly, hopefully it's less confusing now

 

[qwerty4429]

Sounds good. I feel that "free units" would use more elaboration:
- They have to prioritize special units from the CS if possible. Because it's cool.
- They give diverse units, because way too often I get random pikemen I don't really need, and would trade them all for a single xbow. This way you are guaranteed to get something meaningful from quest.

One-per-civ is very cool idea too. Since it is only once, there is a potential risk that you get a bad city choice, maybe that would need some work too.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

I was thinking the CS could give some CS only UU's, but there isn't a consistent pool of units to pick from throughout the Eras. It's even worse if you factor try and factor in 3/4 UC's.
Ancient: Companion Cavalry
Classical: Battering Ram, Ballista (3/4)
Medieval: Longbowman, Turtle Ship, Great Galleass (all 3/4)
Renaissance: Sipahi, Hakkapelitta (3/4)
Industrial: Ski Infantry
Modern: none
Atomic: Prachina
Information: none

 

[KlHannibal2]

Sounds good. I feel that "free units" would use more elaboration:
- They have to prioritize special units from the CS if possible. Because it's cool.
- They give diverse units, because way too often I get random pikemen I don't really need, and would trade them all for a single xbow. This way you are guaranteed to get something meaningful from quest.

One-per-civ is very cool idea too. Since it is only once, there is a potential risk that you get a bad city choice, maybe that would need some work too.

I think they should always UUs or CS only units. The quest should say what you get, so you can decide if it's worth it.

 

[Barna1]

I think the simplest way to do it is to use the same logic as for militaristic city state gifts (which, as far as I remember, gives random units based on some weights), allowing/prioritizing units unique to the CS if it's militaristic.

 

[Recursive]

Sponsored.

 

[Stalker0]

MAGI: Locked as this is being absorbed into the master voting thread.