[Complex] (7-NS) Alternative Carthage adjustments

[Tekamthi]

If it is decided that Polynesia’s just-off-coast settle strat is cool, then the bonus should be the fish bonus and no isolation, and maybe some AI to support that. If it is decided that Polynesia should settle coast cities like everyone else, then changing the bonus to a free lighthouse on coastal cities makes that explicit.

I'm under the impression that any AI underperformance with polynesia is most strongly attributable to their far-flung, disconnected island settlement locations when being played optimally -- these take some very careful planning and anticipation to defend effectively. Going 1-tile inland and still getting lighthouse-like bonuses is a nice option for defensibility. Better AI training would probably go a long way in this regard, as a 1-tile inland isolated island city is considerably more defensible than an isolated coastal city, and its probably polynesia's greater-than-typical tendency to lose cities it founds that drive any poor results seen in testing.

 

[Anarcomu]

The Marae approach is interesting ; however the template for every civs is one UU, one UI/UB ; even 3/4UC adds one UU + one UI/UB to each civ.
The Moai is too emblematic to the Polynesian to remove it (plus it is part of the reason the Marae would be rework to a lighthouse).
Would it be possible that as part of their UA, all sea-related buildings could be build inland ? Dunno if it would be feasible/desirable, just throwing an idea here...

 

[Rekk]

I wasn't going to throw this in the mix since it's a long way off, but I was imagining that we could eventually replace Polynesia's Lighthouse with the 3/4UC Marae (upgrading it from a council replacement), if that unification gains traction. That way you get both the sensible free-lighthouses for far flung settlements, and the nod that they didn't use lighthouses to maintain these connections between settlements.

For that reason I continue to prefer giving lighthouses to Polynesia, although both civs have their merits.

At the risk of further dealing the thread ... their 4UC component would be a building that they get immediately for free?

 

[ma_kuh]

their 4UC component would be a building that they get immediately for free?

Yes, that was what I was thinking. I think you're saying that's sort of lame that you don't get the fun of actually building your UC, which is a fair concern I hadn't considered.

Would it be possible that as part of their UA, all sea-related buildings could be build inland

That's basically Denmark's Runestones without the unique yields, but more qualifying buildings? Maybe too much cross-over.

 

[Legen]

I'm considering splitting this counterproposal into two: one with only changes to Carthage and one with only changes to Polynesia. The changes to one civ don't depend on the changes on the other civ here, and there are other counterproposals that only touch one of them.

@Recursive @Stalker0 @axatin @Hinin I want to confirm if it is ok to do so. Reviewing the Congress rules, they only say that my proposals can't conflict with others that I've already proposed, not that I can't have multiple counterproposals to the same proposal.

 

[Thibix Magnus]

coming late to the discussion, isn't the main issue of polynesia being completely hit or miss in terms of map generation? An "atlantic" coast start with land luxes maxes them almost a generic civ, besides getting to know everyone early. Then how viable would it be to work on a "island" start bias, or even force the generation of a polynesian island even on pangea maps?

 

[Tekamthi]

Then how viable would it be to work on a "island" start bias, or even force the generation of a polynesian island even on pangea maps?

It's somewhat viable to just spread out to really distant islands. Defense becomes a nightmare if any strong opponent presses a full attack, but otherwise can just plop cities anywhere regardless of start. It can even be viable to late found capital with poly and use ruin yields to make up for late start, in order to find the perfect start location. On Pangea Polynesia is screwed but I don't think we should be designing poly kit around Pangaea play. Maybe could just let moai work around lakes too

 

[Thibix Magnus]

It's somewhat viable to just spread out to really distant islands. Defense becomes a nightmare if any strong opponent presses a full attack, but otherwise can just plop cities anywhere regardless of start. It can even be viable to late found capital with poly and use ruin yields to make up for late start, in order to find the perfect start location. On Pangea Polynesia is screwed but I don't think we should be designing poly kit around Pangaea play. Maybe could just let moai work around lakes too

yes I've had success with the "generalized hail mary" on immortal, just sail away to get an island within hopefully 15 turns, but on deity it's probably not viable, if anything because the abandonned land can lead to a runaway civ. However you could at least get bonus yields when founding your first city scaling with founding turn. It probably makes the UA too long though.

On the map issue, a standard continent map will often produce the same situation as pangea: straight oceanic coastline, land luxes that break moai lines, and no island before the other continent. Polynesia is probably the most start-dependent civ, hence why I try to think beyond raw buffs, those will slightly move the average performance but not reduce the variance in performance.

 

[Tekamthi]

I guess this becomes a question of map scripts on some level -- if we had more islands on more maps, our island player would do better. Where we don't have many on some types and sizes, they struggle. Deity tends to be very start-dependant across the board when I play it, like it's not just with poly that I'm hoping the stars align, but I'm generally on immortal these days

I wonder if they did the AI sim on archipelago only would poly win rate skyrocket?

Poly is viable to play as human on the right map. Some starts are difficult, like poly should probably never start at the poles, but otherwise they aren't so bad. AI just doesn't understand how to optimize them. It's an AI problem more than a poly problem

 

[Recursive]

I'm considering splitting this counterproposal into two: one with only changes to Carthage and one with only changes to Polynesia. The changes to one civ don't depend on the changes on the other civ here, and there are other counterproposals that only touch one of them.

@Recursive @Stalker0 @axatin @Hinin I want to confirm if it is ok to do so. Reviewing the Congress rules, they only say that my proposals can't conflict with others that I've already proposed, not that I can't have multiple counterproposals to the same proposal.

That's okay.

 

[Legen]

Amendment 2:

• Polynesia changes removed from this counterproposal, and are now part of counterproposal (7-30e) Polynesia adjustments. Title adjusted accordingly.

 

[pineappledan]

Trade Route Resource Diversity modifier doubled" replaced by "+200% Gold from City Connections".

I was just thinking about this this morning and I think it would be really great to have a civ that emphasizes the coty connection mechanic more. I don’t know if Carthage is the best candidate though. It seems more like an Ottoman or Persian bonus to me. The Carthaginian empire was too loose of a confederation to really have city connections in the way they are presented in civ; and they had vigorous trade/diplomatic relations with non-Carthaginian, non-Semitic peoples

Like we could reduce the TR completion bonus and then add this connections bonus, and maybe a little reduction of the siege foundry’s base yields to boot.

 

[Rekk]

UB (Great Cothon)
Available at Currency
Replaces East India Company
Cost: 140
Gold: +4

Receive an additional copy of all Luxury Resources around the City.
Incoming Trade Routes generate +5 Gold for the City, and +3 Gold for the Trade Route owner.
+25% Resource Diversity Modifier for Trade Routes from this City
All Harbors gain +3 Production, and all Lighthouses gain +2 Culture.
Gain 2 Additional Trade Routes.

The resource diversity modifier is an effect of the current Great Cothon?

 

[pineappledan]

Yup. It's still there.

I thought @azum4roll removed it in the great merge, because I couldn't find it anymore, but a lot of things were moved around.
It's an undocumented bonus that has been on the building, but hidden since forever.
I don't know if the building version of this bonus works like how the UA version of it was changed, or if it still works like the vanilla version.

I'm going to edit my own proposal to also remove this. It's more like a bugfix, but may as well.

 

[Rekk]

Yup. It's still there.
View attachment 689130
I thought @azum4roll removed it in the great merge, because I couldn't find it anymore, but a lot of things were moved around.
It's an undocumented bonus that has been on the building, but hidden since forever.
I don't know if the building version of this bonus works like how the UA version of it was changed, or if it still works like the vanilla version.

I'm going to edit my own proposal to also remove this. It's more like a bugfix, but may as well.

It's part of East India Company:

Receive an additional copy of all Luxury Resources around this City. Incoming Trade Routes generate +4 Gold for the City, and +2 Gold for Trade Route owner. Resource Diversity Modifier for Trade Routes from this City increases by 25%. -1 Unhappiness from Poverty in all Cities.

The Production Cost and Population Requirements increase based on the number of Cities you own.

 

[pineappledan]

And undocumented on both.

But you're right, I would need to remove it from the base building too. That would require a new proposal, and that time has passed.

 

[Rekk]

It's documented on East India Company, and Great Cothon refers to EIC for EIC's bonuses.

 

[pineappledan]

Ah, you are right. Instead of removing this invisible bonus, Azum changed the text to mention it in both cases.

 

[azum4roll]

It's needed on the EIC. In case you can't find a useful luxury to duplicate, you'd want to build it in your capital (usually the most resources) so you can maximize the TR gold.

Meanwhile you need to build the EIC in a small city if you want to duplicate a luxury for a monopoly, and will miss this resource diversity bonus.

You get to benefit from one of the two, but usually not both.

 

[Legen]

Amendment 3:

• Removed change to Great Cothon's City Connections modifier, as the building it replaces, East India Company, also has this effect; the removal was due to older versions of the latter not stating this effect, which made me think that the modifier on the Great Cothon was an addition to it.